The short review of how SNAFU Con 2013 went: Amazingly smooth.

And now, the long of it (every memory I still have about con). . . This took me so long to write that when I finally considered myself finished, I read over it and had actually already forgotten some of it and was reminding myself as I read. This is primarily for my benefit because my memory is crap and this was a wonderful year that I want to remember forever, but you are welcome to read it and know what happened 2013 from my perspective. This is just about everything I experienced, and some info I received from hearsay (minus the very few things I can’t or won’t discuss with non-upper-staffers).

So I pulled an all-nighter on Wednesday to get things done for con. I had several people here to assist in completing things – Sammich, Thomas, Ryan, Origami. It was a packed house because of all the SNAFU supplies. Origami spent the night soldering. Ryan spent the night working on the video programming. Thomas and Sammich worked on the reg system. I spent the evening on odds and ends and management of the group. I printed a lot of signs, forms, schedules, contracts, etc. and organized them.

The morning came and we had to rush out. We had to pick up the tables before 1pm, which meant we needed to get the truck early. Picking up the truck early was a bit of a problem since the truck they were going to give us wasn’t going to be available until noon. So, they upgraded our truck from a 16’ to a 24’ at no cost. We loaded the vehicles and everyone went on for Thursday setup. Sam and I arrived for the truck at 11:30 – not terribly early, but early enough that we got the 24’ truck.

From there we got our tables and logistics went to work. From the time I arrived at the GSR I would not see the outside again until Monday when we were going to return the tables and the truck.

I really don’t remember much about setup. I know I moved the chairs to AA, assisted in reg a bit, and spent a lot of time talking with Liz. While we were dragging in tables and chairs we kept looking at the stage. It was deeper than it was wide and no one on the main stage crew thought that was right. Nathan arrived and we discussed it with him and Liz. She managed to talk people into making the stage wider on each side and we didn’t even get charged for it. That was such a relief. IMO the size of the stage this year was great. I think we should keep it to what the new size was from here on out.

Nathan had to leave to go to work, so I spent quite a while talking with Liz while she handled the stage issue and just talked. Several people from Reg were waiting for me for at least 30 minutes while we spoke with Liz. When I finally got to help the reg team, I was shortly pulled away to set up the vendor area. I then ended up leading a small team of people in setting up the vendor area. All the spaces needed to be marked, which required a lot of measuring, the tables needed to be placed, and the tax forms needed to be distributed. After vendors was set up I disappeared to check in the staff rooms.

Chris was in my room, and Fazio was in a staff room and both were around and wanted in. I was running later than usual because of vendor setup and whatnot. SSSoooo, as soon as I could I went upstairs to check in. They wanted a credit card which was no problem, but they wanted to put a $50 per night per room hold on it which was a problem. What? Why would they be doing that? The way we’d handled this in the past was I paid for the rooms and then if ANYONE wanted anything like room service, etc, they would need to put a card down at that point. That worked well for us because we weren’t going to be paying for incidentals, but if someone wanted any then they could cough up the cash.

I don’t remember the details, but I do remember the growing frustration and the fact that it took me well over an hour to get the staff rooms checked in. I had to call one of our contacts who handled the rooms, and then email her, and then when I tried to check in they had no record of what she did, and she’d gone home for the night. So I had to call Liz on her cell (Liz had also left for the day) and she got on the phone with everyone and made it work. Liz finally got it all settled so I could check in without putting a card down and having a $50 hold per room per night on it because we were paying with a master account . . . why would they need to hold more money?

In the end it still wasn’t quite right. Apparently they don’t do what we used to anymore. The policy was new as of this spring that the hotel must take that deposit. It was incredibly worrisome because we had 3 guests coming to check in and they didn’t know anything about that deposit because we hadn’t told them. We were supposed to be handling the room so they could check in and what if they didn’t have a credit card and . . . It was quite a worry for me.

So either we paid for EVERYTHING, or the guests would have to put down a $50 per night deposit. There was no more middle ground. There was no more – we pay for the room, the guest pays IF and when they want to put more charges on the room.

Eventually after I got checked in I got Nathan on the line and he got on with the hotel about the guests. I don’t really know what he did, but it seemed like they would have to put a card down. Whatever. As long as he was with them when they checked in and he could smooth it over.

I don’t want to jump ahead too much, but we did have a guest put charges on the room and then leave without paying that bill because the hotel didn’t have a card on file. That’s something going in the contract next year (the hotel requires a $50/night deposit for incidentals which we will not be covering). Nathan’s upset at the hotel and I’m upset at the guest. Either way we’re still working it out two weeks after con.

The Thursday night reg room was slow. We had significantly fewer people picking up than in previous years. Llama kept us entertained. Having registration in a room worked out a lot better than being kept in a tiny box. We needed the space, and it felt a lot more relaxed for some reason. We will be sticking with a room from now on.

Sam bought me a sandwich and I went to the main room to eat it. I sat at a table with Fazio and Gopher and ate as much of my sandwich as I could before getting dragged off. It was fun to bullshit with them and gather the rest of his roommates so he could meet them before spending the night there. It wasn’t on purpose, but his roommates were all gingers and that was an amusing topic of the table (Gopher, Ryan and Freshmen).

I was glad to be able to relax and talk with Fazio a bit. I knew there wouldn’t really be time during con and since he was moving to Florida right after con this might be my last time to hang out with him ever.

After Thursday night reg closed we spent an hour laying out tape lines for reg. These worked beautifully to contain the line inside. We had nice bright spike tape. I even made arrows to tell people how the lines flowed.

Since I had pulled an all-nighter on Wednesday, I needed at least some sleep on Thursday into Friday. After reg closed and we were done with the tape lines, we carried the cash boxes and badges up to my room. This was about 1am-ish. Reg was scheduled to open at 7, so I needed to be down by 6:00. I managed to be down by 6:15 after a quick wash, and carrying everything down myself. There was construction (or something) making it so I couldn’t go down to the Arcade level (or possibly I was paranoid that I couldn’t from the night before) and I had to go down the escalators. I managed to drop the cheaper of the cash boxes down the escalator, making it broken for the rest of the weekend. Joy. Well that’s an expense for 2014.

