Masterclass on Marketing, Media and Memberships

Friday 1-4pm

Vince Docherty leads a session looking at how we could better use marketing (and media) to promote our conventions and to attract the membership we want (both the 'right' numbers and those who will most
enjoy/participate).

We will use a similar starting point as the 2009 SMOFcon Budget bootcamp, which saw three fundamentally different kinds of convention:

• Local/Regional startups (creating a new/continuing convention)
• Worldcons (and other large-one-shots)
• Continuing regionals/nationals (the key point is you have a past-year's model - or many - to work from)

During the Masterclass, Colin Harris, will take us through a case-study of this year's Worldcon Renovation's marketing and how they were able to achieve their target memberships despite a number of challenges,
including a recession and small prior Worldcons. The lessons from the case-study are applicable to all types and sizes of conventions.

The Masterclass will also include workshops where you can apply the learnings from the Masterclass, including effective use of the con website.

More details of the Masterclass will appear soon.

There is no prework needed for this session and we will run it with whoever turns up.

To help with planning and get an idea of numbers we would appreciate if you could let us know:

• If you do plan to take part;
• Any particular kind of convention or marketing challenge you would like to focus on; 
• If you can offer insights and material and/or volunteer to be faculty!

Contact: masterclass@smofcon29.org