Kevin has been busy uploading video of the Fannish Inquisition session from last year’s SMOFcon. The material of most interest is that covering the 2011 Worldcon race. If you are not sure who to vote for, you may find this interesting. Videos below the cut.
Patty Wells speaks for the Reno bid.
Bobbie DuFault speaks for the Seattle bid.
Q&A session for both bids.
For material on other bids (Worldcons beyond 2011 and NASFiCs) see Kevin’s LiveJournal.
Hmm, I just got through Reno’s pitch but the next two report back as ‘not currently available’ when I attempt to play them. I was struck by the Reno bid’s seemingly approving mention of their non-union convention center. As a Teamster with no real knowledge of how unionization hits major conventions and how the fan and smof communities look upon labor, how should I be reading that?
FYI, the second and third videos appear to have gotten over their network woes now.
Jason:
Fan-run conventions are, as you probably know, a “do-it-yourself” community. We are much more likely going to want to do the work ourselves rather than pay someone to do it for us, because we can’t afford to spend the money if we want to keep convention memberships even vaguely affordable. (Most fan-run conventions are not organized for profit, but simply want to cover their expenses with a small reserve against contingencies.) This applies not just to the convention organizers but to the participants, including the dealers, the vast majority of whom are fans themselves.
While it may be a stereotype, the perception is that having a unionized facility means that our convention won’t be able to do anything ourselves. Dealers will have to pay huge fees for workers to cart their goods to their tables rather than being able to wheel their stuff in themselves. We won’t be able to plug in our computers to an ordinary power outlet because a Union Electrician must do it — and it will cost $500 to do so. And so forth.
It may not be the reality, but this perception that unionized labor means onerous restrictions on what we’re allowed to do is very strong and colors how conrunners approach their planning.
Jason:
I’m afraid it is pejorative. “Union” in discussion of con facilities is shorthand for “the con will be obligated to pay exorbitant amounts of money for other people to do stuff that we could normally do more efficiently ourselves” and/or “normal facilities services will be more expensive than you’d think”.
Working in a heavily unionized industry myself (though in a non-unionizable desk jockey job), I’m sympathetic to why some of those work rules exist, but the shared fannish experience is of being barred from doing perfectly reasonable-seeming things because union contracts require union personnel to do them. So unions are, unfortunately, seen mostly as a huge expensive headache.