When I arrived, the doors were still locked and there were two people waiting for me to start reg. Luckily, I was only a few minutes late – I hate being late. I called on the house phone and security came down and unlocked the door for us. I kicked/pushed the cash box towards reg – it slid across the carpet well, but I think Crystl came and picked it up for me. I just couldn’t carry all of the boxes easily enough.

The computers seemed to be still on and working from the night before so we set up. I don’t remember if I called one of the admin (Sammich/Thomas), or if they made their way down on their own. Eventually we had admin.

Between opening and noon I tried to make several rounds to the main area to oversee setup. I managed to get Ryan and Nathan talking for opening ceremonies. I warned Ryan about Nathan and the things he does to shut down other MCs in the past (specifically Origami). Since they spent about an hour discussing opening, I assume it went better than other years. I also asked Nathan not to do the “I say SNAFU you say Con” bullshit and as far as I know he finally stopped. I’ve had so many complaints about that . . .

Most of the day I oversaw the reg area. Early in the day we needed line control. I remember asking the volunteers who of them wanted to do line control. A pink-haired adorable cosplayer spoke up. I gave her a brief overview and let her go. I know I had to touch up what she was doing a few times, but all-in-all she was great. She was very friendly, and smart. She handled the lines with little supervising.

Eventually the lines grew out the door, but only a little. The prereg line was small inside and that is what grew out the door. It also moved quickly, so we were only out the door for a small time, except when the GSR told us we couldn’t have that many people in the room.

The GSR made us cut back our lines twice. They told us we could have 75 people in the room even though the room had a capacity of 101 (or was it 110?). I didn’t notice the capacity sign until the following day when the line was almost nothing, so it’s just something to keep in mind for next year.

I often left reg to make the rounds – I would check on various things and get asked things, and handle small fires. Nothing major. I just made sure to wander and then work my way back to registration.

Throughout the day I received many compliments on the line control handler (Ivy). I took her and her sister for a food break in the staff room and we talked. She will be staff next year. She was just too good of a staffer to let go.

When I did let Ivy and her sister (working behind reg) have their breaks for the night I lost the line control. I eventually noticed that people were milling about with lines a little messed up. So I handled it. I asked people to get in line or sit, I directed people where they needed to go, and I got another line control person.

The boy who took over line control wasn’t nearly as good and didn’t want to smile. I did more training and bothered him until he smiled (he didn’t want to, but poking and silliness wins out over emo). I had to revisit his training about 3 times and give him a partner, but it got handled to my standards.

Registration on Friday was very busy, but it wasn’t nearly what last year was. We did have an outage that was unexplained, and it lasted for about 30-45 minutes. I’m not entirely sure it was completely down, either. I spent my time while it was down standing over and between the two admins trying to debug with both of them and keeping them both in the right direction.

Something I’ve learned about the two of them is that if I’m not watching over them they tend to get sidetracked. This actually happened to Thomas once where he started trying to fix a problem that had nothing to do with things being down. I had to intervene and ask if it had anything to do with the current problem. He thought it did at first, but not anymore . . . so stop working on that and work on the problem at hand!

If I had less knowledge about programming or about the system I probably wouldn’t have been able to handle that. I’m good at debugging and Sammich was helping someone and forcing people though selectively to attempt to find where the failure was – Thomas was actually working with code and I was paying close attention to what code he was working with.

After working frantically to find the cause of things being down we discovered it wasn’t down. So I’m not sure if there was a bug that made people think it was down or if it actually was . . . but reg moved at a crawl for about 30-45 minutes – we pushed about 5 people out the door.

After reg went down and came back, we worked on getting two more computers up to push people through faster. I don’t know why they were down to begin with but we started with two fewer computers than we should have. The stations needed to be connected, and then we still needed two discs for them. We had a runner make a trip to WalMart and solve the lack of disc problem. We still had a good 40 people in the room when the two computers finally went up, so they were of use, but I wish they’d been ready before . . . Friday is always the busy day.

There was another Friday snag that made it a lot worse that it needed to be . . . the air conditioner didn’t work. They kept telling us it was on, it was on full, it was working, etc. It wasn’t. Weeeellll, maybe the construction people broke it. Sure, that must be it. Nope, sorry, can’t get the AC working because they must have cut something.

Liz fought a pretty good battle to get us air conditioning. She lost, but eventually she borrowed two box fans from housekeeping so that we could at least get some air flow. The room was miserably warm to the point that I’d even taken off my jacket which means something because I’m always cold and I have to be VERY warm to take my jacket off. Liz also got us a giant fan to put in the corner. I’m not sure if it was a leaf-blower, or what, but it was huge and moved a LOT of air. Liz was our hero in reg.

Friday had some programming I wanted to check out and managed to make that happen. I got to watch a little of the first bondage panel and peek in on the Create that Anime panel – which sadly was being run by 3 of our own guys. =(

When the Create that Anime guys did finally arrive later that evening, I got on them about missing their panel. They apologized and didn’t think that their panel was until later. They had been driving all day. We managed to work something out so that they could run it on main stage. I didn’t miss the main stage performance =D

There were few other snags in programming. The main one being that the video playlists were using G: drive but they were running on Linux . . . so Thomas fixed that (mostly). Sammich had to fix some on Saturday, but all-in-all, that wasn’t too bad for a first year using playlists.

Friday evening I was standing around main stage and discussing some things with Fazio and a few others before we headed to the hentai. One of Kyle’s programming things was running . . . I don’t remember the name of it but it was the one where they try to break the contestants. Nerves of Steel? Something like that.

Fazio made a comment that he could break them and I told him to get on stage. I okayed it with Kyle first and then told him to get up there. He declined and wanted to wait until later and eventually started heckling out of boredom. Kyle motioned for him to get up there and do better. Fazio pushed the boundaries of what we allowed on main stage, but kept his pants on (he did lose his shirt), and only managed to break one person of the three. When he made a comment that the people on stage might actually be dead, the first guy lost it and started laughing.

I did not sleep Friday into Saturday. I know that Sammich left reg to get set up for hentai and I remained to close up reg with Thomas. Reg closed at 11, I believe, but it could have been midnight. Considering most cons close by like 6ish, I think we’re still above and beyond most cons in our reg.

