Bash-ed and con-ned
Mar. 26th, 2019 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogOur worlds have been becoming bigger and less personal at the same time, both factors growing exponentially. The Interwebs make it possible to communicate with, and even become great friends with, people all over the world, but there are increasingly fewer opportunities to interact with them in what we used to call IRL.
I was an early adopter of such forms, from even long before the dial-up connections of the 90s that kids these days and superhero movies love to make fun of. Cornell was one of the earliest connectors to ARPANET, even though we had no idea at the time that it even existed- but it also hosted roomsful of "virtual machines" tied to its airport-sized mainframe which could be used to communicate with each other in rudimentary ways. One of the labs also hosted a terminal for PLATO. One of my music professors (okay, my only music professor, once my lack of skills became apparent) signed us up for a program on it to learn ear-training. That didn't go well for me, but I did learn how to play computer games on it in between signed-up sessions, back when the only other gaming alternatives were arcade machines and perhaps Pong on a black-and-white television.
By law school, PCs had become common, but nothing resembling a "network" in a modern sense existed until well into the 90s. "Sneakernetting" was as close as we got- which meant saving a document on a floppy on one machine and carrying it down the hall to be edited or printed on another. But by the mid-90s timeframe used, and lovingly spoofed, in Marvel's latest and eponymous blockbuster, the basics were in place, if slow as molasses. There were newsgroups, chat rooms, bulletin boards, and, by the late 90s in my life, AOL became the "walled garden" incorporating and even policing all of them. I was even one of the "TOS Cops" toward the end of AOL's prominent days, given tools to "gag" difficult users and report their violations.
Through that, I "met" people all over the country, and even some as far away as Australia. I also discovered the common need for these "meets" to become real- so at least four or five times, I traveled. At least twice to Boston, once to Philly (the only one Eleanor ever joined me for), and I think the last in Myrtle Beach- all gatherings known as "bashes." They were scheduled in the "be here these days and at this hotel" sense, but there was relatively little scheduling of things during them- other than lots of hanging out in hotel ballrooms (or sometimes just a couple of interconnected rooms), inevitably featuring a PC or two (laptops came later) wired by modem to a local phone line, and, unfortunately, a LOT of cigarette smoke. The biggest annual one, which I never went to, was in or near DC. Several of the higher-up "Community Leader" types lived there or in adjacent states, there were plenty of nerdy sightseeing opportunities, and lots of "what happens at the DC Bash stays at the DC Bash" stuff -which I can't report on because (a) I wasn't and (b) it did.
Gradually, the AOL garden walls came tumbling down. Somewhere in the oughts, mainly in response to a class action lawsuit, AOL summarily shut down its "TOS Cop" program and stopped any form of compensation for volunteering. (I eventually picked up a modest check for several years of past service.) The chat rooms became much Wild Westier, and many of the former CLs refused to do "for free" what they'd previously received some form of compensation for. AOL itself got buffeted through cyberspace- ripped from its Time Warner merger partner, ultimately thrown into a Verizon cut-out bin with the remnants of Yahoo, and onetime members only able to access the old chat rooms through purchasing "AOL Gold" or another paid service. (You may laugh at people paying anything for something so ancient. Don't. At last count, millions were still paying AOL monthly charges for dialup access when they've had broadband access for free for years.)
But some of the old "triviots" remained fiercely loyal- and quite a few still do. They continue to pay for the Gold access, they use "trivhost" tools for writing and scoring trivia games that are the current gaming equivalent of Pong, and they even occasionally try to gin up a Bash-style meetup now and then. None are ever planned or promoted in the same way as in the old days, though, and that's largely a consequence of how the Last of the DC Bashes went down a few years back.
There was nostalgia, and there were hopes. Even though most people had moved on to other forms of social media, I started seeing Facebook posts about it. These were followed by a rash of cancellations, and finally some really shitty news: one of the longtime AOL members who lived near the area had personally committed to kicking in a good sum of money to the "host hotel," and was stuck with a massive bill for all the no-showing that eventually resulted. (I never planned to show, so I wasn't one of the no-shows, but I remember seeing a lot of anger and angst about it- enough that there will likely never be such an effort again.) Hotel conferences are a major racket for the hotels' bottom lines: their prices are steep, their rules often strict (understandable if you don't want an entire building crawling with Furries or sword-waving cosplayers), and their cancellation policies are far less forgiving than if you try to cancel a routine one-night hotel room.
