ChessieCon - needs help
Dec. 4th, 2022 07:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blueeowynLast weekend, Java and I went to ChessieCon. For those of you who may not know it, it is a small Science Fiction/Fantasy convention in the Baltimore area. The prime iteration of it was called Darkover and when the person who had permission to use that name died, the group had to rename it (Chessie being the Chesapeake Bay's version of Nessie).
The last in person convention was 2018 and we attended (well I did, Java spent most of his time in the room studying) though he did go to a couple of things. 2019 the hotel that had been booked got sold and the new owners pulled out. 2020 they had a new hotel but there was this pandemic going on. 2021 the pandemic was still a problem (the hotel was rented by the city due to the pandemic). There were virtual cons but they didn't have the same feel and had some small con issues.
Now we are in 2022, the con is at a new hotel but a lot of people have forgotten about it (I suspect since memberships carried to 2022, people forgot that they already had a membership). The staff is thin (and no con for 3 years means no recruiting new staff) and I think could have done a bit more in the email department (not trying to blame since I had hoped/planned to volunteer this year but...). What ended up happening is that the Con rented space (a lot of space) in the hotel but had a tiny number of people show up and some of them didn't book rooms (or shared rooms) so the con didn't meet their obligation to the hotel. For those who don't know, hotels will 'rent' their meeting space to groups for a very high rate BUT if the group books enough hotel rooms, the rate either goes way down or becomes free. Due to the tiny attendance, the con didn't rent enough hotel rooms and owes the hotel a LOT of money (which they didn't get in from few attendees and very few vendors).
The GOH helped set up a GoFundMe (https://www.gofundme.com/f/friends-of-chessiecon-unite?utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer) to raise money for the con so that they can hopefully get back on the rails and do a good con next year and come back. If you want to donate but don't want to go through Go Fund Me, you can send a check (marked donation for accounting purposes) to them directly (addrss etc. on the con membership page) https://www.chessiecon.org/chessiecon/membership/
Feel free to share as you want (entry is public)
The last in person convention was 2018 and we attended (well I did, Java spent most of his time in the room studying) though he did go to a couple of things. 2019 the hotel that had been booked got sold and the new owners pulled out. 2020 they had a new hotel but there was this pandemic going on. 2021 the pandemic was still a problem (the hotel was rented by the city due to the pandemic). There were virtual cons but they didn't have the same feel and had some small con issues.
Now we are in 2022, the con is at a new hotel but a lot of people have forgotten about it (I suspect since memberships carried to 2022, people forgot that they already had a membership). The staff is thin (and no con for 3 years means no recruiting new staff) and I think could have done a bit more in the email department (not trying to blame since I had hoped/planned to volunteer this year but...). What ended up happening is that the Con rented space (a lot of space) in the hotel but had a tiny number of people show up and some of them didn't book rooms (or shared rooms) so the con didn't meet their obligation to the hotel. For those who don't know, hotels will 'rent' their meeting space to groups for a very high rate BUT if the group books enough hotel rooms, the rate either goes way down or becomes free. Due to the tiny attendance, the con didn't rent enough hotel rooms and owes the hotel a LOT of money (which they didn't get in from few attendees and very few vendors).
The GOH helped set up a GoFundMe (https://www.gofundme.com/f/friends-of-chessiecon-unite?utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer) to raise money for the con so that they can hopefully get back on the rails and do a good con next year and come back. If you want to donate but don't want to go through Go Fund Me, you can send a check (marked donation for accounting purposes) to them directly (addrss etc. on the con membership page) https://www.chessiecon.org/chessiecon/membership/
Feel free to share as you want (entry is public)