I did assist in closing up the curtains for the hentai. There was enough of a gap in them that I felt that people might still see in when the door was open. Soooo I used last year’s zip ties to close them up. It really was a very fast decision of “oh god, this needs to be fixed NOW! Nikki, go grab me the zip ties out of the programming box.” I’m hoping that it won’t be a problem for the BLFC people, but it was a fast solution (cut a hole and ziptie it) and it was sufficient to prevent sight. The curtains still didn’t stand on their own this year. We think they were missing a few pieces. Oh well. We made it work. Again. (2012, though they were simply put together wrong.)

The Blow by Blow was really funny, but it did not have anything to do with what it was originally supposed to be. Soooo, the new name will be Hentai: Insert Panel. It was three commentators with Ryan drawing on the screen. It was funny and it worked. So much for the sports angle, but oh, well.

I think it needs to be 2 hours next year.

So just before (or after?) the Blow By Blow I noticed that Fazio had brought a beer into the panel room. I don’t remember what I said about it but I did point it out. He immediately handed it to Llama. I don’t remember the vocal exchange but Llama took a swig and commented on what it was. I kind of paused and went back to the hentai. I just didn’t expect that reaction from a staffer and didn’t know how to handle it. I think in the future I will know what to do, but I was really expecting it to go differently which is why I simply didn’t do anything for a while.

It was an hour or more later when I was handling something with Nathan and I was outside the room that I was thinking about it deeply – I was still really disturbed at what had happened and how it went. I pulled Llama out and went over it.

He spent the next few minutes trying to hand in his badge. He broke the rules and (according to him) I had to pull his badge. I told him I wasn’t going to pull his badge for it. This was the first night and I was not pulling his badge for forgetting his brain once. It was stupid (very stupid), but we all do shit like that once in a while. I still had to do something though.

Nyandrew walked up and we were discussing it when Warky and friends came up and we had to pretend that we weren’t having a serious discussion. I used the time to text Nathan with what was going on and discuss what we wanted to do about it. Nathan’s main concern was that the beer was gone – and it was. It was mostly gone because Llama had been drinking it for like an hour, but it was gone. Nathan suggested a temporary pulling and I agreed.

When we were finally free of the guests, I brought out the decision. We would end it with a warning and they weren’t allowed at con for the rest of the night – don’t do it again. Llama agreed to this and left. I went into hentai and pulled Fazio out with a soft fist bump on his arm to get his attention and a twist of my head to indicate he should follow.

Now, Fazio is a mouth. Nyandrew and I totally expected something from him that we would have to explain or argue. Everything I said he just said “ok” to, which surprised us, and he went off to his room. I pretty much said it was a dry con, and he brought in a beer, and we were issuing a warning, and he wasn’t allowed back in the con for the rest of the night. . . and everything was “ok” and he left. I was actually worried he wouldn’t come back the next day. I made it a point to look for him so I could talk to him and let him know I wasn’t upset at him. When I finally did catch up with him he apologized for it and said he wasn’t acting very responsibly as a guest and felt bad about his actions. There were no hard feelings in either direction.

I did make it a point to go over to badge check and let them know that Llama and Fazio weren’t allowed in for the rest of the night. I almost didn’t think to, but it did occur to me that if I didn’t then they could have just gone back in to a non-hentai area (anywhere where I wasn’t). I didn’t think either of them would even attempt to get in, but I followed up with the badge check all the same, just to be responsible like that. I also alerted Gopher to it since he was walking around and he was essentially the floor manager for the night, as usual.

Hentai went as hentai usually goes – funny. After a while the room dies down, and it’s just the worst/best of us making fun of things . . . and someone sleeping in the corner.

We did have our DVD prize game this year. We had DVDs from 2011 that we never gave out. (Thank you Media Blasters!) Finally, we had a reason. We had this one anime . . . it was WEIRD, and it was the only hentai in our theme. So we ran it and had periodic quizzes. At the end we had a final “ok, so tell us what this is about” and gave out DVDs for the closest answer, the most amusing answer, and the next closest answer (honorable mention). That was fun and people walked away with hentai DVDs. =D

At 6am we stopped the hentai and started our 16+ Saturday Morning Children’s Cartoons. It took a bit to get going due to technical difficulties but it was FUNNY. As usual. Totally a good idea and we will repeat next year. Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood is so far the best thing to watch after hentai, hands down.

Unfortunately I had to leave to get reg going. When I left the room died. I had to return to keep the funny going. Something to consider next year – where hentai and children’s cartoons are vs where reg opens/closes.

After the SMC was over, I believe I spent some time in Reg. I was the one to first determine that we needed another volunteer. The line was becoming unwieldy again. Within 5 minutes (it may have been longer but it felt fast) we had another volunteer to do line control. The volunteer department was on top of their game this year. =D

I don’t think the line ever got over 20 people on Saturday. I managed to sneak away to get autographs and things and I would get called back often, but I did get to check on other things on Saturday.

I liked the autograph session for Chris/Warky/Fazio. The three of them did well together and it was an easy “pass the con book down the line” sorta thing. It was nice to hang out with them until I got called back to reg.

Saturday was a blur until the rave setup. I managed to hit a few panels without getting called away too much. We had a slight logistical problem with another panel and I did manage to talk to the panelist in advance (Fazio), and they ended early. I told them to be out RIGHT at 10, but whether on purpose or not, they ended early enough that the rave didn’t start too late and we had the extra space.

The One Door speech went well. There was a lot of prep and stuff from Origami, me, and finally Nyandrew. After going on and on, we had the big reveal – the shirt of the one door. That was awesome. Everyone was super serious and then the whole group smiled.

It was also really cool seeing a bunch of people wearing the shirts for the rave and on Sunday.

The line for the rave went along the wall and passed the escalators. That was pretty exciting to see. I assisted in line control to keep doorways clear. The rave went smoothly, in general. There was another problem with the AC. They promised us they’d keep it at 70, but it quickly hit 90. Joy. Another battle. Also, apparently there was a problem with our smoke machines from 2010. They were clogged?

No one knew that part of the regular care of these things was to run hot water through them after use. So there’s another expense for 2014 – new fog machine. Bill went and bought his own machine at WalMart. Apparently it broke . . . and apparently he overused it. Origami claims that the instructions were that if you press the button, it runs for 60 seconds and then shuts off and the only way to get as much smoke in that room as there was, was by repeatedly pressing the button.

