Smofcon 35 Debriefing Notes

Here are comments from debriefing – thanks very much to everyone who contributed!

Stroke of good fortune when hospitality was moved to 2. It was very convenient for people attending Program.

Cash bar – the cash bar only took cash and that should have been more clear.

Newcomer felt welcome – this was a plus!

Loved the badge [[Laurie: this was the single most common comment I was told during Smofcon]]

Newcomer – thought it was fantastic. I’m from a small convention, but I wasn’t sure, but I felt at home.
Many people talked to me one-on-one. I plan to do a panel on “what is Smofcon and why you should attend.”

Priscilla: Worked to have Program that would appeal to all kinds of cons.

Thanks to CanSmof for scholarship.

Rick: Santa Rosa Scholarships will probably be available – Cansmof/SWOC/Arisia

Loved terrific Program, revisiting old problems and took on reviewing kinds of problems wide-eyed with delights.

Maybe some way to delineate fields of interest on a badge (kind of like pronoun stickers) [[At Smofcon 15 we had merit badges showing personal interests]] Some SMOFCons have had home convention not home town.

We needed more turnover time between panels.
There weren’t time-keepers to call the end of panels so people ran over.

People are welcome to send reviews, comments or presentations made at Smofcon to smofcon35@mcfi.org or you could post them to the Facebook group and they’ll be added to the Website http://www.smofcon35.org. There’s also an archive of Smofcon information at smofcon.com

You can also find out about running conventions at conrunner.net

Programming was amazing – only didn’t go to Program for 2 hours over the whole convention.

Liked Fannish Inquisition – inquisitors did a good job of keeping order.

210 warm bodies – 220 total reg

Seating was lacking for the Con suite, it was hard to get around – needed better path through Hospitality and the sodas were not refilled often enough.

Good high protein offerings in Con Suite.

Be sure there’s always protein at breakfast.

Yay for hard boiled eggs.

Thanks for space for probability and statistics, people were well-behaved and all materials were returned.

Hotel was very understanding about late night noise on 2.

Impressed by how many people came from far away, particularly Marcin from Poland, from China.

Found it a very useful weekend, to see more about mechanics of con-running, Convention Guide was very helpful.

Program really helped people to interact & non-Program info in Grenadine was very nice.

Inquisition – glad that people are continuing to work on reorganizing it

Grenadine has features to help meet up.

Thanks to Con or Bust & Arisia for helping to to support some other attendees.

Will add missing any missing FAQ info to Website if they are sent to smofcon35@mcfi.org

Liked the Sunday 2012 all in one room where people could talk to bidders at tables and buy things.

Take joy in what you’re doing.

We may have had too much Program this year – it’s usually a little more about having community. We
shouldn’t have 4 things running at a time.

Wish my local con had sent 2 people instead of one.

About 10 first Smofcon people were at the Debriefing.

First Smofcon Ribbon would have been Helpful and little stickers for “how many Smofcons” have you been to.

Will post PDF of pronoun stickers to the Website.