This was the panel that I most wanted to attend at SMOFcon. Indeed, I wanted to attend it so much that I turned down the opportunity to be on the Social Media panel that, bizarrely, was scheduled against it. Here’s a brief summary for those of you who were not following my tweets.
The panel started quite badly with the panel essentially moaning about how convention members always want more and more out of a con and it is harder and harder to keep them happy. Well duh! What did you expect? That people would ask for less next year? But also it isn’t entirely true. There are some things that convention members used to regard as essential but are now going away. Progress reports was the example that immediately occurred to me. Kevin came up with film programs.
Fortunately the panel quickly realized that they knew a lot less than the audience about the topic, and Bobbi Armbruster proceeded to moderate the event as a mass workshop. Most of the discussion then focused on that old debate of if/how conventions need to market themselves. There were the usual stale conversations about how young people today are X, Y and Z. Mark Olson made a magnificent comment about how you know you are getting old when you find yourself saying, “young people today are not the same as they were in my day.” They are, of course. The characteristic of young people is that they think the old fogies have it all wrong and everything must change. The characteristic of old people is that they think young folks will destroy all that they hold dear. This pattern repeats endlessly.
As Mark rightly said, the big change between then and now is that science fiction has been accepted by mainstream popular culture. As a result, there are now many large and successful commercial events devoted to science fiction, and many more people with a passing interest in it (but not necessarily a passion for it). The challenge for us is to adapt to that situation.
Marketing is something that fans are not good at. I heard a few people say that they had tried to market their convention and it had not worked so they assumed it was a waste of time. I suspect they were just doing it wrong. Alternatively they may have expected a much higher return than is reasonable. If you attend a 20,000 person commercial convention and sell 20 memberships that might be a very good conversion rate. It may be a poor return on the investment for you, but if you have reached 20 people, many of whom who will become new fans and attend conventions for the rest of their lives, that’s a good thing to have done.
One of the most important things about marketing is to identify your target market and appeal to it. I’m indebted to Michael from Arizona who made the very salient point that much of what people used to go to conventions for — meeting and talking to fellow fans, buying special-interest merchandise — can now be done much more effectively online. What conventions need to do is identify things that can’t be done online and provide them.
An example that Michael came up with is posing space for cosplay people (from both anime and steampunk fandom). What those folks want (and see any of my Finncon reports for examples) are safe spaces where they can see and be seen. They don’t necessarily want to enter a masquerade. Many of them are teenage girls who are very shy and non-competitive, but they will be very grateful for somewhere they can go to be in costume. I note that this is a very low maintenance activity.
A point I found it necessary to make is that conventions do not scale linearly. The percentage of members who will be willing to help run a 200 member convention is much higher than the percentage of members who will be willing to help run a 2000 member convention. But equally those 200 members are much higher maintenance than the additional 1800 who attend the bigger event. By the time you get to a 20,000 member convention most of the members want very little from the event. The assumption that a 10,000 person Worldcon would be twice as hard to run, and need twice as many volunteers, as a 5,000 person event is quite wrong.
Of course if you insist on sticking to a philosophy of only wanting your convention attended by people who show the level of commitment that SMOFcon attendees show then you certainly don’t want 2,000 members, let alone 20,000, but that’s slightly different discussion.
At the end of the panel I managed to get a plug in for online conventions such as Flycon (and thanks to Ruth Sachter for mentioning Bittercon). Those sort of things may well be more the future of conventions for many people. We didn’t have any time to discuss them (and it looked like none of the panel even knew such things existed), but I did at least get in a plea for conventions to be less defensive about people trying to report from their events. Positive reports (such as the mass of happy blogging we got from World Fantasy last month) are really good marketing material.
I should add thanks here to Karen Meschke, the chair of SMOFcon 27, who was very supportive of what Kevin and I were doing in covering her event.
December 7th, 2009 at 7:50 am
Hmmm. I agree with a lot here but disagree with the point about film programme. That is to say ‘yes’ a number of cons have dropped the film programme (or only have token, poorly chosen films) because they say you can see the films on cable/satellite, high definition at home…
Well actually no, you can’t. There is a heck of a lot of stuff out there that simply does not make it to the terrestrial channels or the main cable and satellite packages. OK, occasionally after a while once a small independent or foreign film has acquired a minor cult status then (a few years later) you may see them.