So I don't expect to see another capital-B Bash bigger than perhaps a twelve-top in a restaurant someplace. Yet it still surprised me that the same phenomenon seems to be affecting a beloved fan-run sci-fi convention.
----
These programs have been referred to, totally without irony, as "cons." They came about largely to fill the void left when the original Star Trek went off the air and "fanfic" kept the characters alive until 1979 when the first Trek film debuted. They were already a trope when Shatner showed up on SNL to spoof them with his famed "Get a Life" line. I was out of my parents' basement by then, but I still went to a few over the years. One, with a couple of future bloggers (hi, Mel!) in a long-demolished rabbit warren of a hotel across from the Buffalo Airport. A few mainly Trek-based ones at a venue near a friend's house outside Baltimore. Those increasingly were featuring performers and writers from the Doctor Whoniverse, and beginning four years ago, some fans began running a more exclusive-to-Who con not far from it which they called ReGeneration. Two years ago this very week, I went to the third of them, in a quite schmancy downtown Bawlmer convention hotel. One former Doctor was in attendance, along with a few other actors who'd been on the show and quite a few writers from the various canonical lines. There'd been some actor cancellations, but it didn't stop everybody from having a perfectly lovely time. I missed the one last year this time, which seemed to score an even bigger Doctor Coup- Peter Capaldi would be making his first public appearance since handing off the Sonic to his successor, and a friend/ co-organizer of ReGen got to interview him on stage for the first time post-TARDIS. It looked like things were going swimmingly for this valiant effort- until it didn't.
There were signs on the psychic paper. The event was moved closer to DC. Seven was again Scheduled to Appear, as was a recent Companion, but there didn't seem to be as much pre-con buzz going on its page, or of those friends of mine who'd either organized or attended in the past. Then, this past Sunday, five days before the first check-ins, I started seeing the news:
This news didn't migrate to the event's Facebook page until some time yesterday- and it immediately started (re)generating inquiries and complaints about those potentially left in the lurch. Fortunately, it was in time for most attendees to cancel their reservations at the venue hotel, but any flying in were likely to be out of luck for anything resembling a reasonably-priced ticket- and there has yet to be any word on refunding the registration fees for the event itself.
Not unique to this one, sci-fi cons tend to lock you in early: in the case of the other Maryland one I attended twice, you had to commit weeks before the event, and if you missed the "early registration" deadline, you not only paid more, you could not guarantee a spot until you showed up at the door on the first day. The performer-centric events: Q&A's, autographs and photos- often required extra payment and earlier signups for the whole shebang if you wanted even a chance at gazing upon the Star Star Star. (Shatner's contract rider from the one year HE appeared at Shore Leave when I was there, printed in the program, was legendary; I not only didn't attend it, I didn't catch a sight of him the entire weekend).
In the modern social media world, it doesn't take much for the best intentions of the planners to get panned, and for their good deeds to be promptly punished with vitriol. You can thank far more mercenary events like Fyre Festival for that. Lawyers will be called, things will be threatened, and fans will be left with fewer options. I have no doubt that this kerfuffle is indeed due to late cancels by some of the headliners; studios do call, and rearrange shooting schedules and whatnot. But I've not heard of this kind of thing happening with San Diego ComiCon panelists, or others on the for-profit Big League Con Circuit. Those exist as much, if not more, for the studios and the showrunners as they do for the fans; Marvel and Auntie are going to be damn sure that their talent shows up when every major fan site is quivering with anticipation for what Brie or Jodie or Next Year's Model has to say.
It sucks. Unfortunately, this time around, time, money and reputations are included in the suckage.
I was an early adopter of such forms, from even long before the dial-up connections of the 90s that kids these days and superhero movies love to make fun of. Cornell was one of the earliest connectors to ARPANET, even though we had no idea at the time that it even existed- but it also hosted roomsful of "virtual machines" tied to its airport-sized mainframe which could be used to communicate with each other in rudimentary ways. One of the labs also hosted a terminal for PLATO. One of my music professors (okay, my only music professor, once my lack of skills became apparent) signed us up for a program on it to learn ear-training. That didn't go well for me, but I did learn how to play computer games on it in between signed-up sessions, back when the only other gaming alternatives were arcade machines and perhaps Pong on a black-and-white television.