I don’t really know what happened but I want someone other than Bill running the fog machine next year. This is a recurring problem – too much smoke in the room. Not only does the smoke work its way into other parts of the building and set off the alarms but we get complaints from the people in the room that it’s too much and hard to breathe.

We did set off the fire alarms. Twice. The first was at 11:45pm. This is noteworthy because I was in the hentai room watching the redub, and the lights came on . . . and the lights coming on generally means a reset. Sammich ran a hand-check to make it seem like on purpose, and 3 people went back to the lights to get them back down. When I finally connected the lights to the fire alarms in my brain (it took a minute or so), I booked it to the rave area where we had several staffers showing up as well. We did actually trip the alarm and all the lights on the first floor turned on. It actually was no big deal. Easily fixed. . . The hotel staff knew what was going on and made it so there wouldn’t be an issue with the fire dept.

And I went back to the hentai.

Before I went back I ran into Greg from CTA/CTH and spent a while talking to him (Flak was asleep). We chatted for a while and discussed things with other staffers at the badge check desk, too. We even brought out the moon pillow. I admitted to him that I’d wanted to talk to him before but I’m actually pretty shy, unless I’m at SNAFU con. I’m not too sure he believed me, but shrug whatever. I had always felt awkward trying to talk to them at Fanime, but at SNAFU it’s comfortable. Maybe because I’m in a position of some importance? I dunno.

When I did finally made it back to hentai I came with a small group of people, including Greg, and Rika/Manwell. I announced that I brought people!

Later that morning, when there was still a lot of people in the room, at 3am the lights started strobing that the fire alarm went off. I immediately blurted “oh, shit” and ran out of the room. Many people saw me do this. I’m sorry if it concerned anyone. ^^;; Just a mild panic.

The rave had been over for an hour and the foyer doors were locked at this point. Whirlwind thought she smelled smoke and thus we thought there might have been a real fire for a bit. Unfortunately, this is where some problems actually happened. The real problem was an underling panicking. I heard over the walkie for everyone to evacuate . . . which I had Nyandrew immediately reverse. Apparently, the same kid that did that went on main stage an announced the same thing. I discussed this later that morning with Whirlwind and a new policy evolved – NO ONE may make announcements except the main stage department, or Origami / Lindsey in tech unless expressly and temporarily authorized by one of those people or a con chair. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

After walking the floor for a few minutes with Nyandrew and the hotel staff, I let Nyandrew walk the whole floor with the hotel staff and I went back to the hentai room. I informed everyone who was curious where we were at, which was – no one knows anything, but it seems that the alarm was triggered by false smoke again.

Apparently, when Nyandrew walked the whole floor with the hotel staff, they went into the main area to find that Main Stage was playing “We Didn’t Start The Fire.” The hotel staff asked is that was on purpose, and Nyandrew’s response was “God, I hope so!” xD Thank you for that, Gopher.

I sat in the room making the usual jokes with people until I started nodding off. Rather than go to the room, I figured a nap would be good enough. I went to the front with Sammich and put me head down on the desk . . . when I awoke my arms and legs were completely numb and it was like 5:30am. I had been out for like an hour or two. I sat there kind of dazed and couldn’t do anything but sit and wait for the feeling to come back. Seriously. My arms and legs had completely lost feeling. The room was mostly empty and I really did want to go up to my room now.

I checked with Sammich that he had things covered for closing hentai and opening registration. I cleaned up the hentai prizes which I had spread over the desk earlier in the night – I was really trying to hand them out earlier in the night just to push that hey, we have prizes . . . and candy . . . and candy prizes. I packed a few small things up, but nothing really major and headed up to the room.

I set an alarm on my phone so that I wouldn’t be up in the room too long. I don’t remember what I set it to but it was still early – something like 8am? 9am? I don’t know. I do know that I got up and took an actual shower this time, not just a quick soap & rinse like the day before. I washed my hair and that shampoo and conditioner is the worst. =( It soaked into my hair like nothing else. It didn’t lather and it didn’t condition . . . but it was all I had. I’m usually okay with hotel hair products, but I think next year I need to bring stuff. This isn’t the first time I’ve had problems with the GSR hair products.

Anyway, when I went downstairs and went to reg. I was informed that we were out of con books. What do you mean we’re out of con books? How many people have we checked in? 1100? No way we’re out of con books. We must be missing a box. The hunt began.

We searched all the con storage areas, including the storage unit across the street. Sam drove over at my request to see if he could find a box of books. He couldn’t. As we were walking around, Origami came up to me to talk. We walked to the staff room for breakfast. This is actually a location for a lot of staff meetings over the years. Every year since we set up the staff food room I’ve had at least one at-con meeting with some higher-ups.

Anyway, Origami filled me in on some things that had happened the night before with another staff member. Things I won’t be repeating to the internet at large. In the middle of this meeting, Whirlwind ended up in the room for food, as well. We filled her in quickly and the meeting became about a completely different staff member – the one who announced on main stage last night to evacuate. This was the first I’d heard of it.

I flipped out a bit . . . this is when I made it a hard thing that only the main stage crew should be making announcements. Main Stage, or the two members of tech who have proved themselves (Origami and Lindsey . . . or Gordon if he ever returns, but he wasn’t there this year), OR anyone who has been explicitly authorized to use the mics such as panelists or other temporary situations. What happened was unacceptable.

Something else that came from this meeting that I need to discuss with a few other people is that we need a hard rule on light adjustments. I can’t go into details, but we need a policy.

Anyway, as the meeting was wrapping up, Whirlwind heard a noise from under one of the tables. She lifted the skirts and saw two sleeping staff members, let’s just call them A and B. She told me their names and I do remember them, but I’m trying to be nice. I freaked. We had just had a rather important upper-level staff meeting and there were two underlings sleeping under the tables.

I slammed my fist down on the table to my right as hard as I could. I kicked the table to my left because that had really hurt my hand and I yelled in full-on from-the-diaphragm ‘Beta voice’ – “OUT. NOW.”

There may have been more, but that’s all I remember.

According to Whirlwind, she heard a groan, and then she said calmly “That was Beta,” at which point person B on my left popped his head out and his eyes were as wide as eggs. It was amazing. I’ve never seen eyes that wide. Then person A stumbled out from under the table and almost walked into the door frame. Then they were gone.