So for this reason we now have SF film fests. In the UK the Festival of Fantastic Flms has just had its 20th anniversarry (started by a couple of UK Eastercon conrunners by the way) and Sci-Fi London is going from strengh to strength and is now advertsing its ninth one. Meanwhile next door in Frnace there are two great fantastic film fests one of which Utopiales is effectively part of a book and arts SF con and neither half of the event seems to suffer from the mixing of genre formats.
So what happens with cons who do drop films? Well fans’ wallets/purses are only so big. If cons drop decent film programming then they will do less cons that also do books in order to get their film fixes elsewhere.
I short I do very much agree with “What conventions need to do is identify things that can’t be done online and provide them.” But go further, identify what people want and cannot _easily_ get elsewhere.
Access to authors, access to independent and foreign SF films, and accesses to like-minded souls for socialising. Add in the specialist merchandise (people still shop) for both and voila.
Of course there are specialist cons for TV shows but my points are addressed to the fan with a broader interest in the genre.
So yes, some cons have dropped things like films. If they still get the numbers attending then fine. If not then more fool them, don’t grumble about declining numbers or greying attendance.
PS. By the way the Worldcon turning its back on films is reflected in the quality of the nominations for Best-Dramatic Presentation Long Form. Compare the SF films that win two three of the major SF film prizes and the Hugo Best Dramatic nominations and the overlap is not that strong with the Hugo tending to nominate Hollywood block busters and ignoring independents or films from elsewhere.
It’ll be therefore interesting to see how the British independent _Moon_ does in next year’s Hugos. If it is even nominated that will be something.
December 7th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Jonathan: Briefly first on the shopping, I can find a much better selection of specialist merchandise online than in any convention dealers’ room. Conventions are only useful for shopping if I want to see the goods before buying.
As to films, a very interesting comment that provided Kevin and I with a good topic for breakfast conversation.
On a general level, it remains true that a large convention that fails to provide, say, professional child care, mobility scooters or wifi will get yelled at by large numbers of members, but one that fails to provide a film program will not. From that point of view, demand for film programs has dropped off, because 20 years ago a film program was seen as a necessity.
The interesting question is whether conventions have, as you say, turned their back on film, or whether convention fans have lost interest.
Clearly there is a demand for science fiction film conventions – ScFi London proves that. But did that demand exist 20 years ago, and if so were the people who demand it attending conventions?
Here’s what we think happened. Firstly much of the demand for film programming at conventions was demand for the sort of Hollywood blockbuster that you disdain. The primary reason why LACon II was the best attended Worldcon ever is that it was the first venue anywhere to show all three original Star Wars films back-to-back. Nowadays anyone can have that experience in the comfort of their own home any time they want (and on a much better screen than they could in 1984).
Did genuine film buffs attend conventions back then? Yes, of course they did, but perhaps not in sufficient numbers to complain loudly about dropping of the film program. Also that fact that most fans could get the films they wanted on video would have discouraged them from supporting any such complaints.
An additional complication was a change in the way film programs had to be run. Before the days of home video there were film rental companies who would supply the films and take care of all of the licensing issues for you. With the rise of home video such companies went out of business. The fans running film programming tended to be unwilling to jump through the legal hoops necessary to show videos legally, and convention management tended to be unwilling to take legal risks.
So I think you are right, there is still a place for a specialist film program at conventions. However, it needs someone like Louis Savy to help run it, and it isn’t something that will get the support of the “its not fair” crowd the way the lack of mobies or child care will. I’m very much hoping that the 2014 Worldcon bid will work with Louis to produce something spectacular.
As for the Hugos, I could make very similar comments about the sort of popular fiction from big publishers that gets nominated at the expense of quality works from small presses. But I’ll be nominating Moon, and hopefully sufficient other people will too.
December 7th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
“…what people used to go to conventions for — meeting and talking to fellow fans, buying special-interest merchandise — can now be done much more effectively online. What conventions need to do is identify things that can’t be done online and provide them.”
What’s interesting to note is that BlizzCon (a convention centered around Blizzard Entertainment’s online games) attracts record numbers of fans. Their fans can obviously get their socializing done online (and even in games) but in it’s first year BlizzCon attracted 5,000 people and in August 2009 they attracted 20,000 attendees.
Looking at a con like BlizzCon might help people to find out what people are looking for from a con that they can’t simply get online.
December 7th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Jonathan:
As a counterexample on Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form, consider Pan’s Labyrinth, which mainly played in art theaters (at least in the US). Looking at the winners since the BDP split, I wouldn’t exactly call Serenity or Stardust headline-grabbing Hollywood blockbusters either. So I wouldn’t worry about Moon getting on the ballot.
