Convention models & accessibility
Aug. 13th, 2008 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mirrorshardSomething the Bicon accommodation flap (which I don't propose to comment on here) brought to mind is the constellation of assumptions involved and decisions made.
A couple of examples to establish the field, first - all of these are long weekends (Thursday or Friday to Sunday or Monday). The costs are the lowest prebooking prices I can recall or get hold of.
Bicon: university campus. Single rooms with the opportunity for self-catering, £100 or £175 for ensuite.
LRP main event: Scout campsite. Camping with catering vans, shower blocks, and the opportunity for all the self-catering you can do without burning anything down, £60.
Eastercon: Mid-range hotel. Single, double, and twin rooms, all en-suite, no self-catering. £40 a night (based on sharing a twin/double room) for three nights, plus £50 convention membership, makes £170.
Basically, all of these have things about them that are deal-breakers for some people, and organisers always have to choose between them. Well, in principle - in practice they often default to one or another model that they're used to and comfortable with.
In the campus model, it's the combination of small tatty student rooms, possible lack of en-suite bathrooms, and tiny shared kitchens. On the other hand, you've got small-group community and cheapness. This model works well for a relatively young & healthy community, who generally know each other already; less well for older people and positively hostile to families.
Camping is a deal-breaker for a great many people, though I love it. It's something you need to have a fair amount of practice at, and prepare for in advance, and it works better if you do it as a family or an organised group. It can be positively hostile to the disabled, and sometimes to those with food issues.
Hotels are my favourite overall, and it's possible to drive the cost down further. The conference facilities are not always up to what a university can give you, but that varies a lot between hotels. They're generally better at comfort, commodiousness, and responsiveness to needs than university campuses are, but they can also be quite a bit worse in terms of allergens and pathogens. On the other hand, you're limited food-wise to the hotel restaurants (which are generally sub-standard and over-priced unless it's a very, very good hotel, in which case they're just over-priced) or whatever's within any distance you're comfortable staying away from the con for.
I've doubtless left out some factors, so all comments and contributions welcome.
A couple of examples to establish the field, first - all of these are long weekends (Thursday or Friday to Sunday or Monday). The costs are the lowest prebooking prices I can recall or get hold of.
Bicon: university campus. Single rooms with the opportunity for self-catering, £100 or £175 for ensuite.
LRP main event: Scout campsite. Camping with catering vans, shower blocks, and the opportunity for all the self-catering you can do without burning anything down, £60.
Eastercon: Mid-range hotel. Single, double, and twin rooms, all en-suite, no self-catering. £40 a night (based on sharing a twin/double room) for three nights, plus £50 convention membership, makes £170.
Basically, all of these have things about them that are deal-breakers for some people, and organisers always have to choose between them. Well, in principle - in practice they often default to one or another model that they're used to and comfortable with.
In the campus model, it's the combination of small tatty student rooms, possible lack of en-suite bathrooms, and tiny shared kitchens. On the other hand, you've got small-group community and cheapness. This model works well for a relatively young & healthy community, who generally know each other already; less well for older people and positively hostile to families.
Camping is a deal-breaker for a great many people, though I love it. It's something you need to have a fair amount of practice at, and prepare for in advance, and it works better if you do it as a family or an organised group. It can be positively hostile to the disabled, and sometimes to those with food issues.
Hotels are my favourite overall, and it's possible to drive the cost down further. The conference facilities are not always up to what a university can give you, but that varies a lot between hotels. They're generally better at comfort, commodiousness, and responsiveness to needs than university campuses are, but they can also be quite a bit worse in terms of allergens and pathogens. On the other hand, you're limited food-wise to the hotel restaurants (which are generally sub-standard and over-priced unless it's a very, very good hotel, in which case they're just over-priced) or whatever's within any distance you're comfortable staying away from the con for.
I've doubtless left out some factors, so all comments and contributions welcome.
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Re: Interesting overview, but...
Date: 2008-08-13 04:53 pm (UTC)Re: Interesting overview, but...
Date: 2008-08-13 05:02 pm (UTC)I'd love to talk to someone who was around for the early days of SF cons and ask how they moved from university venues to hotels - what was the tipping point? Personally I can see the hotel option being viable if BiCon were regularly pulling in 350+ people who all wanted to stay onsite (as opposed to day registrations), and if there were vendors/organisations who were willing to rent stall space to promote their products or services and thereby offset the additional cost of the conference venue itself, which for a hotel is generally much higher than for a university, for an equivalent level of facilities.
Update: Having looked at the Eastercon page on Wikipedia, 2008 pulled in over 1300 people. At £50 a pop for full weekend registration, that's £65,000 to be spent on the conference centre, guests, publicity materials and other overheads. The middle band of registration for BiCon this year is £40 (may not represent the average paid) - for 250 people that works out at £10,000. That's your differential right there. A major SF con (even discounting things like vendors rooms, sponsorship etc) have an income over six times of a BiCon.
Re: Interesting overview, but...
Date: 2008-08-13 05:37 pm (UTC)Re: Interesting overview, but...
Date: 2008-08-14 12:18 pm (UTC)You'd probably need a little more than a hotel for that. However, you might well be able to accompany such a move with extra facilities like a creche. Those cost real money, however.
A secondary problem can be that with size comes a change in dynamic. e.g. at 80 people, an event is small enough that you can see everyone easily. At 200 people, you're still small enough to have community spirit, but you may have groups/cliques whatever forming. (I don't mean that judgmentally.) At 500 people, lots of people won't know each other or probably see each other. This may lose you some of the people who were enthusiastic about the 80-200 band, which can be a shame.
This can have a knock-on effect to bookings and the usage of your rooms, however. e.g. better facilities and more people in a bigger place may mean that parent+parent+(+parent?)+newborn feel able to come along. However, the extra freedom means they might decide to only come for the Saturday night, rather than coming for the whole event (say, Thursday-Sunday, just going from the current BiCon thread). You might well find yourself with a fair chunk of rooms that are only partly occupied, which may prove awkward for working out your room rates.
An important factor would be to poll people long in advance about the principle of the thing, and try to avoid doing it somewhere that comments will be public. (e.g. threads on LiveJournal would be bad for it.) You want an environment where people can feel free to say what they really want, rather than what they think their friends want them to say. A decent, well-written poll promoted by various different people (who are key to different friendship circles/cliques/demographics) might work.