On improvements and feedback so far:
[This is Tru talking (it’s not always obvious on the blog theme, even if it is on dashboards). I’m sure Aph will have her own additions to make, and we’ve looked through the results together, but I was partly doing the AO3-related stuff and the PR/recruiting people side, so some of this I can answer. The form’s still open and feel free to give feedback if you haven’t already, but here I’ll try and address some of the trends I’ve seen in answers.]
Did everyone get a fic remixed?
Yes! We made sure that would be the case.
Some people have brought up that they would like to have seen remix distribution, so that they could know who needed covering more. While we weren’t too worried about coverage emergencies - the pinch hit system seemed like it would work pretty well - I understand the urge to give gifts and make sure it doesn’t come to pinch hitting. If the fest happens again, we’ll see if we can work out some way to make “remixed/not remixed/double-remixed etc.” visible without things feeling too much like a popularity contest, which was the worry.
AO3 collection
A few people brought up wanting a collection on AO3. That was definitely not just you, and if we do this again, absolutely happening. It makes rereads and general masterlists so much easier, and I too prefer the format. Also, the collection system is good for doing reveals, which was part of our reason for the staggered posting this time round (Aph’s brilliant idea - thank her; she also worked out all the scheduling while I took some of the messages and tried to make things pretty).
I’d meant for it to happen this time, but due to a muckup on my part - first time having to deal with AO3′s collection system, first time modding a fest - I realised that by the time I made a collection, everyone would have to manually add their fics to it themselves, or so it seemed at the time, and that seemed an additional hassle to ask of participants. I now have doubts about that and think it was me being terrible with AO3, so if there’s a next time, that’s getting sorted, because I now know how to do this properly. Phew. *wipes brow and shakes head at own idiocy*
AO3 in general
There have been some good points raised about running the Fest over at the Archive (and I admit, most remix fests I’ve seen have been over there with a mirror/backup at Tumblr). Definitely worth considering, thank you.
Size
If this felt small, it’s because... well, it was. Neither Aph nor I can be called BNFs, particularly, so we relied on word-of-mouth and mutuals, who’d spread it to their mutuals, etc. (That was another reason the fest was on Tumblr - we knew the most people here.) Hopefully if we do this again we can do a bigger promotional effort. We were genuinely uncertain if anyone would be interested, and we’ve been so pleased at how many people signed up. I was also hoping this would get people talking to each other and maybe let people find new fic and new fandom friends, and I hope that happened to at least some degree; that aspect could come out more in a bigger fest, yes.
Thank you for answering questions and helping us mod!