A few moments later, Eduardo from tabletop popped his head around the corner and asked if everything was all right and if he could help with anything. Nope, just yelling at some people for sleeping under the tables while we were having a staff meeting. No big deal.

After a few minutes we walked out to the front to head to the VIP Meet & Greet and I started thinking. I asked the volunteer/info desk if they’d heard me. Yep. I asked peace bonding if they’d heard me. Yep. We were on our way to the VIP Meet & Greet and I asked Warky if he’d heard me across the foyer. . . . “Well I didn’t think I was eaves dropping.” So – yep. He also told me he was impressed and I could be a voice actor to which I replied that I used to sing. I know how to project.

Right before the Meet & Greet (or during the middle of it?) I popped into reg and Sammich told me that Thomas’s query was wrong. We hadn’t checked in 1100 people, we’d checked in 1580-something. We were legitimately out of con books! We’d given them all away! That was the most exciting news of the con. Rather than announce it, I said we would announce it at main stage at closing ceremonies and give them the number right at the start of it.

I did spread the news to Nathan and anyone else I could because I was SUPER EXCITED.

When we got to the meet & greet I mostly stood towards the back and watched the discussion . . . it was very very early into it that they joked that voice actors were like little kids and someone (as a joke) demanded juice. I stood up and said I would get them juice . . . and one of the other voice actors said something about bananas as a joke, and another said in all seriousness that they wanted water.

I did a quick headcount and I left to acquire juice, bananas, and water. I grabbed juice-boxes from the staff food room and a single bunch of bananas. I then hit EVERY room to find them water. There was none in panel or video, and there were two in panel/video. Finally, there was a full set in the workshops room where I could acquire what I needed. I returned with juice and bananas! Not everyone wanted juice, not everyone wanted bananas, but it was funny, and most of them did want something other than water, so it worked out well.

Once people were done with the bananas I got the remaining guest signatures in my con book. =)

I enjoyed the Meet & Greet until I got called away from reg. There was only a few minutes left anyway, but, of course, registration needed me and reg is always my top priority. Before I left Nathan opened it to staff, but no one else joined the room. There were some 40-something VIPs in the reg system but there were only like 5 or 6 of us in the room. Oh well, it was intimate which was nice.

I don’t remember what I helped with, but I know I eventually had to help to push Thomas out of the table – he had to go get ready for the improv show.

While I was helping in reg, a girl with a little dog in a tiger outfit came in to get her badge. They were Calvin and Hobbes and it was adorable. On Thursday when I was checking in the rooms, and noticed a big sign saying that dogs needed to be registered with the hotel and if they catch you without registering the dog it’s a $150 fine. So I passed this news on to the girl and she thanked me and went off to do so. A while later she came back and told me that the person at the hotel desk told her this: The only way to register the dog is if the owner has a room in the hotel. Otherwise, they can’t have a dog in there and even if it was registered, it’s only allowed to go from the room to outside, it isn’t allowed to really be inside for any period of time. When she inquired about the convention, he told her that it was up to us if we would allow the dog in our space as long as we were willing to cover any damages made by the dog.

Wut.

So I got Nathan involved. Nathan got with Liz and they went upstairs to work something out. We managed to get the girl a GSR leash, but she also had a friend who would be bringing a dog as part of his cosplay, should she tell him not to? Yep, please tell him not to – we managed something special getting her a leash, and that was a favor for a favor.

Liz suggested we work a bunch of leashes into the contract for next year. I think she said like 20, but I bet we would be more than covered with like 5. We need a dog policy, and probably a contract similar to peace bonding for dogs.

Later, that friend came and was furious that he couldn’t bring his dog in. I wasn’t available to go meet him myself but gave the basics to the staffer talking to me (Whirlwind? Nyandrew? Dunno, but a higher-level staffer). Basically, it was a special case to get her the leash and we are sorry. The GSR changed policies on us and we are just working with what we have. Very sorry. Can’t do anything.

I think the girl ended up giving him the leash as she left so it worked itself out. I felt bad, but the GSR made a LOT of policy changes this year we had to deal with on-the-fly.

In the middle of dealing with the aforementioned GSR dog issue, there was talk going on among the attendees where a dog bit a girl. A big, white dog . . . I clarified this and one of the volunteers spoke up “I know who that is!” and I just muttered in their general direction, “yes, I know who that is, too,” using my flat voice.

I excused myself from the reg discussions and went off to find Whirlwind, and she was already sans-dog with a wrapped up hand. She filled me in completely. Apparently what happened was one of her friends came around behind Whirlwind and Laz, and stuck her hand in front of the dog’s face (to pet it? To be funny? Who knows. . . ) and Whirlwind intervened to prevent her friend from being bit . . . by grabbing the dog’s mouth. Sooooo Whirlwind ended up bit because her friend was being stupid and the dog is super protective.

I won’t even go into my opinions about that dog. Nothing too bad, but it’s a common rant, so, back to the topic at hand . . .

When I went back to reg to talk with the girl (Calvin/Hobbes) and her friends about the little dog, they were also talking about “that dog that bit a girl.” When I repeated what I wrote above, they all immediately changed their tones from blaming the dog/owner, to blaming the stupid friend for putting her hand in front of the dog from behind like that. I just wish I could have told the clarifying story to all the individuals who witnessed something and were concerned.

Shortly after, I ran into Nyandrew and we disappeared to talk. We discussed the dog thing, some staff problems, and he filled me in on more things going on with certain staff members. We actually went to the upper level so we wouldn’t be seen in the hallways and grabbed by a passing staffer who needed one of us. ^^;; Sam was trying to find me to bring me a sandwich. Oh well. I did get the sandwich before going to Whose Line. =)

I was able to get out of reg and meetings just as Whose Line is it Anime was starting – they hadn’t even started the first game which was slides. I expected that any moment I would get pulled away but I didn’t.

I sat in the front and actually had someone ask me if I was VIP. I don’t know if they were staff or just a bitter con-goer, but I did reply – first off, yes I am (and I showed him my badge), and second, I’m Beta . . . but good job. I assumed he was a staff member but realized later he was probably just a general attendee. I never saw his badge.