That said, I agree with your main point that a lot of fans still don’t manage to catch the less-widely-distributed movies, and a film or video room can be a great asset when used to showcase them. But I also agree with the original post that it doesn’t seem to be on the list of essentials anymore.
December 9th, 2009 at 6:15 am
Petrea -
_Pan’s Labyrinth_ was made by a director with a huge Hollywood profile Guillermo del Toro and almost instantly had cult status with good DVD sales in N.America. I grant you this sort of film is about as close to the exception as you’ll get and even so — as said — the director is BIG in Hollywood.
You may not exactly call _Serenity_ a ‘Hollywood blockbuster’ (to quote my comment) but it came out of Hollywood, was a spin off from a TV series, and made HUGE DVD sales in the US. So it is hardly a non-US, independent.
_Stardust_ was a shoe in for a Hugo nomination as it was based on the novel of a well known SF author who is known at Worldcons and even was recently a Worldcon GoH. And yes, that too came out from Hollywood.
Next….
(Oh, and by the way I was making a general point. I hope nobody actually thinks I meant _every_ film nominated was a Hollywood big film as opposed to a non-US independent. Of course there will be a few exceptions but these ones ain’t them.)
However it will be interesting to see if _Moon_ does make it.
When we poll our crew for the best films of the year we try to include a mix of Hollywood which we think may get nominated for a Hugo and also other independents and non-US titles. This wasy we cater for casual SF film lovers as well as the more discerning cinematic SF buffs. See our recommendations for best SF films for last year.
And yes, it is not on the list of essentials for a Worldcon (or a UK natcon) which is exactly my point why SF film fests have come into being (as I said in the UK case the longest running one was started by some UK natcon organisers as other UK natcon groups ditched films and so fandom splits — most famously this side of the pond the Eastercon split into 2 Eastercons (the Elydore split) and this was actively attributed to Eastercons on the early 1990s _solely_ focussing on books to the point were TV and cinema fans were actively subjected to rudeness from (a very tiny minority of) book fans.
It was a very shameful episode in British fan history, but there you go.
To return to Cheryl’s original post. It is likely that fandom will continue to fragment in the future so that things like the Worldcon Hugos will have diminshed relevance to these other groups. Some convention’s constiuents will dwindle and age and others will grow and attract the young. Overall more people of all ages enjoys SF in one form or another than ever before. If fans are part of a greying dwindling constituency then they will have to look very hard at what they offer and consider as essentials. However I suspect that some may find this difficult to contemplate.
December 9th, 2009 at 6:23 am
Cheryl
Shopping. Cheryl what you dsay is true about finding things. What you say is not true about the way people shop. Check the market polls as to why people shop online and in bookshops. The Booklovers did one recently.
http://www.thebookseller.com/in-depth/feature/100814-survey-says—.html
‘Finding things’ does not equal ‘how people shop’.
Films demand didn’t exist 20 years ago. Really, I guess my being at the Festival of Fantastic Films 20th anniversary (set up by former Eastercon organisers) was my imagination… Hang on, didn’t I say that in my post above?
December 9th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Jonathan: The article you point to is about the general behaviour of general book readers. It says nothing about the behaviour of people looking for specialist items that they cannot find in a local store and may find either online or at a convention.
Obviously my personal experience may not be typical, but I can tell you for certain that many of the books I want to buy are available online but are not available in convention dealers’ rooms. I’ll buy books in shops if I can find them, but I don’t go to conventions to buy books.
Oddly enough I didn’t say that film demand didn’t exist 20 years ago. In fact I said that 20 years ago a film program was seen as a necessity at a convention.
December 9th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Pan’s Labyrinth was released on DVD (according to Amazon) on May 15, 2007, well after the Hugo nomination period ended, so its availability on DVD doesn’t matter, and I respectfully submit that a director’s popularity inside Hollywood means squat to the majority of Hugo voters.
Certainly Stardust had extra visibility to Hugo voters, just as Serenity was helped by the hardcore Joss Whedon fans who seem to vote for anything he touches. But your argument earlier seemed to be that only something with massive mainstream attention could win a Hugo, and I was responding to that.
To see Pan’s Labyrinth, I had to get to my local independent art theater during the one and only weekend it was playing there. Moon played at a multi-screen chain-owned theater for weeks and weeks. It’s also gotten tons more attention both inside and outside the sf community. It’s also got better-known actors. No worries!
