San Fran, CA WONDERCON 2009 - Feb. 27 - Mar. 1

Heads up! It's that time of year again when we start planning for this. I just got the paperwork for our table.

http://www.comic-con.org/wc/

RSA EDIT UNStickied!

 

I will be getting a table at Wondercon again this year, not a booth but a table, so I think I will be close to yours.Or in your section anyway.Coming in with anime, cosplay items this time rather than the costumes.

 

If you want to be near us, Eva, you have to request it on the form. It isn't guaranteed, and you're not considered a fan table, so you probably wouldn't be in the same area as us.

 

Got the e-mail from WonderCon and SFFF was given a table again - same prime front location as last year I'm just kind of hoping we can ask for the RL to be switched... right now SFFF is next to something called Jericho Kansas Inc - I'm guessing a Jericho fan group?

 

I'd love to help you guys with whatever you need. I love cons and can't wait to see them out here

 

Kathy it would help out a lot if we can get SFF and RL next to each other. Keep trying! Scott and I are here to help just let us know what to do this will be our first Con.

 

I just sent an e-mail to WonderCon. If I don't hear back from them by the beginning of January I'll call the coordinator directly. I'm not sure why they didn't put RL next to SFFF when we both requested it... other than I heard Matt asked for an additional request and he kind of urged me to ask to be 'near' the GGG which I think was just overload and too confusing. Have one main request and that's it, that's my motto! Hopefully the map is not set in stone right now

I'd imagine as we get closer to the con date Matt will post a table shift thread here and I'll do the same at Rebel Legion. Thanks for the offers to help everyone! Every little bit helps a lot.

 

Should I send an e-mail too, Kathy, or do you think one is enough? Hopefully like you said, nothing is set in stone yet. Perhaps some will drop out and some will add on at the last minute. Maybe GGG can take our F1 spot, if its by the aisle, which is what they prefer for ease of getting in and out with their costumes on.

On another note, I'd suggest buying your tickets now!

http://www.comic-con.org/wc/

The table shifts (and everything else WonderCon-related) will be discussed at the January meeting, which will probably be on 1/17 or 1/24. So please keep checking the boards!

 

looks like fun. i'll try to make it in my mando garb

 

Matt - keep an eye on e-mail as I'm ccing you on my correspondence with WonderCon. They are trying to work with us and right now they will switch RL to the Jericho spot if they can get the OK from that fan group for the switch. If that doesn't work, I did suggest plan B (SFFF switch with GGG... since GGG is easy to get a hold of. Hopefully they'll help us out).

 

Gotcha, Kathy. Already read one.

 

Woo-hoo! I need to fill out my next year's (2009) vacation request soon, so now I have the date for WonderCon!!

Anybody know anything about C-4.5 in Vegas next summer?

 

I don't think Vegas was ever on the list of cities that LFL was considering. You may be confusing it with Matt, Dale and Ming's wish to have it there. The last rumor the LFL put out is they are looking at cities mid west and back East. (I can't remember the specifics right now).

 

The last thing I heard about anything "Celebration-related" in Vegas was on a TF.N thread where fans were considering a celebration (of sorts) to just see each other again, after meeting each other for the first time at CIV in LA.

But like Kathy said, no cities have been determined or finalized. When I last spoke to Mary Franklin, she said even the rumored cities for CV (Baltimore, Orlando and Chicago included) were just that - rumors.

My guess is that the city will be finalized early next year, announced at Comic-Con, tickets going on sale in the fall, and CV taking place in May 2010 for Empire's 30th anniversary.


And now, back to our topic....

 

Okay, thanks. I won't schedule my vacation based on that thread in community.

What are the dates for Comic Con? Not trying to derail the thread, just need to get my vacation days finalized before the year's end.

 

Hey, I heard back from the table coordinator at WC and he said he'll just go ahead and switch Rebel Legion to be next to SFFF like we were last year. That takes a heap of worry off of some of the RL/SFFF Command and council members since a lot of us wear two hats. Now we can actually be in two places at once if we have to be!

 

Should we do a charity raffle again this year with Rebel Legion?

Please write in your opinions.


Here are the positives:

1) It can be a lot of fun! Members and visitors to the table were all eligible to enter the raffle.

2) It gives people a reason to stop at our table to see what's going on, rather than just walk on by.

3) We raised over 300 dollars for charity last year!


