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The Liiiiine
7 years ago
Hi,
Still, MFF has had a bad badge pickup setup for the six years I've been going there. When I started they had queues organized by last name, basically one for each letter of the alphabet. Great if your name started with 'Q,' not so much if 'M'.
They stopped doing that last year in favor of the computer setups, which is good. They've moved to the Stevenson this year, so also good. Aside from that there hasn't been much much change to their system. When the con was three thousand guests it took a while and was annoying, but once it was over one could enjoy the con. The bad experience was forgotten. Until the next year. Now that setup that was not great at 3,000 people is having to deal with 10,000. That is why the line is three hours long this year, and will be much longer next year if they have the same growth and don't completely rethink it.
It's particularly frustrating for pre-registration, because for most of these past years my at-the-door registering friends have been in and out well before me. In 2016 I sponsored, was in the line for early pickup for sponsors, and they still had their badges before me. This year they were done half an hour before me.
Also this year I had a friend sponsor and he stood in line with me for most of the time. Not necessarily because he wanted to, but because there was no separate line for sponsors. Eventually a guy came through calling for sponsors to follow him for early pickup (kudos to that guy, by the way) but still the lack of such a bypass seems an obvious exclusion.
The big selling point to pre-registration is the ability to pick up your badge and be on your way. Cons want pre-registrations because it helps them plan, or so they say. It's basically like RSVP'ing. I continue to pre-register because of this. Still, it is annoying to know I could have waited, paid $5 more, and been done that much sooner.
Things need to be done structurally to change it. I know it can be done as the badge pickup at Anthrocon has never felt this bad. (Okay, that's a bit of a lie. One out of the three of my times there has sucked, but that was a different unrelated issue.) I don't bring this up to say 'oh AC is sooo much better than MFF.' I know they share a lot of the same staff. It's that they share a lot of the same staff and information that bugs me. MFF doesn't need to be working this out on their own.
I'm not one to complain about things when they're outside of control. The room booking situation sucks, is another whole discussion, but it is not MFF's fault. Back when the dealer's den was spread across multiple rooms of the Hyatt basement it wasn't the con's fault. They worked with what they had. I knew they couldn't 'just' move into the Stevenson, that the con center likely had contracts with other groups in place for years before we came along. But I digress.
The reg situation, though, that is within their control. It feels like it's an afterthought. Like there's some conversation that goes, “Should we do something different for reg this year?” “No, it's too late now. We'll just do what we did last year. If people complain, then they complain.”
To armchair con-chair this the big thing I see is the timetable for badge pickup. That really hasn't changed over the years; 4:30 sponsors start, 5:00 pre-reg, 6:00 at the door. Ideally the reg pickup would start much earlier. Here's a big part of where I'm comparing with AC. If there's money issues with this then maybe badge prices need to increase. I've never been to any non-furry conventions so I have no idea how $60 for a con of this size compares. If it's low for comparable events, then yeah, maybe it does need increasing. I have seen many people stating a $5-10 hike would be fine if it'd greatly cut down line time. Another possibility would be a bigger price jump for late pre-reg and even bigger for at-the-door. More early pre-reg is better for the con (allegedly), so this seems a reasonable thing for the con. Fewer at-the-door registers could mean more resources available for the pre-reg pickup.
If opening reg earlier isn't practical or possible because of conflicts with the con center, okay, I get it. But in that event efforts should be made to expand the head start pre-reg and sponsors have. I'd go so far as to say to not even have at-the-door reg available on Thursday.
Some of this is venting my frustration, a lot is wanting to actually point out things I see. I know I'm not on the inside so I don't know what's going on internally. What I do see is the problems of reg pickup growing disproportionately faster than the con size is. I don't remember exactly how long I spent in line Thursday of MFF 2017. I'm thinking it was between 1.5 and 2 hours. At least three hours this year. That's somewhere between a 50% and 100% increase in wait time for a 20% increase in con size. If the con continues that rate of growth, and nothing substantial is done to improve reg, well, I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
All that said, I'm going to try to get involved more in cons next year. I say this every year, every con really. Every con my social anxiety talks me out of it, though. “That could be very complicated and stressful. You don't want to do that. Besides, what if some friends want to do something? You don't want to be trapped having to work.” And I fall for it. Even though I have like six actual friends at the con of 10k and they're all going to be busy doing their own things. This year I'm going to try to help in what ways I can. Starting at Fur Squared, as that will be my next con. (Anyone got a room there? I need a room there.) I want to try to put my proverbial money where my mouth is.
