Sample GoH Letter

Guest,

This email is about your upcoming Guest of Honor appearance at Minicon NN, and about appearing on programming panels. Minicon will be Month, Days, Year, in Bloomington, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. This email contains information about what to expect at our convention, and some early programming suggestions.

Will you be traveling with a companion? If so, is your companion interested in participating in programming?

We plan to include the following in your schedule:

   8:00PM - 10:00PM Thursday - Meet-and-greet with the other Guests of Honor and our Convention Committee

   7:00PM Friday - Opening Ceremony

   4:00PM Sunday - Closing Ceremony

(If Artist) 5:30PM - Friday Art Show Reception - Meet The Artists

Our programming panels are typically one hour long with a half hour break in between. We rarely schedule Guest of Honor panels back-to-back. This is to allow for meal breaks and down time.

If any of your breaks should be at a specific time, feel free to let us know. While we do have a stipend for meals during the convention, we also have a Consuite, and a Programming Green Room with sandwich fixings, fruits, vegetables, salty snacks, and sweet snacks. If you have any dietary restrictions that we should be aware of (vegetarian, kosher, diabetic...), we would be happy to make sure that something is available for you. In addition, if you have snacking preferences, we will make an effort to have those available. We also have a Minicon Bar which serves beer, wine, and Minicon Blog (a traditional Minicon punch, served with or without alcohol). Kaffeeklatches, or in some cases BeerKlacthes typically take place adjacent to the Minicon Bar. If you would like to participate in a Kaffeklatch or a Beerklatch, please let us know your preferences and we will try to make that beverage available.

Regarding programming items - With your permission, we’ll plan to schedule the (If Artist - live demonstration, If Musician - performance, If Author - reading and signing) a Guest of Honor interview, and three to five additional panels specifically devoted to your interests. You will receive an email from our programming department in late October that includes items brainstormed with you in mind. If you'd like to suggest anything beforehand, please feel free.

Our "Kid's Programming" track is always happy to have Guest suggestions and willing participation. All kid's programming events (of course) will include our own child wranglers. Popular past events have included "Design An Alien" crafts, bedtime stories, "How To Draw A Dragon," and sing-alongs.

(If non-music GoH) We understand that you have an interest in music (filk, folk, whatever). You are welcome to perform a concert if you'd like.

We're all very excited that you're coming, and we look forward to meeting you!

Respectfully, NAME, GOH HEAD CC: NAME, MINICON CHAIR

October Programming email should include the following:

If you would like any Audio Visual equipment to be available for any of your programming items, please let us know what you'd like. If a projector will be necessary, please let us know what sort of hookups we should be prepared for.

Please feel free to suggest any modifications to these titles or descriptions. In addition to these suggested panels, we also have a much larger list of panel suggestions at our Programming Brainstorming page at THIS YEAR'S BRAINSTORMING PAGE LINK. Please feel free to let us know if any of those panels would be more suited to your preferences, or if there is an entirely different topic that you'd like to discuss. If there's a panel topic of discussion that you've always wanted to do but has never been suggested, we'd love to include it.

Respectfully, NAME, PROGRAMMING HEAD CC: NAME, GOH HEAD