Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 16:39:49 -0500 (EST) From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net> To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org> Cc: leeandalexis at hotmail.com Subject: [WSFA] Notes from Capclave's Gripe Session Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org> It occurs to me that I never actually did anything with the notes I took at Capclave's gripe session, such as print them in the WSFA Journal. I can print them next month if there's any interest. Meanwhile, here they are. As always, I eagerly solicit additions and corrections. ----- The Capclave 2004 gripe session was held at 2 pm on Sunday, October 17th, 2004 in the McLean room on the 2nd floor of the Tysons Marriott, at Tysons Corner, Virginia. (This was the room used for all panels.) Six people were behind the table: WSFA President Sam Lubell, Capclave 2004 Chair Lee Gilliland, Capclave 2005 Chair Mike Walsh, Capclave 2006 Chair Elspeth Kovar, Scott Hofmann, and WSFA Secretary Keith Lynch. About ten people were in the audience, though people came and left. We had about 200 people at the con, of whom 126 had paid memberships. It's not clear whether this counts the 15 dealers. Cathy Green suggested having more tracks of programming. Someone suggested returning to last year's hotel in Silver Spring. Mike said they are willing, but want too much money. Also, they would prefer to host us the last weekend before Thanksgiving, which is likely to result in a poor turnout. Gary Blog said Philcon may move to November. (It's currently in December.) Mike prefers to keep Capclave in October. Perrianne Lurie said this hotel is "grungy," and it's "hard to mingle". Elspeth suggested that we set up a "town square" for mingling. Gary prefers this hotel to the one in Silver Spring. Sam Lubell said the film program was almost empty, perhaps because it wasn't mentioned in the program book. Someone suggested running the film program only at night, and using that room for additional panels in the daytime. Sam said the kaffeeklatsches worked well, and had ten to fifteen people each. Mike Walsh said several people objected to the chlorine smell around the pool. Perrianne objected to the con suite closing at midnight, rather than staying open later. Lee said that was Kat Morrison's call. Cathy said that nobody responded to a call for volunteers. Keith objected that he had. Gary said some parties were held away from the pool. Someone pointed out that the rasff party was away from the pool since its hostess needed a handicapped accessible room, and because she didn't like the chlorine smell. Keith said that a hotel employee unlocked the dealer room at 6:30 am that (Sunday) morning, and that a few minutes later a lost hotel guest wandered in. Fortunately, Keith was still up, and had the hotel staff re-lock the doors. Rebecca Prather said she liked this hotel better than Silver Spring's because everything was on one floor. (True, except for the green room.) Alexis Gilliland said we should mail fliers to the book dealer Larry Smith. He felt he had too little information about Capclave. Ben Yalow said we were just one week after Albacon, an annual con in Albany, NY. Someone pointed out that it's hard enough to avoid outright conflicts, let alone near misses. Perrianne suggested that we might move to Easter, now that Balticon has moved from Easter to Memorial Day (which was Disclave's old weekend). Sam thanked Lee, and invited everyone to return next year.