The slides were about bananas. I made a comment about half way through them that someone should get bananas from the staff food and toss them up . . . and Freshmen was sitting next to me and asked “really? Should I do it? Do you want me to do it?” It took a small amount of convincing and he ran off – possibly with a second in tow, I don’t remember. A few minutes later the slides were interrupted by someone tossing bananas on stage and the performers exploded. It was magical.

The bananas were part of the rest of the show. There was even a slap-stick skit where Rae slipped on a peal – I assumed on purpose, but who knows – she looked a mildly hurt.

I never did get pulled away from the show. For the first time ever I actually go to sit through it and watch the team I’ve been managing all year do their stuff. It was the best I’ve ever seen them and I’m really proud.

After the show the same staffer who had caused the problems that morning telling people to evacuate went up to the microphone and said he had an announcement to which I immediately jumped up and demanded to know who authorized him to make any announcements. I repeated myself several times and got the attention of most of the staffers in the area. I explained what happened and the new policy. Only main stage department and two main stage techs can use it unless expressly (and temporarily) authorized otherwise.

I don’t quite remember what happened or who made the announcement, but the staffer in question left the stage.

At some point after this I poked at Ryan and Nathan that they needed to work on closing ceremonies before the auction started. The day was coming to an end. I was happy to see them working together again.

I hit reg to discuss the plan which was to keep reg going until closing ceremonies and then move it to the info desk because all we need is someone to do refunds but the refunds need to be given all the way until after closing so that tear-down logistics gets their refunds, too.

It was around this time that reports of rovers being rude finally made it to me. There was one girl in the front who apparently has been abrupt with Amber and her friend and I really wanted to get that sorted out. It came to light that we REALLY needed better politeness training. We had done really well on the badge-checking, but missed the politeness. Well, damn. And the complaints came in so late that there wasn’t much that could be done at this point.

We did have to strip a rover of their staff status because of upsetting attendees. I knew what he was doing, but was on my way elsewhere so didn’t pay much mind to it. It was caught by Whirlwind and she handled it (thank you Whirlwind! I regret not doing something myself because I knew about it, first). So that was fixed, at least. I managed to get Amber out to talk to the rover who had been rude to her and her friend and they worked that out. I was glad to see them talking and the girl apologized.

There was one person I never was able to track down. He was a rover who was hassling another staffer for her cosplay. Apparently she was in dress-code and had even done the “jiggle test” at home and was secure, but he was trying to pull her badge. I REALLY wanted to track this guy down, but we never found out who he was. Too bad.

I also learned that we had had counterfeit badges! Holy crap, we actually had counterfeit badges!!! I know I’m supposed to worry, now, but my first emotion is excitement. We’re big enough to have people counterfeiting badges?? WOW! I won’t go in to how the rover knew they were fake (because that would be stupid if I did), but it was super subtle and since we hadn’t reviewed that I was also super impressed with the fact that she KNEW they were fake. Go her!

I really wish we had them but since she’d been told she couldn’t “pull badges” we didn’t get them. We need to review how to handle fake badges now, so that we can get an upper-staffer involved next time and pull the fake badges. I look forward to taking some fake badges next year. I shouldn’t . . . but it’s still amazing that we’re big enough and legit enough that people are trying to fake their way in. It’s not like we’re expensive.

While we were discussing all of this at the badge checking desk, a man comes up to look for his daughter. Since the auction was running long, closing ceremonies hadn’t started so the con wasn’t officially over. I asked Origami to escort him and the guy obviously didn’t want to be escorted. I don’t remember the words, but I could see it escalating quickly and jumped up and made Origami go off to the side and I escorted him myself. I apologized and said that it was just con policy, I needed to escort him because con wasn’t yet over and on and on. I apologized on behalf of Origami and said I would talk to him, and the man went on and on about how rude that Origami had been to him and he just needed to get his daughter and he would leave. He was Asian and he was pissed, just so you can get an idea of what I was talking to. We found her playing on the consoles and I walked them out. I spoke with the daughter briefly, hoping she’d had a good time and we’d see her next year.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Nyandrew and I spoke with Origami, basically saying the guy was a jerk, but Origami needed to calm down. It would be okay. No worries, I handled it. Origami said hadn’t heard the exchange about escorting him to find his daughter and had simply asked what was going on, and the man responded angrily about it. Unfortunately, I know from experience that Origami is easily escalated, especially when there is some confusion about what’s going on. So, no big deal. The guy got his daughter. Origami calmed down. Closing ceremonies would be starting annnnny minute now.

The auction took 2 hours. Closing ceremonies started an hour late. Well damn. We’ll definitely give that a 2 hour block next year. I was told that we took in over $400, but I haven’t been able to look at the receipts yet. The bag only had some quarters in it, so I’m a little pissed at whoever took the money out. Either a staffer attempting to consolidate or someone actually stole it. Lovely.

Right before closing ceremonies was starting, I got pulled away to AA. Something about the taxes and they didn’t want to pay us taxes. Well of course they have to pay taxes. Why is this even an issue? So I went over. As it was explained to me, my first thought was yeah, we need the money. Then slowly it became more apparent to me – no, actually, if they have a Nevada Tax ID then we only need the ID. The rules are a little confusing.

To clarify, when registering we need to know if the person has a RENO license. If they don’t have a license then it’s $15 for that. However, when they’re checking out, what’s important is if they have a Nevada Tax ID because they can just turn in the taxes with their normal tax return (monthly or quarterly). It’s actually harder to keep straight than that seems.

When I finally got it straight, the woman insisted that Nuriko apologize because she’d been rude. I was . . . quiet. I couldn’t speak for Nuriko and I had no idea what had gone on before I arrived. I do know the customer service rule to just say “I’m sorry” and leave it at that. Then bitch to the coworkers about the customer later. I froze when Nuriko’s response was “I’m sorry you thought I was rude.”

Fuck.

Okay, so I chased after the woman and did the apologizing, and went into further detail. I was confused, I’m sorry she was rude, I’ll talk to her, I don’t know what happened but I know I was confused, too, the rules are confusing, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, how was con, I’m glad you had a good time otherwise, I hope to see you back next year, etc, etc. I do not want anyone upset over a misunderstanding.

