object lessons

[totient]

Two things learned at Lunacon:

If doing something well requires so much staff that there is no one left to appreciate it, it is better to do it poorly.

This is actually something I knew already from putting on TSD rallies, but had not applied to convention running. It is probably especially true of the Masquerade, because the pool you are drawing down is entrants rather than audience members, and there are a lot fewer of those. Lunacon got this one right, though they might not have seen it that way.

Changing hotels doesn't make the convention fresh.

Going to a hotel that you haven't been to before makes a convention fresh. Returning to a previously used hotel after a long absence is worse than staying put; you tend towards the patterns that worked then, losing improvements and adaptations you have made along the way. Lunacon got this one right, too, by dint of the unfinished construction taking away the familiar aspect of the hotel. Though the price paid for it was rather steep.

Comments

[wren13.livejournal.com]

I thought it was incredibly successful given the hotel handicaps. The masquerade was excellent (tech rules), the art show was its usual wonderful self, and whoever hung all the Hotel D'isaster signs has a great sense of humor. Of course the hotel could have been better (lots better, even), but a good time was had by everyone I talked to, and I did work for several hours this weekend.