December 9th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
FYI, Moon was showing on the plane when I flew out here in October.
December 10th, 2009 at 7:51 am
Oh dear, you guys are picking up on a couple of specifics and not the general points. Can I gently repeat…
“(Oh, and by the way I was making a general point. I hope nobody actually thinks I meant _every_ film nominated was a Hollywood big film as opposed to a non-US independent. Of course there will be a few exceptions…”
Please also can I clarify that I am referring to the big US studios dominating Hugos and not necessarily independents and non-US films that make it big (not necessarily ‘mainstream’). Just for fun as a prediction I cited _Moon_ as it has won a few awards at SF film fests this year in mainland Europe, and is a UK independent film, so it will be kind of interesting to see whether or not it gets a Hugo nomination in 2010 and if it does will it win (almost certainly I bet not).
We can argue forever (if you must) about _Pan’s Labyrinth_ but the director was very well known as a rising star in big US studios before 2006 and was known by SF film buffs if only for his work on _Hellboy_ (2004) and so also by SF comics fans. I grant you this film (in the spectrum of type of films ‘typically’ (which does not mean ‘always’) nominated for the Hugo has far more of an artsy independent flavour to it. And yes there are these exceptions: the nomination of _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_ was another welcome Hugo nominated film of this ilk.
Indeed with this example in mind, some fans of note seem to have in the passed intentionally or not echoed my point, or have I got this wrong too… For example see this link here.
Re: Amazon DVD — surprised it came out so late. You sure as to which edition? The market sees early high-priced DVD editions replaced with lower priced ones after about a year-ish. But you may be right. As said I was making a general point.
To get back to this point. Why do people go to SF cons as this relates to the question of the future of cons. (Remember this was what the post was about.) There are those into SF books and there are those into SF in other formats. Some are into books first and other formats second. And some the other way around. Many SF cons — as it was so rightly pointed out in the original post — used to have films. These have gone from some major cons or alternatively are poorly represented, and so, as I was pointing out, those who feel that films are a sufficiently important part of their con experience will tend to go with them. In my own case I used to go to three book and film SFcons a year. These days I go to one UK SF book con, one or two film fests, and an overseas SF con. Others will respond differently. The point is, is that some cons that are now largely only SF book cons have lost numbers and are greying. To me this is not at all surprising. And even when cons do have some claim to other formats (such as the Worldcon) they do seem to be not quite in step with the films on offer that are picking up prizes at SF film fests internationally.
Now of course I coould be wrong. In which case the question that needs answering is why some major cons are finding it difficult to grow just a little and why are they greying?
Cheryl — My sincere apologies. I was commenting on your “Clearly there is a demand for science fiction film conventions – ScFi London proves that. But did that demand exist 20 years ago, and if so were the people who demand it attending conventions?” Which I thought I had previously addressed with “In the UK the Festival of Fantastic Films has just had its 20th anniversary (started by a couple of UK Eastercon conrunners by the way) and Sci-Fi London is going from strength to strength and is now advertising its ninth one.” Sorry for my not being clearer. I hope you now get my drift. If not then let’s forget blogging and chat over a drink at a con sometime (NZ or Aus probably) as this is getting a tad daft.
Re: Books. Well at least the discussion recognises that people shop differently. Now let’s relate this to the dealers room. The fact that dealers are prepared to hire tables and spend their con dealing suggests that it must be worth their while (and yes before anyone says it some cons the dealers do better than at other cons… Can we please not knitpick over specific instances. Life is varied.) So if we accept the premise that dealers consider it worthwhile then we have to accept the hypothesis that there are enough fans who value the dealers hall not just to browse but to buy to make it worthwhile for the said dealers. In shoret, there is still a market despite the on-line options.
Personally, and I know this is just me and I may be an exception, but I always browse the dealers hall and nearly always by a few books. Indeed those cons who have the foresight of putting links on their web pages as to the dealers who have signed up are to my mind really helpful as I then pre-order some titles (especially if I am going overseas or there is an overseas dealer coming to the UK).
Yes I dare say I could order these on-line but — along with many book buyers (see aforementioned trade surveys) — I like shops (and I certainly like supporting specialist SF bookshops) and use the web just to see what’s around.
Phew… Was that a marathon or what. I guess I am not suited to blog commenting.
To sum up, and get back to the original pot.
