In <20041210085543-32335-7@2rosenthals.com>, on 12/10/04 at 01:56 PM,
"Howard Winter" <HDRW@hibernaculum.org.uk> said:
>Is there any particular reason why 'US couldn't be moved
>later and 'Europe earlier?
This is way off topic for this list, but since Lewis started the thread,
I'll answer it here, but we should discuss it on the Warpstock discussion
list which I have cc'd. I'd prefer any responses be on that forum so we
don't alienate people on the wireless list.
Just to make it clear, there is no mandate from the Warpstock board to
hold the event in September, October, November. That is just the way it
seems to always work out. The US event can be whenever the event team
decides to have it. But a couple factors seem to always end up with it
held in the Fall.
Mostly its because of the time required to organize it. Since we never
seem to get the next one started until after Warpstock, it ends up being
about a year after. To put something together in the Summer would take a
lot of work and to start earlier on organizing it or require us to skip a
year. Every year we hope to announce the next location at the current
event but there is never any interest until after the event. But no one
seems interested in working on an event before the current one.
Then there is the issue of finding the best location deal. It seems the
Fall month's are the best time in most locales to get a good deal from
hotels. Unless you want to be in Arizona in July/August or in the Jersey
shore in January/February when those areas have what I'd guess would be
their low season. It never really matters much to me, since I rarely
leave the hotel during these events except maybe to eat. Looking at the
survey results so far, the location preferences are pretty well split,
with the East and West Coast being the the top selections, but the
preference for time of year is pretty clearly September/October. Maybe
people are just so accustomed to us holding Warpstock in the Fall, I don't
know.
At this point though unless we can figure out how to attract more people
to reverse the current attendance decline, I'm not sure how feasible it is
to take on the financial risk of future major events. This past event had
only 55 registered attendees. That is about half the 2003 event. That is
why we are asking for everyone to give us input via the survey. So far
most people who didn't attend say that the cost of travel was the main
reason they didn't come, followed by the cost of accommodations. I'm not
sure how much we can do about those two items just by the very nature of
the event. But we are willing to consider suggestions to make the event
more affordable. No matter where we hold it, most people will have to
travel. Someone asked about having a virtual Warpstock, but I just don't
see how that would work, since all the presenters are from all over and
the cost for the technology would be more then we can afford from what I
have seen. We'd have to charge about the same for internet feed as we do
for a real attendance. It also misses out on the physical connection of
people being in one place. You can't get that face-to-face contact over
the internet.
As to Warpstock Europe, I can't speak for why they always schedule their
event for within a month or so of ours. We always seem to have ours
scheduled first and they always follow closely behind. I have always felt
that this hurts both events, as I personally would love to attend the
European one, but its impossible for me to get away a few weeks after I
just went to the North American event. But you will have to talk to the
WSE folks about scheduling their event. We share the Warpstock name with
them and promote one-another's events on our web sites, but there is no
coordination beyond that.
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That in it's essence, is Fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power." Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Message proposing the Monopoly Investigation, 1938
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