more data

[totient]

Arisia registration figures are pointing to a con of around 2900 or perhaps 3000 people. This is squarely in the middle of a strange no-man's land: there's very little data about how conventions of this size work. Boskone went directly from a 2700 person con in the Park Plaza in 1984 -- something the dynamics of which Arisia understands intimately -- to the largest SF convention in the world, and already too big for its new and bigger hotel, in a single year (1985). Minicon likewise skipped over 3000 as an attendance figure, and found (as Boskone did) that a 3300 person con is very different to run from a 2000-2500 person one.

I'm sure everyone will fit in our enormous new hotel, but I'm really quite curious to find out which things will be the same and which will be different at that number, because almost no one has done it before.

And I'm glad that we still have a membership cap, even if it's higher than it was before.

Comments

[londo.livejournal.com]

attendance numbers are not 100% linked to staff numbers as far as judging the smoothness of an operation.

I concur, which is why I split the hair I did above.

And, yeah, this con could have a much smaller staff ratio, but... I think Arisians tend to do a lot more work than is really necessary in most departments, and that by and large we do it 'cause we like doing it. If the various professionals who make Arisia happen billed out at their usual hourly rates (i.e, the money we could be making if we didn't spend all our time on this) it'd be well over a million dollars.

We overwork ourselves because we like it.

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

I think Arisians tend to do a lot more work than is really necessary in most departments

Srsly

[palmwiz.livejournal.com]

Yes, this.

It's not that getting bigger requires more complexity and thus more staff and budget. It's that it *enables* more complexity, through additional staff and budget. And we are organizationally incapable of resisting.

:p

[londo.livejournal.com]

In my mind, if anyone has helped prove that Arisia can become more complex, it's the guy who led the charge for 4-day.

[palmwiz.livejournal.com]

it'd be well over a million dollars.

I worked out how many hours it was a while ago (when the con was somewhat smaller than it is now) and came up with 10,000 hours (that was one person at 2000, a dozen at 250, fifty at 50, and two hundred at 12). These days being con chair takes only 1000 hours, but Programming now takes 2000 (usually split between two people) and Ben Levy puts in 2000 on whatever jobs he takes as well. The core group is a little bigger and maybe works a little harder. The next tiers are quite a bit bigger, probably by 50%. And we've got enough 4-8 hour volunteers now that it makes a difference to count them correctly. We're probably up over 15,000 hours, maybe 20,000. Certainly plenty of folks on staff bill at $65 (let alone $50) an hour, but I have a hard time believing the average is anywhere near that.

[londo.livejournal.com]

I feel like I've put in well over 250 for several years running (last year I put in over a hundred onsite) and that there are significantly more than a dozen people who also do that.

On the other hand, maybe I'm just crazy and/or have terrible productivity.

[palmwiz.livejournal.com]

100 hours onsite definitely makes you an outlier.

[londo.livejournal.com]

Hm.

I guess I need to get better at delegating.