By law school, PCs had become common, but nothing resembling a "network" in a modern sense existed until well into the 90s. "Sneakernetting" was as close as we got- which meant saving a document on a floppy on one machine and carrying it down the hall to be edited or printed on another. But by the mid-90s timeframe used, and lovingly spoofed, in Marvel's latest and eponymous blockbuster, the basics were in place, if slow as molasses. There were newsgroups, chat rooms, bulletin boards, and, by the late 90s in my life, AOL became the "walled garden" incorporating and even policing all of them. I was even one of the "TOS Cops" toward the end of AOL's prominent days, given tools to "gag" difficult users and report their violations.
Through that, I "met" people all over the country, and even some as far away as Australia. I also discovered the common need for these "meets" to become real- so at least four or five times, I traveled. At least twice to Boston, once to Philly (the only one Eleanor ever joined me for), and I think the last in Myrtle Beach- all gatherings known as "bashes." They were scheduled in the "be here these days and at this hotel" sense, but there was relatively little scheduling of things during them- other than lots of hanging out in hotel ballrooms (or sometimes just a couple of interconnected rooms), inevitably featuring a PC or two (laptops came later) wired by modem to a local phone line, and, unfortunately, a LOT of cigarette smoke. The biggest annual one, which I never went to, was in or near DC. Several of the higher-up "Community Leader" types lived there or in adjacent states, there were plenty of nerdy sightseeing opportunities, and lots of "what happens at the DC Bash stays at the DC Bash" stuff -which I can't report on because (a) I wasn't and (b) it did.
Gradually, the AOL garden walls came tumbling down. Somewhere in the oughts, mainly in response to a class action lawsuit, AOL summarily shut down its "TOS Cop" program and stopped any form of compensation for volunteering. (I eventually picked up a modest check for several years of past service.) The chat rooms became much Wild Westier, and many of the former CLs refused to do "for free" what they'd previously received some form of compensation for. AOL itself got buffeted through cyberspace- ripped from its Time Warner merger partner, ultimately thrown into a Verizon cut-out bin with the remnants of Yahoo, and onetime members only able to access the old chat rooms through purchasing "AOL Gold" or another paid service. (You may laugh at people paying anything for something so ancient. Don't. At last count, millions were still paying AOL monthly charges for dialup access when they've had broadband access for free for years.)
But some of the old "triviots" remained fiercely loyal- and quite a few still do. They continue to pay for the Gold access, they use "trivhost" tools for writing and scoring trivia games that are the current gaming equivalent of Pong, and they even occasionally try to gin up a Bash-style meetup now and then. None are ever planned or promoted in the same way as in the old days, though, and that's largely a consequence of how the Last of the DC Bashes went down a few years back.
There was nostalgia, and there were hopes. Even though most people had moved on to other forms of social media, I started seeing Facebook posts about it. These were followed by a rash of cancellations, and finally some really shitty news: one of the longtime AOL members who lived near the area had personally committed to kicking in a good sum of money to the "host hotel," and was stuck with a massive bill for all the no-showing that eventually resulted. (I never planned to show, so I wasn't one of the no-shows, but I remember seeing a lot of anger and angst about it- enough that there will likely never be such an effort again.) Hotel conferences are a major racket for the hotels' bottom lines: their prices are steep, their rules often strict (understandable if you don't want an entire building crawling with Furries or sword-waving cosplayers), and their cancellation policies are far less forgiving than if you try to cancel a routine one-night hotel room.
So I don't expect to see another capital-B Bash bigger than perhaps a twelve-top in a restaurant someplace. Yet it still surprised me that the same phenomenon seems to be affecting a beloved fan-run sci-fi convention.