So, yeah, that's my thoughts post-MFF. I'm hopeful for things to improve. MFF is my home con, so it has a place in my heart in spite of its issues.
They stopped doing that last year in favor of the computer setups, which is good. They've moved to the Stevenson this year, so also good. Aside from that there hasn't been much much change to their system. When the con was three thousand guests it took a while and was annoying, but once it was over one could enjoy the con. The bad experience was forgotten. Until the next year. Now that setup that was not great at 3,000 people is having to deal with 10,000. That is why the line is three hours long this year, and will be much longer next year if they have the same growth and don't completely rethink it.
It's particularly frustrating for pre-registration, because for most of these past years my at-the-door registering friends have been in and out well before me. In 2016 I sponsored, was in the line for early pickup for sponsors, and they still had their badges before me. This year they were done half an hour before me.
Also this year I had a friend sponsor and he stood in line with me for most of the time. Not necessarily because he wanted to, but because there was no separate line for sponsors. Eventually a guy came through calling for sponsors to follow him for early pickup (kudos to that guy, by the way) but still the lack of such a bypass seems an obvious exclusion.
The big selling point to pre-registration is the ability to pick up your badge and be on your way. Cons want pre-registrations because it helps them plan, or so they say. It's basically like RSVP'ing. I continue to pre-register because of this. Still, it is annoying to know I could have waited, paid $5 more, and been done that much sooner.
Things need to be done structurally to change it. I know it can be done as the badge pickup at Anthrocon has never felt this bad. (Okay, that's a bit of a lie. One out of the three of my times there has sucked, but that was a different unrelated issue.) I don't bring this up to say 'oh AC is sooo much better than MFF.' I know they share a lot of the same staff. It's that they share a lot of the same staff and information that bugs me. MFF doesn't need to be working this out on their own.
I'm not one to complain about things when they're outside of control. The room booking situation sucks, is another whole discussion, but it is not MFF's fault. Back when the dealer's den was spread across multiple rooms of the Hyatt basement it wasn't the con's fault. They worked with what they had. I knew they couldn't 'just' move into the Stevenson, that the con center likely had contracts with other groups in place for years before we came along. But I digress.
The reg situation, though, that is within their control. It feels like it's an afterthought. Like there's some conversation that goes, “Should we do something different for reg this year?” “No, it's too late now. We'll just do what we did last year. If people complain, then they complain.”
To armchair con-chair this the big thing I see is the timetable for badge pickup. That really hasn't changed over the years; 4:30 sponsors start, 5:00 pre-reg, 6:00 at the door. Ideally the reg pickup would start much earlier. Here's a big part of where I'm comparing with AC. If there's money issues with this then maybe badge prices need to increase. I've never been to any non-furry conventions so I have no idea how $60 for a con of this size compares. If it's low for comparable events, then yeah, maybe it does need increasing. I have seen many people stating a $5-10 hike would be fine if it'd greatly cut down line time. Another possibility would be a bigger price jump for late pre-reg and even bigger for at-the-door. More early pre-reg is better for the con (allegedly), so this seems a reasonable thing for the con. Fewer at-the-door registers could mean more resources available for the pre-reg pickup.
If opening reg earlier isn't practical or possible because of conflicts with the con center, okay, I get it. But in that event efforts should be made to expand the head start pre-reg and sponsors have. I'd go so far as to say to not even have at-the-door reg available on Thursday.
Some of this is venting my frustration, a lot is wanting to actually point out things I see. I know I'm not on the inside so I don't know what's going on internally. What I do see is the problems of reg pickup growing disproportionately faster than the con size is. I don't remember exactly how long I spent in line Thursday of MFF 2017. I'm thinking it was between 1.5 and 2 hours. At least three hours this year. That's somewhere between a 50% and 100% increase in wait time for a 20% increase in con size. If the con continues that rate of growth, and nothing substantial is done to improve reg, well, I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
All that said, I'm going to try to get involved more in cons next year. I say this every year, every con really. Every con my social anxiety talks me out of it, though. “That could be very complicated and stressful. You don't want to do that. Besides, what if some friends want to do something? You don't want to be trapped having to work.” And I fall for it. Even though I have like six actual friends at the con of 10k and they're all going to be busy doing their own things. This year I'm going to try to help in what ways I can. Starting at Fur Squared, as that will be my next con. (Anyone got a room there? I need a room there.) I want to try to put my proverbial money where my mouth is.
So, yeah, that's my thoughts post-MFF. I'm hopeful for things to improve. MFF is my home con, so it has a place in my heart in spite of its issues.
