Con Crud and the ConSuite

As my family awakens in our hotel room on Sunday morning of our latest con, the incessant coughing is telling me we have it. Con Crud, the bane of all con attendees. Sleep gets interrupted. Panels get skipped, and misery runs rampant.

This inspired me to write a post on what we, collectively, can do to prevent this plague (pun intended) on fandom.

The first step is making sure we wash our hands… a lot. Yeah, I know, most of us wash our hands when we go to the restroom. But really, if you think about it, how often do we really wash our hands throughout the weekend? Do you hit the bathroom prior to grabbing that slice of pizza at the concessions booth? If not, think back to how many people you have had the opportunity to shake hands with that day. I’m not saying everyone is a carrier of some dreaded virus, but it does increase your chances of picking up something. And even if washing your hands isn’t possible on a frequent basis, you could carry some hand sanitizer that you can use when no one is looking (you don’t want to offend the guy you just shook hands with, after all).

[Option B comes from Cami Walker, my con’s Marketing Director. She says to make sure all of your costumes have gloves.]

Now that I’ve covered how you can personally reduce your risk of Con Crud, let’s discuss what conventions can do.

The most common location for Con Crud to spread is the ConSuite. There are lots of people handling items that can spread germs… ice scoops, open bowls of chips, soda bottles, serving utensils, etc. Contact with any of these things immediately after someone with dirty hands and/or a virus has touched them, can result in you picking up an illness.

My solution is for cons to move to more individually wrapped items.

I know, I know. I can hear ConSuites Directors everywhere screaming as I write this, “That’s too expensive!”

Is it though? Is it really?

Let’s take a look at the cost of soda as an example.

I’ve done the math, and ounce for ounce, the cost of soda is pretty close for cans and 2L bottles. Now, if you don’t buy sodas when they are on sale, then, yeah, maybe it’s cheaper for 2L bottles. But I’ve found the cost at club stores is roughly the same. Also, often times the manufacturers run sales on 12 packs of cans… buy 2 get 3 free kinds of deals. At $6.69 a 12 pack (a recent price at Harris Teeter grocery store), that means we could buy five 12 packs for $13.38, or $0.22 a can. For those “keeping score at home,” that’s $0.018 per ounce.

To be fair, the manufactures sometimes run sales on 2L bottles also, which usually come in around $1.69/each. At 67 ounces, that’s $0.025 per ounce. Even at $1.25 per bottle, the price would be the same per ounce as the cans promo listed above.

Hopefully, this example is enough to persuade cons to look a little deeper and actually see what the relative costs are for their stock. Reducing Con Crud in the ConSuite should be a priority. And reducing Con Crud in the ConSuite will absolutely reduce it at the con in general.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, my convention serves individually packaged products. It has worked out fairly well for the past two years. We haven’t had any reports of a massive attack of Con Crud, at least not yet, anyway (that is not a challenge for Murphy!).

*Note: prices listed above are for name brand sodas.

Diversity

Today I will address the issue of diversity at cons. First, let me say that I am certainly NO expert in the field. And, as with any field, if you don’t know that much about it, you should likely keep your mouth shut. For some reason, I’m not doing that, however, so here are my uneducated observations on this topic.

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Let’s face it, most cons are run by white guys, for white guys. Recently, many cons have tried to be more inclusive towards women. As con organizers, we’ve added harassment policies to minimize some of the blatant objectification, and it is starting to work… some. There is still plenty of work to do, but it’s getting better.

The next step needs to be extending that concept out to people of color.

Look around at the next con you attend. I’m betting that con isn’t doing a great job of being inclusive. Even if there are a few fans or guests of color, most likely the majority of the committee are folks of Western European decent.

I’ve heard comments like, “it’s mostly a white hobby.”

My answer to that is: is it really? Really and truly? Or are we simply not making the con scene a safe place for people of color?

I had it pointed out to me a few months back that folks of color can feel out of place at cons. That’s not being inclusive. That’s creating an event that is comfortable to white people. It’s a cultural issue.

The other thing I hear is, “Is it really worth trying to make the con more inclusive?”

Sure it is. People of color are just as interested in speculative fiction as white people are. On a social equality note, we need to make cons more open to people of color because it’s the right thing to do. If that doesn’t sway your opinion, try looking at it like this: Its money you do not currently have walking into your con at the moment. It is a fairly strong untapped market.

So, how do we make cons more inclusive? Well, the first piece of advice I received from a person of color was (note, I asked someone who wasn’t white, because they've lived it), “It starts with the committee. If your committee is diverse, I’m betting your con will become diverse organically.” And that, frankly, is the right way to grow your con.  If you get folks of color on the committee, I promise you they will point out areas where you can improve.

The next step is to get guests of color. Once you have those two pieces, you can begin to target your marketing to people of greater diversity.