----
These programs have been referred to, totally without irony, as "cons." They came about largely to fill the void left when the original Star Trek went off the air and "fanfic" kept the characters alive until 1979 when the first Trek film debuted. They were already a trope when Shatner showed up on SNL to spoof them with his famed "Get a Life" line. I was out of my parents' basement by then, but I still went to a few over the years. One, with a couple of future bloggers (hi, Mel!) in a long-demolished rabbit warren of a hotel across from the Buffalo Airport. A few mainly Trek-based ones at a venue near a friend's house outside Baltimore. Those increasingly were featuring performers and writers from the Doctor Whoniverse, and beginning four years ago, some fans began running a more exclusive-to-Who con not far from it which they called ReGeneration. Two years ago this very week, I went to the third of them, in a quite schmancy downtown Bawlmer convention hotel. One former Doctor was in attendance, along with a few other actors who'd been on the show and quite a few writers from the various canonical lines. There'd been some actor cancellations, but it didn't stop everybody from having a perfectly lovely time. I missed the one last year this time, which seemed to score an even bigger Doctor Coup- Peter Capaldi would be making his first public appearance since handing off the Sonic to his successor, and a friend/ co-organizer of ReGen got to interview him on stage for the first time post-TARDIS. It looked like things were going swimmingly for this valiant effort- until it didn't.
There were signs on the psychic paper. The event was moved closer to DC. Seven was again Scheduled to Appear, as was a recent Companion, but there didn't seem to be as much pre-con buzz going on its page, or of those friends of mine who'd either organized or attended in the past. Then, this past Sunday, five days before the first check-ins, I started seeing the news:
This news didn't migrate to the event's Facebook page until some time yesterday- and it immediately started (re)generating inquiries and complaints about those potentially left in the lurch. Fortunately, it was in time for most attendees to cancel their reservations at the venue hotel, but any flying in were likely to be out of luck for anything resembling a reasonably-priced ticket- and there has yet to be any word on refunding the registration fees for the event itself.
Not unique to this one, sci-fi cons tend to lock you in early: in the case of the other Maryland one I attended twice, you had to commit weeks before the event, and if you missed the "early registration" deadline, you not only paid more, you could not guarantee a spot until you showed up at the door on the first day. The performer-centric events: Q&A's, autographs and photos- often required extra payment and earlier signups for the whole shebang if you wanted even a chance at gazing upon the Star Star Star. (Shatner's contract rider from the one year HE appeared at Shore Leave when I was there, printed in the program, was legendary; I not only didn't attend it, I didn't catch a sight of him the entire weekend).
In the modern social media world, it doesn't take much for the best intentions of the planners to get panned, and for their good deeds to be promptly punished with vitriol. You can thank far more mercenary events like Fyre Festival for that. Lawyers will be called, things will be threatened, and fans will be left with fewer options. I have no doubt that this kerfuffle is indeed due to late cancels by some of the headliners; studios do call, and rearrange shooting schedules and whatnot. But I've not heard of this kind of thing happening with San Diego ComiCon panelists, or others on the for-profit Big League Con Circuit. Those exist as much, if not more, for the studios and the showrunners as they do for the fans; Marvel and Auntie are going to be damn sure that their talent shows up when every major fan site is quivering with anticipation for what Brie or Jodie or Next Year's Model has to say.
It sucks. Unfortunately, this time around, time, money and reputations are included in the suckage.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-26 07:24 pm (UTC)At San Diego Comic-Con, sometimes people cancel or are unable to come, but it's so huge that such cancellations are minor to the event and aren't generally remarked upon. One actor wasn't at the Marvel panel? Whatever, the others were. But, yes, I assume they're largely obliged to attend as part of their employment by the giant studios doing the promotion. Fan cons are a different (and better) animal, fans getting together for the love of the topic at hand rather than to consume exclusive (briefly) promotional material.
I trust that Gally will go on, no matter what happens to the other Who cons; they've resisted any calls to expand beyond their ability to manage themselves, and they've earned great loyalty from both fans and many of the old-Who guests. Personally, I don't even attend for the headline guests anymore; there's so much else going on that you could have a full schedule at the convention without seeing any of them. I nearly did, this year. Although, needless to say, I'd revise that opinion if Capaldi decided to attend, or if Alex Kingston made it :).
no subject
Date: 2019-03-28 02:45 pm (UTC)Although a card-carrying nerd (or used to be), I've only been to 1 con, which was local. Enjoyed it, but I'm not social enough, nor enough of a "fan" to enjoy conventions. That is, (a) don't really like talking to people, even my fellow nerds, and (b) am not going to pay money just to gaze upon - or be in same room/convention hall - with someone unless they have something really interesting to say. (Said convention that I did attend had panel discussions with Larry Niven and Neil Gaimon, both really worth it.)