Hal-Con: Day 2
So by now I'm sure anyone following Hal-Con has heard the news, or at least some of it. I might as well give as much of the story as I was able to learn, though much of it is third-hand knowledge.
Basically, Saturday is the busiest day of the con. And every year, more people attend. Saturday has most of the big name Q&A panels and the costume contest as well. So lots of people just get a day pass and go on Saturday,
The problem was that, when Hal-Con sold their day passes online, they did not have separate passes for each day; you bought a day pass online and could redeem it any day of the con. The logic behind this was, I had heard, that someone on the staff assumed that these online day passes would be used roughly over the three days. Instead, they were mostly used today.
Now, since they "technically" weren't overbooked, they were selling passes in the morning as well. So by 12 you had a big line up of people with prepaid passes waiting to redeem them, and people who just paid for their passes, both waiting for their bracelets. So that was one of the problems, and the major one.
The SECOND problem was the second floor, if you will excuse the pun. The convention is divided on 3 floors (although there was a Magic tournament on the 8th? Whaaat?) The first floor is free to the public, and has a ton of dealers and some artists and crafty people selling their wares. The get to the 2nd or 3rd floors you need a pass. The third floor had all of the tabletop games as well as the video games and pinball machines (which are free-play and an awesome way to kill a half hour between panels, and some of these machines are really old so it's fun to play a machine that should be in a museum; I respect 'em like classic cars). The second floor has the main stage, the artist's alley, 5 or so smaller panel / workshop rooms, The autographs / pictures booths, and a big area devoted to physical things like the medieval armour & weapons demonstrations / exercises in the morning / LARPing / laser tag.
Thirdly, there was the costume contest. Again, from what I understand, it happened a bit earlier this year than last; one artist said it had been around 2 in the afternoon last year and this year it was scheduled to begin at 12:15. The line for the costume contest is always massive; people wait for hours, some come just for that. And the people IN costumes wait in a line too, so the hallway winds up being packed. It makes it difficult to get to the artist's alley, the small panels... basically anywhere but standing in line.
So basically, you have the costume contest going on, with tons of people lines up to view it, and huge costumes, the 2nd floor hallway was absolutely packed. The artist's alley and such? Not so much.
And then someone may have called the fire marshal and complained about the place having way more people inside than there actually was. Though someone else said that they usually do check on businesses on Saturdays so they may have just stopped in. And then there were firetrucks and marshal threatening to shut it down and grumpy con-goers. And people had a right to be upset!
I feel bad for my friend Jessica, because I had told her how great Hal-Con was and she pulled a 6-night work week to get the weekend off to come and drove like 5 hours to get here, and she couldn't get in today despite having bought her ticket beforehand online. I also feel bad for Crowbar because she couldn't get in either, but at least she didn't wait in line for hours like other people had.
Me? I had to wait outside in the cold for an hour in a very not November-friendly Hawaiian shirt, and felt pretty crummy the rest of the day. I dunno if I just didn't get enough sleep, if it's con-crud, or if I got cold enough to come down with something (because I did get really, really cold, and I'm someone who tolerates cold well) but I wasn't feeling very well on the bus ride back to where I'm staying.
So what could have prevented this? Well a few things, things that will likely be considered for next year. Specific passes for specific days, for one. Two, a better line-up system for main stage events. They actually partially-solved this by using the physical activity portion of the floor as a line staging area, to keep that line out of the hallway. I feel a little bad for the people who were going to hold a LARP thing there this afternoon but I think it's a very clever solution to a serious problem they had. The third idea, one that occurred to me, would be to have a 4 floor event. Having the small panels on the same floor as the main stage and other major attractions just makes things difficult; the huge line in the hallway makes it really hard to get to them, and the line goes by the entrances for the artist's alley so it's difficult to get in there as well. Of course, renting a 4th floor will cost more, and moving things around different floors too much might lower the number of people visiting the artist's alley (if on a different floor from the main stage / Autographs) and smaller panels. But maybe it would have the opposite effect. Whatever the solution, they only need it for next year, as apparently the 2015 Hal-Con will be held in the new convention centre that is currently a controversial pit.
All this aside, I had a good time so far at Hal-Con. Yes, the staff did make a mistake, and a lot of people were disappointed because of it. But they handled it the best they could; offering Sunday passes to people with day passes, and refunds to people who had day passes for that day. I wish that people with weekend passes got first-crack at getting in after the Warp Speed pass holders but that's probably just because that's the pass I have. I feel bad for the people who couldn't get in, and the staff have my sympathies as well as these volunteers had to deal with a lot of flak and stress, and probably received a lot of abuse from unhappy customers. Hal-Con volunteers, you do an amazing job, and that this is the first major problem I can recall from my 3 years at this event is a real testament to your hard work and dedication.
Aaaaand the vendors and guests at Hal-Con this year were so nice. I was disappointed that Mark Oakley wasn't there this year, but other artists I see every year were there. Everyone has been so friendly and kind, doing great commissions for me and some even giving me some free things because they remember me from previous years. It seemed like today everyone was flattering me, whether it was how much they enjoy working on my commission ideas, how they like my reference sheet and wish other people would provide them with references that good... a couple of artists even told me how much they enjoy seeing me every year and that, well I can't remember the exact wording, but that a lot of artists really like that I'm there mostly to buy their originals and prints, a patron for the artist's alley folks I guess. I wish I could remember how they put it because I can't do it justice and it was incredibly flattering. The idea that my commission ideas and silly conversations are something that some artists actually look forward to is enough to make a fellow a little teary-eyed.
So tomorrow it's pretty much just small-panel stuff (I think almost all in just the Comic Book room for me), last-minute prints or merch, and that'll be it. Hentai Jeopardy was... interesting. A bit of a trainwreck, but one you could laugh at. :P I even got a question right! Thank you, Tumblr, for talking so much about Hatoful Boyfriend back in the day that I was able to guess it. The prizes for right answers / interesting stories / just amusing the moderators were condoms. I don't know why you would award prizes that you knew the winners weren't going to use.