I guess what we need to do is to somehow get a handle on what sort of size cans we want in the future and what emphasis we want. Having decided that we then need to see what attracts folk to different types of con and ascertain which types of con-going fan is wanted at our cons of the future. One of the (number) of things I think will attract folk is a decent single film stream. (And yes hiring films is different these days but not difficult: SF film cons (Fests) do it all the time plus there is far more genuinely free and good stuff out there albeit obscure but then your convention’s tame film buff will seek that out.) So some cons have lost films. I also contend that losing the dealers hall would be a retrograde step. It’s a question of death by a thousand cuts (well a dozen or so anyway). No one single factor will determine the SF con of the future but a mix. The trick is to accurately (without personal prejudice) determine what attracts certain fans to certain cons and then build on that.
Well thhat’s what I think anyway, but I may be wrong.
Hope someone can take this discussion in a new direction.
All best
December 10th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Jonathan:
I always try to find something to buy in the dealers’ room to thank them for attending. The question I’m asking myself is, if a con had no dealers’ room, would people still attend? What I’m looking for are the “can’t get it anywhere else” things.
December 12th, 2009 at 7:20 am
Yes, I feel that way and wonder too.
I have been mulling over the question of the future of cons and this dialogue.
There seem to be some resonants with the Beeching railway cuts of 1963. Yes, I know it sounds odd but bear with me… Back then Beeching reported that only the main rail lines were being used profitably and so he recommended that Britain cut many of the branch, minor local lines.
Big mistake.
It turned out that these less profitable lines (and some uneconomic ones) were feeding into the main highly profitable lines and were actually responsible for making them so profitable.
Book room, film prog etc may be minority interests at things like the Worldcon and UK Eastercon these days but perhaps they (could) attract enough to keep the attending mix dynamic, the numbers up etc.(?) (I hypothesise only.)
Ditto Progress Reports. A hard copy of a prog report seen by a friend or appearing at a local SF group meeting, or available at another con, can might encourage them to join?
The thing is we loose elements of a con at our peril. Yes, that con may be easier to run but if fewer (and especially fewer young folk) are attracted then who loses out in the long run?
I have to say that while I am active (I think) within SF, the British Eastercon has largely lost its attraction for me (and nearly all my scores of SF friends whom I see elsewhere each year). It used to be the annual gathering of the UK SF clans (where you could see what other interest groups were doing) but these days largely seems to be a gathering of elderly book readers. (Don’t get me wrong: I love SF books but I like some SF graphic novels, love films, and am curious about other areas of the genre even if I have insufficient interest to actually participate. The 2008 Eastercon at Heathrow seemed different (I dropped in for the day) and was amazed by its size (numbers attending) _and_ the size and _breadth_ of programme. My understanding that )Odyssey2010 will be similar. I have fully signed up for that.
Maybe there is hope?
December 12th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Jonathan:
Let me see, we began with a panel complaining that people are demanding more and more from conventions these days. I noted that there are a few things that used to be seen by members as necessities but are no longer seen as such. And from this you somehow conclude that conventions are deliberately cutting out things that most members want. I appreciate that not everyone gets to attend as many different conventions as I do, but can I suggest that treating Eastercon as typical might not be a good idea?
December 14th, 2009 at 6:57 am
“I noted that there are a few things that used to be seen by members as necessities but are no longer seen as such.”
Who says they “are no longer seen as such”?
My point is is that if it is the organisers and not the attendees and the organisers are wrong then the attendees will vote with their feet. I cite the UK Eastercon as an example of an ageing con. Ditto Worldcon. There are plenty of other cons that have a younger and larger attendance. I _agree_ that Eastercon is not typical in the UK but it is meant to be our natcon. It no longer is consider to be a welcome gathering of the UK SF clans (which used to be its atypical but useful role and USP) and its future (the Future of Conventions is the title of this post) is going to be interesting cos at some point the grey folk are going to die.
The has to be a reason (reasons) for people to want to go to cons. They must have their clearly perceived USPs and raison d’etre otherwise they are sunk. Those that do will swim.
December 14th, 2009 at 8:11 am
Who says they “are no longer seen as such”?
This is very simple. If a convention reduces a particular aspect of service and everyone yells about how unhappy they are then attendees in general are clearly unhappy. If, on the other hand, they hardly notice the change, then we have to conclude that they are not particularly concerned. The fact that YOU have noticed a change and are unhappy about it does not prove a general point. The world does not revolve around you.
Much of what you say about the need to appeal to younger audiences is correct. It has no particular relevance to the point I was making in this post. Kindly take your trolling elsewhere.
December 14th, 2009 at 8:26 am
OK.