So, to sum up… increase your con’s diversity. It’s the right thing to do, and it just might be the lucrative thing to do as well.

Back from the grave!

It’s the revival of I am not a SMOF! 

Originally, I had decided to stop posting to this blog because I’d gotten “back in the game,” and it felt a bit hypocritical. Then someone suggested that I keep blogging, but change the focus. I liked the idea, but quickly found that I didn’t have any spare time between work, my daughter, and starting up a new con. Well, one of those things has settled down a bit… most notably, my staff has grown in number for ConGregate, so I’m not doing quite as many things all at the same time.

Getting back to blogging did present another challenge… what to blog about. I’ve decided, at least for now, to cover topics that I think all con runners should deal with, even if we don’t think we should have to, due to some ideological notion of conventions and fandom.

Which brings me to today’s topic…

Harassment Policies

A lot of cons today have adopted harassment policies, which is a good thing. The issue I’m beginning to notice is that either the volunteers (staff and gophers) don’t have a clear understanding of the policy, or, even worse, they have never seen it.  The same holds true to the “rank and file” fan.

Hopefully, you already have an easy to understand policy and all of your staff is completely aware of it, and know how to handle harassment.  But if not, here are my recommendations…

If you are running a con, hold a harassment training session for all the key staff members. Make sure they understand that it’s a serious matter, and that they need to be aware of what the con has presented as the official company policy. For all other volunteers, make sure they get the policy in writing, either via email or print out, and make them sign a waiver stating they’ve read and understand the policy. 

Educating fans will be a bit more difficult, but you can still have the policy easily available to them via the web and/or program book, and you can have them sign a waiver stating they will abide by the policy. The tough part, of course, is making sure they know that they are required to live by the policy.

Now for the fun part of this issue, actually creating an effective harassment policy that people can understand. When my staff and I wrote the harassment policy for ConGregate, we did quite a lot of research on the topic. I was fortunate that my Programming Director, a.k.a. my wife, is a Human Resources professional with access to a lot of materials on the topic. Much of our research pointed to a single format. Basically, the key takeaways were, be specific about what harassment is, provide specific information on how to report harassment, and give your policy teeth, but do not get too specific in how you will deal with those who violate your policy. For last part, most of the lawyers seemed to agree that it’s best to avoid automatically enforcing a ban on people. It’s better to keep that as an option for repeat offenders, or for those who commit a truly heinous offense. Understanding that harassment runs a very wide gamut, from the socially inexperienced to outright hate crimes, will help you create a policy that’s fair and easily to understand.  Also keep in mind as you write your policy that the courts have ruled that harassment is defined by the victim, and not by the intent of harasser.

And, since I brought up repercussions for the person who violates your policy, I should probably mention how to best handle that part.

When someone commits an act that is in violation of your policy, you need to investigate the issue. I know, you’re not a cop (or maybe you are), but it has to be done. Start by listening to the complaint from the victim, being extremely careful not to blame the victim with your questions. Avoid saying things like, “did you do anything that made this person feel their actions were okay?” Just listen and get as many details as possible about who, when and where. Then, document the allegation. Next, sit down with the other party, tell them they have been accused of violating the harassment policy, and listen to their side. Depending on the severity of their actions, and also their reaction to the accusations, you will need to decide upon an appropriate response. For those who are truly clueless, I recommend educating them on how they should behave moving forward, and include a warning that future violations will get them tossed out. I also suggest you tell them that they should avoid trying to apologize to the victim, unless you, the con organizer, gain the victim’s permission first. For those who have no remorse, or get flippant with you when you inform them of the accusation, go ahead and toss them out, because that person isn’t likely to be open to education. Finally, let the accused know why you are tossing them out, and also tell them whether or not you plan to allow them back into the con in future years.

For the truly heinous actions, you might need to get the police involved, but I recommend allowing the hotel and the victim to make that decision. And yes, you need to report the person to the hotel if, in fact, they did something illegal.

One final note: effective harassment policies should protect everyone. I’m talking about everybody, regardless of sex, sexual orientation, race, religion, and even political viewpoint. Attacking someone over their politics is just as offensive as telling someone they are a fake fan. Neither of those comments is appropriate.

Review of MystiCon (2013)

Today I’m going to start my 2013 convention review series.  I know you all have been waiting “on the edge of your seat” for this… okay, maybe not.  Well, perhaps some of the con organizers have… but, I digress.  

First up this year is MystiCon,   MystiCon was held Feb 22-24 in Roanoke, VA at the Holiday Inn - Tanglewood.

Let’s get this out of the way immediately, MystiCon was a fun convention.  If you take a quick look below, you might notice that I have more negatives than positives.  I highly suggest you not read anything into this fact.  The convention is well run, professional and fun.  Most of the issues they experienced came from some very astounding growth rates between 2012 and 2013.  When you add about 450 people to an 850 person convention, bad things have a tendency to happen.  The positive here is that most of those issues are fairly easy to solve prior to 2014.

