Running a Small Con
I have a whole document on this that I plan to port into Wiki format one of these days. Porting in progress....
Running a Small Con
- Sharon Kahn - November 1998
This document is based on the 1998 Minnstf Fall Convention (Flashback). Some items are quite specific to the time and place (e.g., price points, references to Minicon), but these tips would probably be helpful to anyone running this type of convention. Specific references to Flashback are italicized.
Flashback was conceived of as a relaxacon in the long tradition of Mnstf fall conventions. It took place over Halloween weekend, 1998, at the Northwest Inn in Brooklyn Park, and was generally considered a success. We had a little over 100 attendees, broke even, and had fun. Our budget was $1800.
Timeline
This timeline is based on the assumption that the small con in question takes place in the fall, and Minicon takes place at Easter. For cons held at a different time, adjust timeframe as appropriate.
9-12 months before con
- Find a hotel. The kind of function space we look for in a small con is not easy to come by at a reasonable price. The more flexible you can be about dates, the better. That’s why I recommend looking for the hotel before deciding on dates or Guests of Honor. We started looking in March, which was a little on the late side. We found what we wanted, but available weekends were limited by then.
- Minimal planning: Projected size, rates, written budget. We planned for a con of about 100 attendees, which is almost always achievable with a limited amount of work.
- Get board approval. Be prepared to submit a budget.
- Open a bank account, or transfer ownership of previous account. I wrote up guidelines on how to open a Minnstf bank account. The Minnstf treasurer should have a copy.
- Get GOHs, if any.
Before Minicon (6-9 months before con)
- Print up first flyers (at least 200)
- Print up registration forms
- Set up a registration database (doesn’t have to be computerized).
At Minicon (6 months before con)
- Distribute flyers
- Take pre-registrations. Shoot for about 25% of your final attendance.
Mid-summer (3-6 months before con) ongoing publicity
- Send flyers to other cons
- Set up website
- Make use of mailing lists and newsgroups
- et progressive series of announcements in Einblatt
- Talk to people.
Early fall (6-8 weeks before con)
- Final mailing: emphasize pre-reg deadline and hotel reservations
- Registration: design and print badges, buy materials needed, set up system.
- Work with hotel on a continuing basis: monitor room block, double-check contract items, get to know staff. Very important!
- Plan programming, if any.
- Buy party supplies.
- Recruit at-the-con help (registration, parties).
- Get Friday and Monday off from work.
Final week
- Hotel: go over room block one more time. Meet with night manager if you haven’t done so already.
- Get equipment you will need from Minicon Storage Locker (blog buckets, coffee-maker, smoke-eaters, leftover paper cups, leftover grenadine, etc.)
- Registration: print out pre-registered list, print out forms for at-the-door registrations, gather badge materials, make sure you have people to work registration Friday and Saturday evenings.
- Gather up signs and sign-making material
- Buy last-minute supplies
Money
Budget: Here’s how we came up with our budget for Flashback. This may not be the best methodology, but it worked for us.
What’s our target attendance? 100-150. We’ll budget for 100. How much will the hotel cost us? $600
- Main consuite: 3 nights at $100 = $300
- Smoking consuite: 2 nights at $80 = $160
- Function space: free if we make our room block
- GOH room: 2 nights at $70 = $140
How much for flyers and mailings? $250 How much should we charge?
- $25 at the door ($10 for one night)
- $15-$18 pre-reg
How much money do we expect to take in? (100 x $18) $1800 How much is left for party supplies?
- $1800 - $250 -$600 -$50 miscellaneous = $900
Is that enough for supplies for 100 people? Well, it’s in the range of $6 - $10. Okay.
Amazingly enough, we came out dead even.
If we had it to do over again
Our committee agrees that we should have charged at least $5 more for memberships to give us a little bit of slack. We underestimated Pubs and Miscellaneous a little bit, but didn’t really need $900 for Parties, so it all worked out.
Bank Account
Your convention should have its own bank account, separate from the sponsoring organization. When you’re done with it, you should close it out. The Minnstf treasurer should have a copy of the procedure for opening a Minnstf bank account. [Yeah, they should, but they don't. I wrote up the procedure once, but it has since disappeared without a trace. I keep hoping I'll find a copy of it somewhere. -- sharon]
Hotel - the most important factor
What to tell the hotel when you call
- Planning a convention for 100-200 people.
- Use Minnstf name - mention Minicon - they've probably heard of it.
- Be as flexible as possible about dates - any time from September to early November. Ask if there are any weekends that are usually not busy. We got a great deal by taking Halloween weekend, a very slow weekend for our hotel.
Requirements
- 1) 2 hospitality suites (close to each other). One will be used for smoking, and one for non-smoking (important to mention, in case they have entire floors zoned non-smoking). One hospitality suite is defined as: 1-3 interconnected rooms that will comfortably accomodate a total of 50 people. Some possibilities are:
- 1-3 interconnected bedrooms, but only if beds can be removed from some of the rooms (there's usually a charge for that - check).
