Prepping for Wyrd Con – A Day’s Work

Many people who know me that if you catch me on the weekend, I’m usually talking a bit about prepping for the convention, or some other theater activity. I usually spend about 4-5 hours over the course of the weekend, in addition to a few each day, continuing the preparations for Two Wyrd.
This weekend is no exception, but I thought it would be of interest to some people to go through my to-do list and show what’s being done a bit behind the scenes. I’m sure there are ways things could be done better, and I know that much of this manual process will be improved upon in subsequent years. But hopefully with my commentary you can gain further insight in to what goes on as we prepare.
The activities themselves are in no particular order, just in the order I decided to do them, and some images are edited to protect personal information of our attendees.

Review registrations
The biggest pick me up is seeing what people have registered for in the morning. It’s energizing to see what driving people is, and what is this week’s hot event or panel that people are signing up for.
When you register for the convention, the info@wyrdcon.com mailbox also receives a notice, indicating the registration. Normally we just acknowledge them and move on, but if we go inside one you can see a copy of what the individual registered for. I’m always surprised by what people select for their events.
Last year registrations were restricted to only one or two events per person. This year you can register for as many things as you want. This allows you to plan out your entire weekend up front, and be sure you have a spot. Now that registration is open, it’s first come first served. So if your interested in something popular reserve a spot as soon as you can.

Music
After sneaking a peek at a few other registrations, I turn on some music and get to doing some actual work. I listen to whatever Pandora plays for me. I used to have a bunch of mp3’s in my playlist, but I never had the time to organize my music. So now I just tweak my Pandora stations until they fit me.
When I work I listen to high speed dance music, preferably without vocals. It keeps me moving quickly, and with urgency. Without the vocals I can still concentrate and I end up accomplishing much more with it playing in the background than without. If your curious enough the hear the my Pandora

If you have an interest in the music I listen to you can click here to hear the pandora station I usually listen to.

Vendor Setup
With a little pick me up I set to work. Starting today with Vendors. Surprisingly we’ve had a rush of vendor activity this week. When you submit the online form at wyrdcon.com it deposits information in a google spreadsheet which we collect and process as a vendor, or event sign up.

Reviewing the information submitted, we confirm that the description is usable, and generate and invoice for the reserved space. Most table payments come through via paypal, but we also get the occasional check, or we can process a credit card directly.
Regardless once we receive the payment we update the vendor map with the vendor information, which reserves the table in my records, and send a confirmation to the vendor with a copy of the vendor policies. Next year I hope to find someone who want to help manage the vendor room more exclusively, giving them special attention (anyone interested?)

Last year we had the vendors in their own separate room, and had a badge checker at the door. Based upon the feedback from the vendors, and the fact we are a relatively young convention, the staff did a complete 180 on the vendor policy this year.
This year no badge is needed to access the vendor area, and we placed them in the main ballroom with registration and special activities. This way vendors get a much greater degree of exposure to our attendees, hopefully making them more successful!

Wyrd Con Staff Discussions
The senior staff for the convention and their assistants is the body & soul of this event. This small group does pretty much everything you see on a day to day basis. Without them Wyrd Con wouldn’t have a chance. Other than email, and in person meetings, we have a face book group to discuss all of our activities.
I have no idea why I selected face book for this discussion, it’s not really the best medium. But it’s working this year. When we start getting forums up in the future (probably for Tri Wyrd) we’ll likely move over to that. (Side Note: We actually have forums setup, we just don’t know what to do with them just yet. Send us ideas!)
I check the discussions, and comment or respond as needed. This usually ends up with me writing a few private emails and checking in to make sure progress is made on a few outstanding requests.

Merchandising – Shirts
I’ve been working on selecting the overall design and color for the shirts for Two Wyrd, and I’ve settled on something much simpler than before.
After reviewing the proof of the basic ‘Wyrd Con’ logo art I’ve gone with a black shirt, but with a mirrored silver imprint of the image. It’s going to be something more unique, but it’s more expensive than normal shirts. I’m playing it conservatively with the shirts this year, but this year they’ll be sold in the vendor room at registration so they will be easier for people to find. People had trouble finding the t-shirts last year, that isn’t going to happen this year.

After confirming a few things with the shirt vendor, and prepping the payment, I update the website with the actual quantities of available shirts so we only sell what we need to. If we sell out of shirts this year I can drop the shirt price to $20 and buy more next year, making it better for everyone.