The Good

• The programming was really good at this con.  The panel topics were interesting, and the panels were well attended.
• All of the guests that I dealt with were very personable and engaging.  I never got the feeling I could not approach any of the guests.
• The staff seemed very friendly and professional.  It seemed like they truly wanted to see people having a good time.
• The convention used the mobile app LiveCon to display their schedule.  I know other cons have used this app, but I hadn’t had a chance to really use it myself.  As a guest, I like it a lot.  I didn’t have to carry a paper copy of my schedule around with me all weekend, which is a big plus.
• The Dealer’s room was a decent size, with a nice selection of dealers and plenty of walk space (but see below).
• The hotel appeared to be extremely flexible in working with convention.  Check-in was very quick.  And, while I had a few maintenance issues with my room once I arrived, the hotel resolved those immediately.  Additionally, the hotel sold reasonably priced (not hotel priced) concessions during all meal times.

Possible Areas of Improvement (The Bad)

• Pet Peeve time:  Name badges, again.  I know you have all read this before on my blog, but please, if you are a con organizer, make the names large enough on the badges so that they can easily be read from a distance of about 6 feet.  I had about 10 people ask me my name, and then apologize for asking, stating they couldn’t read my badge.  Additionally, I highly suggest MystiCon drop the watermark from behind the names.  That just makes it even harder to read the badges.
• It is really not a good idea to have panel discussions going on in rooms that are next to concerts.  The panelists should not have to shout at the audience, and vice versa. I experienced this at a couple of panels during the convention.
• The next one is really just a minor irritant, but someone took most of the paragraph breaks out of my bio when it was placed in the program book.  I felt it made me seem like I didn’t understand basic grammar, which is bad because I was listed as a blogger on the guest list.
• There was a major bottleneck in the main hallway.  The convention either needs to limit its attendance to about 900-1000 people, or find a way to get rid of the tables in that hallway (or possibly some of both).  It also might be a good idea for Security to take a proactive role in organizing any long lines before they happen.
• I had a situation where one of my scheduled events was cancelled, but I was not informed.  If the schedule changes during the con, it is mandatory that all guests involved be contacted.  Also, the con might find it useful to request contact information from each guest, so they can be reached during the con.
• The Dealers Room was nice, but I do have one question: Where were the costume dealers?  There was a good-sized Masquerade at this convention. It would have been nice to have a costume dealer or two.
• The stage in the main programing room was outright dangerous.  The convention needs to either push the hotel to buy a new stage or rent one that meets basic safety standards.

Okay, that’s it.  Like I said earlier, the con is very good, even with all my areas of improvement.  MystiCon is definitely going on my list of cons to go back to in 2014.

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Convention Accounting 102 – Cost Cutting (Guest Blog)

You’ve got to love it when you post an article an almost immediately get an unsolicited, guest blog addendum to your post. :) 

Thanks John!

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James raised some excellent points in his Convention Accounting 101 piece. The incoherent ramblings I am going to dump on you should also give convention staffers some food for thought, going into more detail on reducing or controlling expenses.

Thinking like a business is critical for running a convention. A staff that jumps in thinking that it’s going to be all fun and work itself out is setting themselves up for failure. You could be extremely organized and work from a business plan, or run it as a seat-of-the-pants operation with a basic idea of what you need to do. I prefer more detail as it allows you to reduce the appearance of Mister Murphy and his cohorts. Poor planning can lead to unplanned costs… whether monetary, opportunity costs or the goodwill of your attendees.

Considering that for a convention with 750-800 attendees, you may have less than 100 pre-regs, with the rest of your attendees paying at the door. Door prices are of course higher, and the majority of the con's money will come in over the 3 days of your convention. If you have 80 speakers, assume each has a companion, so that accounts for 160 memberships; let’s say 25 for game-masters; a ballpark 60 for dealers and figure about 10-15 volunteers (which may be far lower as we know cons are notoriously understaffed and we poach each other’s staff - and shanghai/conscript/draft them when they attend our events...) . In my example you could easily have 300 freebies out of an attendance of 800. 300 freebies at $40 per weekend pass each = $12,000 in lost revenue which could be looked at as an expense in and of itself. The only way to reduce this is to of course reduce your guest list, which may not be advisable depending on the amount of programming and activities you have. Alienating dealers by reducing the number of comp badges they get for coming in as vendors is not a good idea either as it would make a dealer think twice because that second comp membership does eat into their profit margin.

The problem that about 80% of a con’s funds come in over the 3 days of the event makes budgeting extremely difficult. It is almost a necessity for a convention to already have seed money in place to cover at least the required deposit on the facility. which can be as little as $500 to several thousand dollars. Outside of a handful of pre-regs, you would have your dealer’s room fees and cash on hand/seed money and that is all for your starting capital.

