Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
Tomorrow, April 1st 2025, we have a massively important State Supreme Court election here in the state of Wisconsin. It will decide the balance of the state supreme court, and it's vitally important that we get Susan Crawford elected. Elon Musk has literally poured millions of dollars into Brad Schimel's campaign, and we are fighting for our lives here. I've already voted, and if you haven't yet and you live here... make sure you do.
But no matter what happens tomorrow, no matter what the result is, the fight is far from over. ICE agents are grabbing people off the streets, our public institutions are being systematically destroyed, and our international and diplomatic relations with historically close allies are just, honestly, fucked right now. Today is Trans Day of Visibility, and trans and queer rights have been under steady attack by the right. As a nonbinary person and member of the trans community, I'm genuinely scared for a lot of my friends right now.
But we fight. We stand up. We survive.
If we accept defeat, we are handing victory to those who want us dead. By living and fighting, we carry on to the next day and then the day after that. I know I posted it right after the election last November, but there's a pretty famous Joe Hill quote everyone should keep in mind: "Don't waste any time mourning. Organize!"
Go out, hug your friends. Build a local community if you can, and get involved in your local politics. Make sure you call your Reps and Senators every day if you can, and for pete's sake fucking vote.
We can make it as long as we don't stop fighting.
Remember that on April 5th at 11AM Eastern/10AM Central you can join me for the Critical Thinking Witches' Collective's April Brew virtual event! Attendance is free, and you can register here!
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I’m assuming the question is ?
Looks like Jasper was named .
Curse my stupid ineptitude with tags!
Probable question: http://www.unconventional-comic.com/2010/10/closing-confusion/
Jasper named: http://www.unconventional-comic.com/2013/10/the-final-question/
Had to search the archive to find his question, though I then have to ask if it’s been a repeat issue, why not get the contract updated?
That said, I sorta hate Q&A sessions, because 90% is the same stuff that gets asked every single year. And of that, 90% is something the convention can’t do anything about.
‘The vendor hall was crowded.’ ‘So don’t go there. Then at least others don’t have to squeeze past your fat ass.’
‘You didn’t have the panel I wanted.’ ‘So run it yourself.’
‘There were two panels I wanted to see at the same time.’ ‘Join staff, set the schedule yourself.’
‘This event wasn’t run right.’ ‘Join staff, run it yourself.’
‘Parking was bad.’ ‘Ride the bus.’
‘I didn’t get to spend time with the Special Guest.’ ‘Neither did 2000 other attendees. You are not special.’
…..I might be a little bitter…
I look at the Q & A part of the closing ceremony to be the part where you make a request and the staff tells you why they can’t do that. Like you said only 10% of that is something and maybe among that, on 5% of that can get implemented. I said this a long time ago but with that said I still see the closing ceremony to be rather unproductive and to a huge extent, depressing.
Sometimes it isn’t as simple as just updating the contract. Some hotels put very specific restrictions on serving food to the public and abiding to those rules can be costly, especially if the hotel requires the con to purchase the food through its own catering services. Hotel food is usually not cheap and when push comes to shove, it makes a con suite kinda frivolous financial-wise because those funds are better spent on equipment, con space, security measures, guest fees, and other expenses.
Note, there is a huge difference between a con suite and a staff lounge. I’ve been to cons that feed staff, volunteers, and guests, but not attendees. The guest get fed via their contract and the staff/volunteers as part of a bartering system, which is a legal form of payment for services in the state I live in.
Regarding the comic though, it sounds more like this one person asking the same question every year rather than it being a repeated issue. You can’t please everyone, so sometimes it’s not realistic or doable to cater to a small group who want a specific thing.
Anthrocon did away with the Q&A in closing ceremonies years ago. It had become long, drawn-out and unproductive, and it was evident many of the people were just grabbing a moment of our chairman’s attention (he’s a popular guy).
Instead we developed an online survey to collect feedback, and keep the closing ceremony brief and positive: thanking the Guests of Honor and other notables, announcing the total amount collected for charity, total attendance and fursuit parade numbers, etc. Takes about half an hour.
Great Idea. Also by that point, everyone is tired and ready to go home. Also almost everyone is gone by then that sounds more productive.
As y’said. There were also a share of ‘I love this con *snif* *bawl*” that were sweet to hear but took up valuable time.