tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-217607138934192618.post3703182386312319937..comments2019-07-14T12:26:45.720-07:00Comments on Heidi Below Zero: Thoughts on #RT14Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00691300421058126528noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-217607138934192618.post-26226663278139899222014-05-21T16:08:47.110-07:002014-05-21T16:08:47.110-07:00Fire marshals generally object to people being jam...Fire marshals generally object to people being jammed together tightly, so I have no idea what was up with that.<br /><br />About your tablemate encroaching on your space, that's something the staffers in charge of the room should've handled. Reading various accounts of the Huge Signing Thing, I get the impression that either they didn't have enough staffers, or the ones they had weren't focusing their attention and actions effectively.<br /><br />About needing to give someone barely enough space to put their elbows on the table, there's an easy fix to that. When you're planning the event, you figure out which room(s) it's going to be in, what your table layout is going to be, and how many spaces that gives you. So X number of 6' tables gives you room for 2X authors, if each gets 3' of table space. That's not even math -- it's elementary arithmetic. Once you know that, you start signing up authors. When you've filled the number of spaces you've got, you stop. See? That's easy. [sigh] Clearly the RT people didn't do this, and the horrible crowding (in one room) is the consequence. Without going into what I agree are ridiculously appropriative metaphors, I do agree with some folks that the fact that it was only the writers in the indie room who were crowded like that makes the judgement and prioritization of the organizers suspect at best. Maybe it would've been better for everyone to be a little crowded than for the big New York writers to not be crowded at all and the indie and small press writers to be crowded a lot? That would've been my choice anyway, if I'd woken up one morning and realized I'd assigned YY% more spaces than I had. [shrug]<br /><br />Someone who was there opined that the checking out of the different types of books really wasn't a big deal, and that they should've been able to divide the writers between the two rooms without segregating check-out types. Maybe an alphabetic sort, with some special genre divides as you mentioned above, would've been better, so there would've been a more even distribution of big-name NYP writers with small press and indie authors. (That would've made giving everyone the same amount of space easier, too.)<br /><br />Anyway, as someone who's worked a lot of conventions -- professional conferences as well as SF conventions -- I pin this one on the organizers. From what I've heard people complaining about, every major complaint was avoidable, if they'd cared to avoid it, and planned ahead.<br /><br />AngieAngela Benedettihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15429371768739779494noreply@blogger.com