Hal-Con Report

This is a bit overdue, but I've been recovering from the trip.  Better late than never, though - regular posting returns tomorrow.

So, my thoughts about Hal-Con...

1.  It was way, way too crowded.  I think the organizers either were locked into the location after it became clear how many people were going to show up, or else they really didn't know what a thousand people would really be like.  At any rate, they needed at least twice the area they had.

2.  They were understaffed.  By 2 PM on day one I was already seeing Hal Con staff getting incredibly frazzled and short-fused.  Things only got worse as time went on, and sometimes innocent Con-goers would get on the wrong side of the volunteers' exhaustion.  They needed at least twice the staff they had to keep things working.

3.  Special mention for the security staff.  From what I could see, they had it worst of all of the volunteers, and it wasn't uncommon to find them yelling angrily at each other into their walkie-talkies, usually over something that's gone wrong.  But I'd neither seen nor heard about any of the security staff acting short-tempered with any of the Con-goers, so kudos to them.

4.  There weren't enough programs by a pretty huge margin.  In fact, they didn't even have enough programs for all the pre-registered guests.  Really, there's no excuse for this - why wouldn't they at least make sure they have enough for the people who'd paid for their tickets in advance?  They ran out of programs before the first day was half-over, and had to print out emergency single-day schedules - which they also ran out of quickly.  People who were showing up only for Saturday or Sunday weren't even given anything, despite paying $32 dollars.

5. The events themselves could have used more thought; the costume contest, for example, allowed so many last-minute entries that hardly any non-contestants were able to watch.

6. A number of the workshops and seminars were pretty cool, but were placed poorly.  About eight people had to walk out of the Writing Comics workshop, for example, because there weren't enough seats and they didn't feel like standing for the whole hour.

It was a rather poorly organized event, really.  Some of the things I'm willing to cut the organizers some slack with because this was their first Con and it was a learning process for them, but other things (like the lack of programs) are really inexcusable.


Now, despite all this, I did have fun...  But it was often in spite of the Con, rather than because of it. 
The real test will be next year - if the organizers have learned from their mistakes and avoid them next time around.