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well, that went well
A while ago I posted speculating that as conventions get larger it becomes harder to run them as three-day events and easier to run them as four-day events. But I was talking about conventions twice the size of Arisia, and so it took my by surprise how much easier this Arisia was to run than last year's three-day event.
We had 200 more badges picked up than last year, and yet traffic was easier and everyone was noticeably calmer. Everyone seemed to be having a genuinely good time. Some of it was having a chance to work out how to use the hotel well, and some of it was not getting as far behind on the schedule during the leadup. But I was expecting logistics to fall down hard because of the extra day and instead it worked *better*. Maybe people were getting some actual sleep instead of pushing themselves during the con trying to squeeze everything in.
We had 200 more badges picked up than last year, and yet traffic was easier and everyone was noticeably calmer. Everyone seemed to be having a genuinely good time. Some of it was having a chance to work out how to use the hotel well, and some of it was not getting as far behind on the schedule during the leadup. But I was expecting logistics to fall down hard because of the extra day and instead it worked *better*. Maybe people were getting some actual sleep instead of pushing themselves during the con trying to squeeze everything in.
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Emphatically agreed. There wasn't the desperate push to "get all of your fun in" on Saturday, along with the tragic "morning after" feeling on Sunday. More to the point, people had two full 24-hour days in con-space, which means that the transitions were less abrupt.
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Suggestion: Any way that you could negotiate a later Monday checkout time for the entire room block with the hotel? A whole lot of folks seemed to leave more because they had to get their stuff out of the hotel than because they actually wanted to go. Perhaps a 1pm checkout would ease the pressure and allow more people to attend Monday events before heading home?
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Yes, Central Square is reasonably close and a lot of folks who know the area don't mind the trip. But a lot of fen don't like to walk perceived long distances especially when they aren't familiar with the area, even though they've spent all day walking around the convention. There's also plenty of folks who want to not have to leave because of the cold or the inconvenience of taking about 2 hours to go out for meals.
Perhaps similar to the "I climbed Mt Arisia" events, someone should have a couple "Walk to Lunch/Dinner" events. If it were someone with some experience of the area, it could become sort of a historical or docent style tour of some of the sights along the way. That would take the discomfort out of venturing out into unfamiliar territory. You walk to the destination area, talking about sights along the way, and when you arrive, you take a quick orientation stroll down the main street so you know what your options are, then everyone splits up and is expected to arrive back at a specified time. This tactic works really well for tour groups in foreign cities.
Perhaps another option would be seeing if a catering company would be interested in setting up a "restaurant" in one of the program rooms with boxed lunches offered or a couple dinner options. You could even have a panel going on as part of the meal event. People would probably have to pre-register and pre-pay for an event like this so the caterers could get a rough attendance count before the event. Still, it could be a real money-maker for the right caterer
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