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Hi everyone,

There is something, new to me, at conventions that is starting to bother me. Management at some cons has had bigger and bigger problems running their conventions. Won't say which one but I want to give an example of problems at one con. Ticket lines were over 10 hrs and some events like Maid Cafe got canceled at the last moment. Also, there was problems booking panels. At the end of the con people were having a hard time getting a refund for certain things. There has been an ever-increasing problem of having tickets refunded as well. They would be told wait a month or two or even carried over to the next convention.

This has made me hesitant to go to future conventions. Their didn't use to be big problems and my only concerns was planning what to do at the con and to have enough money for it. I hope this problem goes away.

I'm curious as to what other members think of cons like this one being ran badly and examples of what you have seen. No need to say which conventions just stories is fine.

Some conventions are run by college students, not a convention board that runs it every year. The worst run ones are the ones run by freshman year folks who have no idea how to put 2+2 together. Then there are the senior year student run conventions which have all the bells and whistles of experience. Some years are the ones with only a vendor alley and no panels, run by freshmen, and then other years you have ALL the panels, so many so that nobody shows up, because the senior year students know how a panel works and try to run all of the ones that they did in previous years as a last hurrah. The first year I had experience with a freshman Con board, they were so rude, cliquey and snobby that entire departments had to run as guests and I was banned from staffing, as I had taken standing up for myself a little too far when one of the con directors would not respect me or my name. Compare that to a professional convention board run by a community organization; Everything runs well, there is no disrespect, infighting or rudeness, and there is an official department for any sort of work you want to do.

Nah, it's fine. It was a learning experience for me and contributed to my growth as a human. I still go as guest to student run cons, as every year of a student run con board is different than the previous. You just gotta go and feel it out and back out if the vibe is wrong. I just didn't know to do that the first time and got myself in boiling water.

I've also found that the longer running organizations sometimes have management problems BECAUSE they have been running so long. A new person will come along with a great idea, but the board will not change. So you get situations like Ohayocon last year where you have 2 or 3 different factions within the convention board causing chaos... all because some person from marketing wants to do something and they are backed by a couple other convention departments... dramallama