- 2 3-room parlor suites, either on the same floor or one above the other.
- 2 or 3 cabana suites by a pool
- One large, multi-room suite like the 8th floor of Plaza Tower at the Rad would be ideal, as long as there is at least one door so you can close off the smoking area.
- Enclosed courtyard surrounded by blocked rooms. This worked great for Flashback.
- 2) No corkage fee. Specifically, we are allowed to serve as much food and drink as we want in our hospitality suite. This might include kegs of beer and even a pop machine.
- 3) Parties will run late. There might be loud musice. We will work with hotel to make sure this isn't a problem, but want them to be aware of this.
Other things to consider
- Function space, if needed. Should be located convenient to hospitality suite. Typically, 1 large room (900+square feet) or 1-2 smaller rooms.
- Pool, preferably with gathering space around it. Extended hours? Private party?
- Parking. (Cost? Availability? What about non-guests?)
Negotiating points
No need to go into these details on first phone call.
- Trade room block for free or reduced-cost consuite and/or function space.
- Reduced room rate. Get this as an absolute, not tied to making room block.
- Pool/hot tub - extended hours?
- Free ice, in bathtub-sized quantities.
- Might consider some limited catering, or even a banquet, in return for free function space. However, this is not usually cost-effective, so be wary of even bringing it up.
Parties (the heart of the con)
- Budget (in 1998 dollars)
$6-10/attendee (for the weekend). More food/drink will be consumed per attendee than at a larger con, because everybody is in the consuite.
Blog Recipe: as given by Gin Nelson in Rune #77
1 Large Frozen Can (12 oz) each of : Orange Juice, Lemonade, Limeade 6 oz Grenadine 4 quarts Ginger Ale Ice, lots 12 oz Vodka
Pop
Tip: 2-liter bottles are generally much cheaper than cans, except for humungous sales
- Conservative estimate: 4 12-oz cans per attendee
- Equivalent to: 48 oz/attendee (24 oz/day)
- for 100 attendees: 73 2-liter bottles or 33 12-packs
We had approximately the expected attendance, but ran short on pop.
Beer/hard cider
- Estimate: 2 12-oz cans per attendee
- Equivalent to: 24 oz/attendee (12 oz/day)
- 100 attendees: 16 12-packs = 8 cases
- Actual: We bought 4-6 cases of beer and the equivalent of 1-2 cases of hard cider. All the hard cider was consumed, but we had almost 2 cases of beer left over. YMMV. It wasn’t a beer drinking crowd.
Other alcohol
- 2 5-liter boxes of wine. Lots left over
- Blog (with vodka): We made 2 or 3 batches.
Other non-alcoholic beverages
- 10 gallons apple juice (Rick found a deal: $1/gallon). About half was consumed.
- One half-gallon orange juice, a little bubbly water.
Ice
- Plan on replenishing ice at least twice per day, ideally more often than that.
- Hotels usually charge for bulk ice. Find out how much, and make sure they will have quantities on hand when you need it. This is the most convenient, but most expensive.
- Cheaper alternative - buy bulk ice from a commercial ice dealer. If you buy enough at one time, they will even deliver for free (but that’s a LOT of ice!).
- Three 35-pound bags pretty much fills a hotel bathtub. You can get four bags in if you really want to. We paid less than $20 for that amount at Anytime Ice
Publications
Flyers
You will probably need two draw up two or three flyers during the course of publicizing your event. Be sure to include the date, location, membership rates, hotel info and contact information. Flyers can be distributed at conventions, club meetings, bookstores, or franked through APAs (rules permitting).
Mailings
The most important mailing should go out about 6 weeks before the con, and should stress:
- The pre-registration cutoff date (and how to register before that date)
- Hotel information, including location, phone number, convention room rate (and how to get the hotel to give you that rate), and the cutoff date after which our room block will be released. If the hotel is likely to be full at convention time, or if you are in danger of falling far short on your room block, be sure to mention the importance of getting registered ASAP.
Mailing list
If possible, piggyback your mailing onto a clubzine mailing. If you can’t do that, start early thinking about where you are going to get your mailing list database from, and remember to budget for postage. Unless you are sending more than 500 pieces of mail, don’t even consider bulk mail. TIP: for an extra $.02 per flyer, Kinko’s will tri-fold them for you. It’s well worth it, since folding takes longer than stamps and mailing labels. A mailing of 300 pre-folded flyers can be done by 2 people in a couple of hours (assuming a computerized database and somebody that knows how to generate mailing labels from that database).
We planned to include our mailing with an Einblatt, but that didn’t work out. This led to last minute scrambling to get hold of the Einblatt mailing-list database, import it into Microsoft Works, and figure out how to generate mailing labels in an unfamiliar database.
Program Book
Most small conventions don’t have program books unless they are intensively programming-oriented (e.g., Diversicon, Reinconation). Even then, you can probably get by without one by posting the programming schedule prominently. If you plan to have a program book, be sure to budget for the expense and keep it simple (e.g., one folded sheet of paper).