Badges
Badges are another story. Unlike t-shirts which are everywhere and easy to make, the badges for Wyrd Con have always been a challenge.
Wyrd Con does not use paper badges; we aim to procure a unique badge that will be special and a memento of your experiences at the convention. Last year we made metal badges, this year we are going natural with an etched wooden badge. The problem with wood it is easily breakable, so it’s a bit of a risk.
Another challenge has been finding a vendor who is actually willing to make the badges. Working with laser cutters and wood to make a convention badge is not a normal activity wood is used for. So most vendors don’t understand the request, let alone have the right materials for it. I finally found a few willing, but their responsiveness has been lacking.
Recently I finally managed to get proofs of the badge, and expect some updated samples soon. I approve the recent proofs, and hope to see the badges next week.

*Update*
As I was reviewing this blog post, I saw the postman drive up. Running to catch him to give him the letter paying for the t-shirts, he handed me the badge samples! Just a few days after I approve the badges I have them in my hand. So here’s a picture of the actual product.
The samples look great, only glitch is the hole for the lanyard is a bit too deep in the badge. If they etch the hole 1/8” higher up then it should fit perfectly. I especially love the wood grain on the minion badge. I think in production we’ll have the minion badge color be used for attendees, and the plainer wood be used for minions & designers.
I wanted to have more badge types this year, but wood turns out to be much pricier to setup than metal, so there are likely going to be only three types, minion, sponsor, and attendee. There will be not special staff or vip badge this year, we’ll use minion for senior staff, and sponsor for vips.
On a side note, a few people have asked me why the staff and volunteers are called ‘minions’. The reason comes from another convention I work with, where they use the term ‘goon’ on the badges of their volunteers. I wanted something just as creative for our people. I think it’s more fun to be a minion, than it is to just be a volunteer. If someone asks who I’m a minion of, I’ll just mention something about the secret masters and wander off…

Wyrd Con Website
The next task on the check list is reviewing the website comments, and checking on the twitter and Facebook feeds.
Monica and Jennifer do a great team effort in keeping the systems full of content, but since the website has had a few issues I want to make sure that’s running properly. A week ago the website went down, and I had to spend an evening rebuilding it. I don’t want to do it again.
After copying a few files and performing some cleanup, I add the Intercon West banner, and a new bar to the top of the website. I’m proud we can call ourselves Intercon West this year; I’m looking forward to getting feedback from the Intercon attendees on what they think of Wyrd Con.
I’d add a photo of the new images on the website, but I figure if you are reading this article on the website, you can see the images yourself. Eventually we’ll switch the website to a more active and energized setup, but for now it’s a good setup to convey what we need.

Food announcement
Wyrd Con is going to try and make food available to its attendees this year. This year in particular I’m doing this as an experiment and if it goes well we’ll offer it in subsequent years.
We have several things planned. On Friday coffee will be made available to keep everyone awake as they require. On Saturday we’ll have a breakfast buffet available to attendees for just $5 a person. Of that the convention is subsidizing much of the food cost, so it’s a huge savings. Coffee and juice should be available throughout the day. Then for dinner we aim to offer full pizza to the attendees for just $5. It’s all in limited quantities, so buying food tickets when you pre-register will save you time.

Finally at moments in between events we’ll have popcorn and soft pretzels available for attendees to snack on between events. The main point is, during the main parts of the convention, no one will go hungry. I’m still debating the popcorn idea, it’s possible we’ll have more drinks instead of this, we’ll likely debate it next staff meeting.
Coming up with the exact amount of food, and schedule has been a huge challenge. How many people are coming? Who will actually eat the food? Will we have enough? These questions are always on our minds.

With Lisa’s help we have a basic list of what food and how much to get, the challenge is when to offer it.
After some deliberation I build a page informing attendees about the food options at Two Wyrd and place it online. This also includes building a pseudo schedule of when attendees can expect things will be available. All food will be first come, first served.
The image below shows a few snapshots from the hotels food menu as examples of what we looked at and considered.

Event Changes
Occasionaly we receive a note from a Designer requesting a change to their information, or even a cancellation. Reviewing and going through these is a tandem effort with other staffers and I usually end up deferring to the wisdom of others regarding scheduling.
However since I’m on my own today I need to make a few minor scheduling changes, entering the registration system to adjust one event by an hour.
The online registration system is rather convient for this, but it’s independent from our website. So it has to be changed in two places.
I hope to integrate this in the future, but for the moment it just requires a quick tweak and we’re done for now.

That’s it for now!
I hope you enjoyed this quick little journey. Everything here took about 4 hours to accomplish today. I know if doesn’t seem like such a long time, but each tweak and adjustment takes some thought. The next stop for me is lunch, then a good book!