When the woman had left I returned to Nuriko who was deeply upset. I understand completely, of course, but I also said that when someone wants an apology like that to just give it and let it go at that. Apparently the woman had made her wait an hour at checkout and from Nurkio’s perspective rather rude, too. Nuriko hadn’t considered herself rude at all. The artist had checked out or tried to check out at info desk. I’ll need to talk to them about that because they will need to know to direct people to AA or Vendor head, or Llama depending on whether the person is an artist, vendor, or guest, but we can’t have that happen again. Info/volunteer/rovers has nothing to do with checking out vendors.

I guess it’s just a rare talent to be able to apologize genuinely to a customer. I am in the position of smoothing things over and dealing with the ‘customers’ from a management position in the con, so I guess it is my job. I did it a bit at reg, too. I just want everyone to be happy and have a good time a the con. Everyone. The staff, the general attendees, the guests . . . everyone. And I want to make it right when there’s an issue, no matter what. I do have to draw lines, but I do what I can.

From AA I had to go to gaming. Apparently one of the staffers had lost his badge and had to pay $20 for a replacement. Well, that’s the policy. Staff get a free badge and any more would cost money. I did draw that line because that’s the policy. I hold staff up to a higher standard and I have never lost a badge at any convention I’ve ever been to. If I can keep every badge, I don’t see why a staffer can’t. Unfortunately he lost it moving gaming stuff in. I felt for him, but I didn’t budge on that. I did offer him a T-shirt in exchange which he didn’t really want but he said he’d take it. I need to get Abe a medium to give to him later. Sucks. =\

I missed closing ceremonies completely. Again. I don’t think I’ve seem them at SNAFU Con EVER. 2010 I had a breakdown in my room. 2011 I saw some of it but had to leave for something. 2012 I think AA needed me. 2013 AA needed me. Damn. 2011 I saw part of it and that’s all I’ve seen. =\

Gaming had all their machines staged and ready to go but it was 7pm, now. They said it would take 2 hours and our storage unit closed at 9. I made the call and told them to get it done and come back as fast as they could. Sam was concerned at first but I filled him in that they were staged and ready to go and general logistics wasn’t so they needed to stage, too.

While everyone was tearing down I made the decision to refund the volunteers early. We announced to the room that if you needed a refund to go get it NOW, then get back to work. No matter what hours you have left if you keep helping you will get a full refund. This worked well. I hung out at the refunds and assisted so that everyone got what they needed. Then Thomas was able to be done and tear his stuff down too.

Then I spent most of the rest of the teardown doing an after-con photo booth. It was supposed to be just Fazio and Chris, but it ended up being a bunch of people. Con didn’t fee like it was over, and although it was a bit tiring it was a lot of fun. I took twice as many pictures as Sam did during the whole con because of my “spray and pray” technique. I’m just not as good of a photographer as he is and I wanted to make sure I got good sharp images. I did have Sam take some of the shots so it wasn’t all me, but I did a LOT. I worked the booth so Sam could do the logistics head stuff.

We actually walked out of the GSR completely done at 11:45. The staff remaining all went up to the cantina for food. Apparently that place serves all-day breakfast so I had pancakes and eggs. =D It was a fun meal. We all talked about how con went and things to do next year. Let’s see it was, me, Sam, Cassandra, Origami, Nyandrew, Rika/Manwell, Nathan, Gopher, Whirlwind, Thomas, Sammich, and Chris Nichols because although he was a volunteer he stayed till the very end to help close out. I apologize if I missed anyone or remembered someone who wasn’t actually there, I barely remember it, I was so tired, ^^;;

Sam and I were up in the room by like 1:30, 1:45 for sleep. It was a great night and a great con.

We had planned to meet everyone at 9am to do final unload. At 9am we were ready to go. I had Chris Escalante in my room and asked him to check out for us – checkout was at 11 and there was NO WAY we would be done and able to come back and check out in time. That way he could take his time and leave when he was ready and I wouldn’t have to stress. At 9 we walked out and I knocked on the staff room next door.

I sent Sam downstairs to meet people and I rallied up the people who were apparently dead asleep who had missed whoever’s alarm had been set. Fazio was in that room, so I asked him, as well, to check out for us by 11am. I felt bad about waking him up at 9, but I had staff members who had to get out. I did get one last hug with Fazio and wished him well for his new life in Florida.

Storage truck-unload went well, and so did the table unload. Everyone pitched in and I took pictures of storage as it was being loaded up so that we can find things later. We had the truck fueled and returned at almost 12 which was our limit. Unfortunately, the fuel thing popped, but the fuel wasn’t full. We had to go find another station and return. We were concerned about the time, but the woman said we wouldn’t get charged another day as long as we just went and came right back and don’t worry if it’s after 12. So we did. The truck was otherwise returned successfully.

We met up with people at the GSR for food and decided to go for Chinese. We had to get the reg money out of the GSR safe. Every day I had sent Nathan to lock up the 20s because we didn’t need them in reg and now we needed them out. After that was retrieved we went out for Chinese in Sparks. Those of us at the table were me, Sam, Cassandra, Sammich, Thomas, Goher, and . . .? Fuck I’m forgetting someone. I know it was an uneven number. Sorry to whoever I’m forgetting.

We worked out how Cassandra was getting to the train station (thank you Thomas), and had food. Nathan was late to it, and arrived just as the rest of us were finished eating. The food worked out to like $7 a person after tip. The food was meh, but the company was awesome. We were all so damned tired that after we had some calories in us EVERYTHING was funny. Everything.

We hugged and left, and I had to drive my car alone and Sam had to drive his. My music was buried somewhere so I didn’t have that to help me. I turned on the radio and magically I had songs on it I knew but even singing wasn’t enough. I had a really difficult time making my way home. It was a little scary. I don’t ever remember having that much trouble staying awake. I used every trick I had which included shaking my head to force my eyes open and biting my hand to keep me awake.

When I got home I closed my eyes until Sam got there. We then had to go get our cat from the vet. We had him boarded from Thursday to Monday. That was like $200. It was about $100 for the boarding, and about $50 each time they had to give him fluids (twice). But we didn’t have to worry about him at all during con and he was well taken care of. Everyone loved him.

We got home and I helped bring a few small things inside and then I crashed in bed. Sam brought in the rest. We had Tuesday off and spent most of it in and out of sleep. Totally worth taking off.

