Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2003 12:58:21 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
From: Elspeth Kovar <ekovar at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: WFC
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

At 09:26 PM 11/5/03, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>"Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu> wrote:

> > . . . & even a ghostly party . . .
>
>Since that party wasn't part of the con, people who attended it
>weren't ghosting the con.

As an aside, this has come to be enough of a problem in the meetings
industry that there's by now a word for it.  I've now forgotten what it is,
but I think of it as piggybacking.  The meeting planners do all the work,
the baseline costs are paid for by the convention, and other people or
businesses come in and take advantage of it.  The costs of this are varied,
running from straight financial to the quality of the convention.

For the Gilliland party this wasn't a problem.  Sure, I saw some WSFAns in
the consuite who weren't members of the con but WFC didn't have money
issues and there weren't enough people who weren't members to make a
difference.

On a larger scale, however, and/or for conventions that aren't as
financially secure it is a problem.  There's been a long discussion about
this in conrunning circles lately, which I won't reproduce here.  The giant
Boskones and the last Disclave are used as examples.

> > My own feelings regarding the subject is that if we want to get
> > readers to CapClave then we should go where the readers get their
> > fixes: bookstores & libraries.
>
>I slipped fliers into the two William Tenn books at the Arlington
>Central Library.  Unfortunately there aren't any William Tenn books
>at any other library or bookstore I've been to.

Keith, this is an absolutely excellent idea.  It's probably too late to do
more of this for this year -- best would be to put them into the books in
libraries quite early -- but it's something folks doing publicity for
future conventions should follow up on.

Elspeth