Here are the negatives:

1) Keeping an eye on all of the prizes and the cash box - the table can't be left unattended due to risk of theft. And if we do have to leave I figure we need to bring a lockable bin this time and take everything off the shelves to store away securely.

2) Members do need to take a moment to familiarize themselves with the rules of the raffle when they man the table so they don't give out misinformation. We have fliers and signs to help you out, but you've gotta read them.

3) We have to have reliable members on the Saturday and Sunday evening shift to pull names for the raffle and call the winning members on their cell phone... I believe last year we did it about an hour before the convention closed. This year I'd suggest maybe an hour and a half because it got tight having time to hand out all the prizes and call people who were not there at the time of the drawing.


If we do decide to do this, we could also try another charity too.

 

Ummmm hate to be negative (lol... just kidding! ) and this has nothing really to do directly with the raffle but something else to add to the negative list was that last minute fall through of some folks and shift times, as well as certain people getting upset that they were gonna miss certain panels due to a seemingly mandatory table assignment that they didn't really choose for themselves... We need to remedy that as well.


Also when you "stick" something up here... Err I dunno about most people but I just kinda ignore this area now. lol

 

Well, I think the CR learned his lesson... and some of us tried to warn him not to put people down for shifts they didn't sign up for. I think this was an isolated incident with one member - not the norm. But yeah, please don't let it happen again because it put some innocent bystanders in a bad position.

 

I'm of two minds regarding the raffle; basically I agree with both sides of the discussion. It is certainly a good and worthwhile activity for us to raise money for charity. It is also true that it is a lot of work and adds complications during the con.

If we do go ahead and do it, I agree with some of the suggestions made to help ease some of the complications. Namely, scale things back a little bit, and try to set up something so that things can be made secure. Though I suppose we wouldn't want to leave the table unattended anyway, what with the TV and possible smaller (and easier to carry away) items there.

 

Well the thing about that is the RL table and SFFF table were right next to each other and at times you'd have 4 people total which is overkill and then at times there was barely 1 mainly cos someone fell through or they were running late etc... Overall, though I think there should be 1 person at each table with one floater (someone who does know both groups) so 3 max, and then if there is a super popular panel going on or something 1 person watching both tables (because the floor will prob be rather empty anyway since most people will be at the panel too). Also signing up for rotation BEFORE the WC scheduling comes out is a mistake cos we will ALL be changing, switching, etc etc to what we wanna see unless you know automatically that there's nothing going on (openings, closings etc). Raffle should be easy and intuitive, last year seemed annoying complex. So... meh... I'm done.

 

I was just thinking of that, Ming. Great minds (i.e. Virgos) think alike. Let's hold off the table sign-ups for the February meeting, which should be the 14th or 21st.

 

I think one way to simplify the raffle is to have few prize categories per day (and maybe fewer prizes). I also think the ticket price should just be 2 dollars per ticket, no discount for 5 tickets at 3 dollars or whatever it was last year. Just one price per ticket we all have to remember. Otherwise, I don't believe it was overly complicated to tell people to come back at time X and put your phone number on the back of the ticket so we can call you if you won. Lots of people sign up for the raffle and totally forget to come back to the table so we had a lot of appreciate folks (many our own members who had worked the table and totally forgot to check back - lol!) when I called them

Part of the complication happened last year because we got last minute donations from LFL and we had to decide on the fly what to do with them. I think Matt still has a ton of stickers, so we can just give everyone a sticker if they enter the raffle or something. Or a sticker for every ticket they purchase until we run out of them. I guess we need to find out from Matt how many he has and how to best distribute them.

As for Rebel Legion, we need two people at the table. One person can't manage answering all the costume questions and questions about what our club does and handle the raffle. It seemed we tended to have one person feilding club related chat while the other focused on the raffle entries and questions. Fan Force can do what you want, but there is a risk of being short handed if someone flakes out on their shift and you have only scheduled one person. So I'm not sure what your insurance plan is there. And since not all RL members are SFFF member I don't think we can really say 'one person per table and one floater' because I don't know how to handle that kind of sign-up. You'd have to insist that the floater be a member of both clubs which really complicates things.

Matt, we need to figure out if we are chipping in for power soon because the deadline for sending in the forms to order Power from Freeman is the beginning of February.

 

I'm not sure which day my bro and I are going so I cannot sign up to watch the table at this time. Sorry!

 

We discussed at the meeting that table sign-ups will be conducted at the February meeting (2/21), because by then the programming schedule should be done by then, and everyone will know what they plan to see and thus know when they can man the table.