I think it was Tuesday I made an effort to announce the staff party. Fluffy couldn’t get us in sooner than 11/9, and I didn’t know the time, but I knew we had it so I sent a quick email. It was important to let people know it was happening. I didn’t find out the time until a few days later and then had to decide when we actually would arrive. I didn’t want to arrive at noon and deal with feeding everyone lunch. The 3pm time is on purpose so that people have eaten lunch already but aren’t quite hungry for dinner. We still usually spend $400-500 on pizza. xD Looking forward to it, though. It’s always a great time.

Good con.

There are a few more stories that I can’t fit in the timeline, so they will be separate –

14yo
At some point during the con Whirlwind came to me and asked about the chaperone policy which is this – an under 13/yo needs a chaperone and they will have blue (this year) child badges. At 13 and over, they can be at the con without a chaperone, although we recommend it.

Apparently, there was a miscommunication and she had escorted a 14 year old out of the convention earlier and made him call his parent/guardian to retrieve him. . . . Yeah, that’s not good. It’s the correct procedure for an unchaperoned kid under 13, but not a 14 year old.

Later on, I think the next day, I had the opportunity to talk with them. I think it was his father who brought him up to reg while I happened to be there. I immediately said that I had been told about the situation. It’s been handled. It will never happen again. I am soooo sorry.

The exchange went this way for a few minutes and finally I offered them a free T-shirt for their trouble. They assumed I meant one for each of them and I just went with it. I genuinely felt bad since I’d seen this kid around before and knew he was fine at the con and I wanted them to be satisfied. So for two free shirts and an assurance that it wouldn’t happen again, they seemed very satisfied and went away happy.

==

Cutting in Line at the Photo Booth
I didn’t remember this until well after con, and at first I didn’t remember it at all, but I was talking with Llama and for some reason we went over to Sam’s photography booth. I took our camera, and took pictures of Sam and Llama. We essentially cut in line because there were like 4 or so people waiting in a line for their turn. I apologized, we did it quickly, and then Llama and I moved on. The pictures were great and when I was editing them after con I even asked Sam who took them to which he replied “you did.” I couldn’t remember it at all. It wasn’t until hours later when I remembered apologizing to the line that I remembered having gone to see him in the photography booth at all during con.

==

The Masquerade
At some point on Saturday I was away from any other responsibilities and was trying to make it to the Masquerade. I was talking with Whirlwind and I remember saying “Well, the masquerade is going on now, and I wanted to go see how it was going,” or something along those lines. Neither of us had ever been to a Masquerade, not even ours, so we wanted to at least stop by. I ended up on the sidelines talking to Nyandrew and a few other people. Everyone was pretty proud of Rika/Manwell. She seemed completely in charge and looked super-professional. All I really walked away with, though, was that people were up on stage showing off cosplay. Not really something I care about. I missed the skits, although I’m not sure I would have cared much about that, anyway. ^^;;

==

Stealing Our Camera From Sam
Sam left our camera in the tech area. I grabbed it to go take pics of some panels I was going to attend. I told someone sitting in the area that if Sam noticed the camera missing, to let him know I had it . . . and if he didn’t, to yell at him for not noticing the expensive equipment missing. I got a few images of Fazio’s panels and the HOBO’s panel. I love that camera.

==

The Nude Art Panel
This was our third year doing this panel and it almost didn’t happen this year. We had cancelations left and right for models. We finally got one volunteer . . . which isn’t enough, so we pulled two staffers who were comfortable doing it. I didn’t get to attend, but I HEARD that it was the best year we’ve ever had. The models were comfortable and joking with eachother and apparently there was a sing-a-long near the end of it. I do know that someone in logistics or hotel-contact needs to get with the hotel to set the thermostat to like 78 or something warm. Apparently the models were very cold. >_<

Also, whoever watches the door needs to be better trained. They were supposed to be keeping people out and directing them around through another room because we CAN’T have the main door open . . . and they opened the main door. >_<

Stuff learned for next year. I heard from several models and people who attended the panel how amazingly awesome it was. Apparently even one of the attendees stripped to become a model . . . spontaneously. Wow. This panel can only get better as they set traditions. ^_

==

Temp Badge rushes
We had a few crazy rushes for temp badges and our temp badge system was not complete. That was . . . interesting. Mostly Sammich and Thomas handled it, but there was one I had to almost completely do myself today because Thomas was having a breakdown because he was overwhelmed. Luckily, I had been set up with PMA that morning or I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. I can drive the database with PMA, but I can’t really use Heidi (it’s just too clunky to me).

I sent Thomas away to relax for a few when he was having a breakdown . . . he took a bit longer than I wanted, but we got it all handled. The problem with breakdowns is that you can’t function and even though you know you need to function you stop completely. If you just took a breath and start one thing and work through it slowly you’ll get it done reasonably, but if you panic you get nothing done.

Next year the temp badge system better work, and next year any panelists who have a ton of people who need to get in need to email us a week in advance. >_<

==

Fast Memories –
Walking past Susana and having her remind me about the Social Media password so she could post things.
Ivy squeeing over the fact that I had No Fears and she hadn’t seen one in years (I special ordered them), and her joy when I gave her two.
The look on the guy’s face in hentai when we gave him a boob pacifier as a prize.
Susana repeatedly coming up to me to make sure I was doing well and had everything I needed.
The absolute joy in telling everyone that we really were out of con books . . . trying to high-five with (I believe) Rieev and missing.
Seeing everyone at the entrance waiting to get in when the doors opened at noon.
Seeing the mob of people entering at noon on Friday – the first few ran and I was so excited, too, that I didn’t tell them not to.
Talking with Quade throughout the weekend and hearing how great of a time he was having.
Being told that a glass door to the GSR was broken. No one knew what happened, but our staff stood over it and notified the hotel – go staff! I was proud. =)
Liz getting us extra a-frames. =D
Origami soldering behind main stage to make working XLR cords.
Sammich commenting about Create That Hentai – So, the only panel that was important to us to attend, we scheduled when none of us could attend?!
Liz being a freaking hero all weekend.
Seeing Nikki standing at the programming checkin all weekend (other programming staff shoulda been there, too, but thank you Nikki for making that work!)
Thank you to Origami for getting music going in Reg on the fly. Next year music needs to be part of the planned setup.