My LTX rant

[WiiUMasterGman]

Disclaimer: I had the time of my life meeting the people I came by and I will definitely will be back next year. (As long as it is in Vancouver)

 

My main complaint is that there wasn't enough space for everyone to go. The Vancouver Convention Centre is an absolutely huge place but BYOC took about half of the space. BYOC was mostly dead from 11-6 while the convention was open. That pretty much left half the space for 3.5k to lineup for about an hour to play some of the booths. If there was more booths and a bit more space, people would have spread out to other booths and the lines would have been shorter and you wouldn't have to try to walk through people. I'm sure BYOC was so fun when the convention was closed but my goal wasn't to go there to play games.

 

And the meet and greets. I understand that people want to talk with their favourite creators (and so do I) but I realize that other people want to meet their favourite creators and move on to do their own thing so I keep my interactions with them short and sweet. Picture and a signature. Near the end the volunteers moved people along setting a two minute time limit. Which was good and people started to move along.

 

Now even though I had to wait an hour just to shoot 5 darts at a board to get a bag and such that doesn't mean I had a great time with my friends. I just think that these early LTX's are test runs for even better and more efficient events.

[nicklmg]

23 minutes ago, WiiUMasterGman said:

And the meet and greets. I understand that people want to talk with their favourite creators (and so do I) but I realize that other people want to meet their favourite creators and move on to do their own thing so I keep my interactions with them short and sweet. Picture and a signature. Near the end the volunteers moved people along setting a two minute time limit. Which was good and people started to move along.

Yeah we learned a lot about meet and greets this year. It was our first time doing them in an official capacity, so our first implementation was pretty idealistic and less than ideal.

 

The plan for next year should be something like this:

 

- Dedicated lines for each creator from the beginning.

- Time limits from the beginning

- Way more volunteers to monitor time, ensure that no one is trying to sneak into the line, and try to provide time estimates for those entering the line(s)

 

I think these 3 things would solve the majority of the issues that we had. Great to hear that it was much smoother once we implemented the time limits this year.

 

Thanks for coming & hope we see you again next year!

[rcmaehl]

As someone who has volunteered and staffed at various conventions for 5 years, I can assure each LTX is a learning event. It's not uncommon for layouts, venues, staffing, and much more to widely change year to year due to experiences learned. There is not a singe convention I've been to that ISN'T at a base level of chaos at all time (some are better at hiding it in the background than others). All I can recommend is be vocal about what you did like and what you didn't like, just like you are now. Organizers can't be everywhere, see everything, and known everything. Feedback like this is helpful for future events!

[WiiUMasterGman]

6 hours ago, nicklmg said:

Yeah we learned a lot about meet and greets this year. It was our first time doing them in an official capacity, so our first implementation was pretty idealistic and less than ideal.

 

The plan for next year should be something like this:

 

- Dedicated lines for each creator from the beginning.

- Time limits from the beginning

- Way more volunteers to monitor time, ensure that no one is trying to sneak into the line, and try to provide time estimates for those entering the line(s)

 

I think these 3 things would solve the majority of the issues that we had. Great to hear that it was much smoother once we implemented the time limits this year.

 

Thanks for coming & hope we see you again next year!

The meet and greets were kinda all over the place. Pretty much if the creators had time they would pretty much form a line or circle around the creators for an hour (or in Luke's case 4 FREAKING hours in front of the BYOC. And the only reason he was able to leave was because he had to do the WAN show.) But once the lines for different creators came into effect and the 2 minute time limit everything started to flow and people finally got to meet their favourite creators. I'd love to volunteer but I'm not quite 18 yet so that is a no go but a smaller BYOC would be good just so even if the # of people attending got bigger at least we would have more room for everyone. I am almost certain that this LTX ran wayyy smoother then the previous ones.

[Deathtopia]

So great convention overall. May write up my own review separately. 

But I digress...

I too used to volunteer for a few big conventions in the UK and have seem quite a few different takes on the "queuing to see your favorite person"

One that may be of use to the more popular creators is a managed and timed line... So only "X" amount of people can physically queue, everyone else is given an incremental numbered slip, When your number is less than the number on display (Increment by one with every attendee seen, or multiples to ease micro) you can join the queue. 
This: - 
A: Forces people to go do other stuff,
B: Keeps the lines manageable. 

C : Gives staff the ability to cut off attendance to a guest so they can have breaks

 

This system has been used successfully with A-List celebrity's and queues of thousands... So a few hundred for a couple internet personality's should be fine. XD
 

Another suggestion, prohibit photos.... I know I know.... But I just mean at the meet and greet, have a separate time slot for a proper photo shoot, use your own gear and email the pictures across

(The trade off from losing the selfie is the attendee gets a much better photo!)
 

And lastly, as stated before. More staff... But again I worked as a Gopher so I know it can be difficult to get the numbers in. 

[WiiUMasterGman]

16 hours ago, Deathtopia said:

So great convention overall. May write up my own review separately. 

But I digress...

I too used to volunteer for a few big conventions in the UK and have seem quite a few different takes on the "queuing to see your favorite person"

One that may be of use to the more popular creators is a managed and timed line... So only "X" amount of people can physically queue, everyone else is given an incremental numbered slip, When your number is less than the number on display (Increment by one with every attendee seen, or multiples to ease micro) you can join the queue. 
This: - 
A: Forces people to go do other stuff,
B: Keeps the lines manageable. 

C : Gives staff the ability to cut off attendance to a guest so they can have breaks

 

This system has been used successfully with A-List celebrity's and queues of thousands... So a few hundred for a couple internet personality's should be fine. XD
 

Another suggestion, prohibit photos.... I know I know.... But I just mean at the meet and greet, have a separate time slot for a proper photo shoot, use your own gear and email the pictures across

(The trade off from losing the selfie is the attendee gets a much better photo!)
 

And lastly, as stated before. More staff... But again I worked as a Gopher so I know it can be difficult to get the numbers in. 

Tbh the photos didnt take too long. From what i saw people would talk for 20 mins 10 mins etc but then people would finally get told to take their photos and then they would leave. The ticketing for photos is a great idea @nicklmg

[itstimeforjonny]

Better way to hand out prizes so i did't have to give up my seat at the main stage.

[Tpbmods]

Hey everyone, I created an independent survey form that I would like to use as part of my submission proposal to apply for the Event Coordinator position. If you would like your say, I left my link below!
https://forms.gle/d2md6pHoXcEk92cX6