My Arisia 2016 Debrief, with 32% more whimsy

[mizarchivist]

I am cozied up to my laptop with my 2nd cup  of coffee, listening to Jaime's zen playlist, which is dominated by South American flute, with a child safely deposited in school and no major obligations for hours (til it's time to make dinner).

I survived my first Arisia back as "full time" staff in over 10 years. Maybe... 13 years?! Since I burned out in Reg.
Being the assistant guest of honor liaison div head was as expected a fair bit of work, not just at con, but a LOT of prep ahead of time and for months in advance. Not so much that it was impossible- not at all, but given we were responsible for our GOHs, high stakes. The goal was to get shit done and not let them see how the sausage was made. Turns out there are way more pieces in motion than one can imagine. But, from everything I've heard, all Guests had a good time. I had a great time! Possibly the best time I've had at Arisia in the last 7-10 years.
Props...

• to nchanter for being a very involved and dedicated conchair. An honor to serve with you, madame.


• to sweetmmeblue for being on top of our division. Ditto: an honor to serve with you, madame. We divided up tasks approximately by guest and it meant nobody had to remember ALL things for in this case 4 people. It can be as little as 2 (artist and author) but we had fan AND muse of whimsy this year, so a team was required. It really was an honor to get to be the Scalzi Wrangler (damn, wish I'd had a ribbon specifically for that. OH well. :) Our team, which


• rintrahroars for rocking staff services and taking care of all of us.


• Jaime for being on kid-patrol with grace and humor


• Turtle Track (Ocean and Austin big love!) for being their usual rock-star selves and keeping the kids busy so the adults could go have some fun


• fubar and asciikitty - for showing up, hanging out, and being part of a big deal for me.

Things that went well

• Prep work before times, taking off Thursday. It was a ramp up and it worked out.


• Gift bags for guests were well received


• Art show, from beginning to end. Set up was easy, the runners there were very helpful and gave me good advice for presentation. I sold EIGHT PIECES!! Including the red dragon tin, which is a high priced piece. Last year I left feeling let down. Nothing major sold. Word is that this was just a better year for all art show sales. But also the content in the art show was SUPER high quality. I regret not bidding on a Lee Moyer piece, but also was having a hard time picking The One. If you know what I mean.


• Having an easy/fun time interacting with Scalzi and Athena. He is a very low-maintenance sort of person in the first place.


• Whole family was there, at least for a while. I didn't get to hang with K & A particularly much, but there was the OPTION at least.


• Dinner with Nchanter, Jaime, Scalzi, Jason, Abby, and Dan on Saturday night.


• Scalzi's reading was hilarious; his signing went off without a hitch thanks to some excellent planning


• Being entirely present the whole weekend: not having to leave the hotel or sort out how to go do Other Stuff, too.


• Successful, positive changes in con culture- the pronoun ribbons are great. I didn't quite get them last year. I do now.


• Solving problems, being proactive, helping out when it was needed, staying flexible


• Stayed well-fed and reasonably rested

Not so great:
Losing my coat within the hour of me wanting to go home on Monday. I had not planned to be on the GOHL clock as much as I was, but I did a bit of maintenance and whatnot, which meant I was wandering around the hotel a lot, about 8 or so locations in the course of a few hours. The last site was on the Mez where Pygment and I were doing crowd control during Scalzi's scheduled interview. While we were doing this (2:30-3ish), the con staff and hotel staff were putting stuff away. We ended up having to move the reporter's gear off of some tables, and the Pygment and I were evicted from the chairs we were sitting in. In that process, my coat got lost in the shuffle... except I was planning on heading directly out and into the bitterly cold and windy city to home. I looked everwhere. Twice. In the moment, I could not remember where I might have left it. So, I kept circling, and asking. After asking Ops and the hotel concierge and looking one more time, I lost it while calling home. I just wanted to go home and not have to be rescued. But Jaime was kind and arranged to come get me. I had a good, hard cry, settled down, and listened to Harry Potter while I waited. The coat got turned in while I was waiting, so it ended for the best. But dang. I can only imagine it was left behind and shoved off into an office out of sight. Happily, the office in question sent it down to security who had my number and called in time so I didn't have to logistic that on top of everything else.
But the good that came out of it:

• Got great support from pretty much everyone, esp. rintrahroars and Jaime.


• Got the coat back


• Was able to coordinate with Pygment for a thing that needs to get mailed to Scalzi. I already have to mail a similar shaped thing, so good for me to have both. I wouldn't have had it if I'd not lost my coat.

The con-wide not so great was road-testing the registration system, which clearly had a ot of bugs in, being a not used by us system thus far. It caused a lot of stress for the con-goers, because who wants to stand in line for hours, and bad for staff because who wants to get yelled at by con-goers who've been standing in line for hours  and/or trying to fix the problem and/or having it ripple out into other stuff. Safe bet next year will be a bit different in procedures. I hope they find a way to iron it out.

Pictures of the weekend...

The tin that sold (the boy who lived?)


Femme on a Friday Night


Butch on a Saturday Night


Showing off my art to Scalzi (Mad Max/Furiosa)


After the Sunday Signing, Groot says hello


Crime Fighter... in a nutshell.

OK. Off to do some art, friends.

Comments

Yay!

[drwex]

Glad you're back in the sausage-making factory and that you had a good experience with it. Glad you were among the artists who did well - I hear similarly the show sold well and yes the quality continues to climb.

Totally with you on the difficulty of picking just one Moyer piece. I'm very happy with the one we got last year and wish our budget had room for more. Also he's SO nice!

Glad the coat situation resolved. And you remind me to amend my entry to include a bit about the pronoun ribbons.

Re: Yay!

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

I thought this year's art show was the best I've ever seen at Arisia

[candle-light.livejournal.com]

It was nice to see you and even get to talk for a couple of minutes while coloring (that was an inspired idea). Glad to hear your reentry into Arisia volunteering went as well as it did.

[ckd]

I'm glad I had a chance to catch up with you in the Green Room, and I'm even more glad that the coat situation ended well. (Also glad that I could contribute art materials via anotherjen, especially with your success in the show this year!)

[mizarchivist]

Ah! Well, belated thank you for the supplies. Feel free to send more my way as they come up. :)
Good to see you, too.

[arianhwyvar.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it went well for the most part! Did not know you were Scalzi-wrangler. You absolutely should have had a ribbon. :-)

I also thought the art show was just brilliant this time. I don't know what was changed, but I feel whoever was responsible for the layout and lighting did an amazing job. It felt airy and open and very like an actual professional art gallery. And I also sold more than the last few years, so that was encouraging!

[mizarchivist]

I'm glad to hear it! It wouldn't surprise me if the layout improved the sales.

[rintrahroars.livejournal.com]

You are amazing! Thank you for all you did. I'm glad you had a good convention. I wish I had taken a moment to meet the Scalzi and hang with you more!

The Art Show was so good this year. Please, anyone who agrees, send a compliment to feedback@arisia.org. It's really gratifying for Arisia staff to get positive comments!

[mizarchivist]

oui. Think I'm also going to the meeting on the 6th. But good idea to do both. :)