When I went to NecronomiCon I was amazed at how book conventions do paneling so incredibly different from comic conventions. Book conventions come up with the panels first, then assign people to them. Comic conventions look at who's going to be there, then create appropriate panels for those guests. - ThreadSky

zackdavisson.com • 1 day ago

When I went to NecronomiCon I was amazed at how book conventions do paneling so incredibly different from comic conventions. Book conventions come up with the panels first, then assign people to them. Comic conventions look at who's going to be there, then create appropriate panels for those guests.

Reposted from Foz Meadows

re: the current Worldcon fuckery, I need someone with more concom knowledge than me to explain how usual it is or isn't for the program track leads to pre-select panelists based on existing personal knowledge rather than by vetting all applicants, with rejections then being sent *before* any vetting

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deepcuts.blog•1 day ago

I was on a panel at NecronomiCon 2019 and ended up basically taking the damn thing over because I'd done more research than the others.

zackdavisson.com•1 day ago

The panels I were on were all good, but it was weird not being allowed to pitch and develop my own panel idea and participants. A different world than I am used to.

tammylc.bsky.social•1 day ago

An important consideration here is scale. A Worldcon might have 700+ program participants and 1300+ panels and other program items. Most people are on more than one thing, and might be on many. There are many upsides to this model, but it's incredibly labor intensive on the program planners.

zackdavisson.com•1 day ago

That's a similar scale to San Diego Comic Con, and they run it the same as all comic cons I have been too. You pitch, staff, and run the panel entirely by yourself. The convention side is logistical, accepting panels and arranging times. None of the panels come from the con itself, that I know of.

tammylc.bsky.social•1 day ago

We are running that scale of program for a fraction of the attendees though. 5000-8000 people vs 135,000. It's a much more program item intense experience, and a much larger proportion of our membership are ON program items. There's very little of someone coming in just for a single panel.

zackdavisson.com•1 day ago

Huh. That's something I didn't think about. Yeah, I bet there are few attendees that are not on a panel at some point then. Whereas at SDCC there are pretty much zero regular attendees on panels. They are all the pros and stars only.

tammylc.bsky.social•1 day ago

Well, no, MOST attendees aren't on program. You'd have 800 participants and each of them is probably on a bunch of different things. But they are almost all also attending the con, not just stars who come in. And we don't limit participation only to pros, we recognize fan contribution as well.

zackdavisson.com•1 day ago

Ahhhh.... that sounds more like anime conventions. SDCC is WAY too big to allow for much in the terms of fan panels. But many anime conventions are smaller, so panels tend to be more fan-run. Exceptions for the giant 100K+ attendee cons like AnimeNYC and AnimeExpo.

terebifunhouse.bsky.social•1 day ago

I've been assigned to panels that way myself & it's always kind of jarring. I do appreciate a con having an idea as to what panels they'd like to have, but ultimately it comes down to who they have on hand and what those people's strengths are, rather than "things they wish people would talk about"

tammylc.bsky.social•1 day ago

To be fair, the list of potential program items is typically developed from participant suggestions as well as the information they provided about themselves. So it's not as disconnected as you imply. 1/2

tammylc.bsky.social•1 day ago

And these days we use opt-in systems that allow people to indicate what items they're interested in and why. Which means you never get someone saying "I don't know why I'm on this panel" - they're on it because they asked to be

zackdavisson.com•1 day ago

Comic and anime cons tend to have panels that are 100% attendee generated, staffed, and run. That was the opposite of my experience with NecronomiCon, where I wasn't allowed to pitch my own panels, but was offered a menu of available panels that I could join. So not randomly assigned, but still....

tammylc.bsky.social•1 day ago

Yep, very different mode. Our program model does solicit program ideas. Something like a lecture we would decide to run or not run. Some group panels, but rarely. Generally we look for ideas, as well as generating ideas from the people who've expressed interest in attending, then we populate them.

tammylc.bsky.social•1 day ago

The anime method is much easier and less time consuming. But this is optimizing for other things, like platforming new voices and providing the opportunity for synergies between people who don't already know each other.

terebifunhouse.bsky.social•1 day ago

the model that I'm most familiar with, both as a programmer and as a presenter, is a hybrid - the convention has guests/featured speakers that bring their own content, attendees suggesting and volunteering for panels, and convention-directed topics for which panelists are selected.

terebifunhouse.bsky.social•1 day ago

it depends on organizers familiar with the local fan community, and institutional knowledge of what worked in the past, which is hard for newer conventions, and sometimes the transient Worldcon/travelling host conventions struggle also

zackdavisson.com•1 day ago

Quite different from what I was used to at comic and anime cons. That was my one and only experience with a literary convention rather than funny books, but they told me that was typical of how panel planning was done.

It worked out fine. Good panels. Just VERY different.

zackdavisson.com•1 day ago

I was fortunate that they sent me the menu of available panels instead of just randomly assigning me. There was a Robert E Howard in Comics panel they didn't have me on, and I had to point out I literally wrote Robert E. Howard comics and that if anyone was on that panel it should be me!

zackdavisson.com•1 day ago

Right? This seems like a complete cart before horse situation...

terebifunhouse.bsky.social•1 day ago

very much so. But That's How They Did It At GropeStashCon '78, and god forbid these bold imagineers think up a better way to do things

shanembailey.com•1 day ago

You two! Talk about the biology of dung beetles! Go!

shanembailey.com•1 day ago

So it's pretty much like that?

terebifunhouse.bsky.social•1 day ago

I think the theory at the time was that hey, it's a SF convention, everybody here is a lifer, there are no casuals showing up to these things, anyone there putting themselves forward as a panelist could probably bloviate about Heinlein or Tolkien with two other guys for an hour

zackdavisson.com•1 day ago

See, and if you trapped me like that, I would be forced to talk about the only thing I know...

The mythology of dung beetles and how they were worshipped in Egypt as personifications of the sun god.

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