Repeat after me : Cost-cutting is your friend. Learn to be Scrooge. Pinch every penny until it screams. Beg, borrow or steal… (ok, stealing is bad – but you get the idea). Get creative with saving on your expenses. Minimizing expenses (elimination is impossible) is in the best interest of your convention and allows you the opportunity to put it on again next year.

The main areas you can impact with cost-cutting measures are as follows:

Hotel/Food and Beverage: Negotiate everything you can with the host hotel to get your rental fees reduced or waived if you meet certain room occupancy goals, i.e - 200 room-nights gets a 50% reduction in the cost of the rental space (this is your single biggest expense, any reduction here pays huge dividends in the long run as this can run into $5k or $10k easily) or maybe even free at higher occupancy goals. Also negotiate a number of free rooms for the entire weekend based on occupancy goals. See if the food and beverage outlets are willing to set up and run a concession stand or light sandwich station with subs and burgers that they can sell to attendees. That might get you a further reduction in your facility cost. Negotiate with local restaurants or suppliers for food or services. Carla Brindle with Mysticon has turned this into an art form, bartering her cake-making skills to trade for services for Mysticon.

Also look at how many rooms the convention is providing as comp rooms for guests. Is it a deal breaker for the guest to have to pay for his own room for the convention? In my opinion, Guests of Honor should have their rooms covered by the convention. Is the convention covering any rooms for staff members?

Office supplies and equipment: The majority of your staffers should have PCs and printers. Utilize them to the utmost. Don’t be afraid of buying remanufactured toner cartridges. Ravencon buys from Cartridgeworld which can save anywhere from $15-$30 on a single toner cartridge. Utilize the warehouse club stores for your office supplies as Staples and Office Depot don’t come close to the savings. Plus buying in bulk, you have supplies to use year over year – just make sure someone is in charge of inventorying it and has a master list of what box everything is located in when you break down at the end. (not nervous breakdown, that usually occurs on Saturday night after the evening entertainment starts and I can inspect the room parties but I usually wind up hanging out with James and the Baen Barflies, but I digress….) Detailing one of the staff members as an office manager to keep track of administrative tasks like this really helps things run smoothly, and prevents over-purchasing unneeded surplus supplies.

Printing: If the con staff can print materials on their home printers to save the convention money, do it. Con staffers attend a lot of conventions and usually take their home convention flyers with them which helps with your advertising. Any single page items should be printed from a home printer and save the printing budget for your program book and schedule signs. Don’t be afraid to price around for printing costs. Ravencon has used the same printer for our program books for the last four years, but we still get bids every year from all the major printers in the area. Also do not forget that your program book can be used as a revenue source, or at minimum to pay for the majority of the cost of producing it. Your guest of honor’s publisher may be willing to purchase a full page ad to promote an upcoming release. Self-published or small press authors will purchase ad space as well. A local game shop has taken out a full page of ad space for the last 3 years in the Ravencon program book and we have a fair number of patrons who will take out half-page, quarter-page and business card sized ads as well.

Badges and lanyards: In the last seven years that I have been actively involved in conventions I have seen many different approaches as to how badges are handled. Disposable sleeves with a pin backing seem to be pretty common, but I am also seeing more conventions using vinyl pocket sleeves with a lanyard that can be collected and reused just by replacing the printed badge. For Wrath of Con we used laminated numbered badges donated by a local printshop where the attendees would write their name on the faceplate with a Sharpie. Conventions can pool their resources and do a group purchase of badge supplies to take advantage of volume discounts.

Con suite: A con suite can be a huge expense or a minimal line item. It could be as elaborate as MarsCon’s with a menu of bulk food prepared and refrigerated (i.e chili, pasta, soups) or as simple as RavenCon’s (pre-packaged single serving foods, sandwiches, pop-tarts, cookies, crackers, chips and whole fruits). Some conventions may simply set up a pot-luck style affair where the staffers or even attendees bring in food items. You will have to strike a balance between cost, ease of preparation, cleanup, leftovers and even the potential liabilities around preparing food for public consumption. Having the con suite director and staff responsible for scouting out pricing ahead of time and staying within budget is important. Sometimes the warehouse stores are the best sources, sometimes not. Bulk purchasing is usually the best way to stretch your dollars. If your con suite has sodas, the convention must choose between the low cost (and waste) of two liter bottles versus the higher cost , but less waste and less cleanup of canned drinks. Everything I have stated above about a con suite is equally applicable to a Green Room as well.

A con suite can also be a thorny subject in your negotiations with the hotel as it deprives the hotel’s food and beverage outlet of the opportunity to earn additional revenue.

Vehicular cost: All your prep supplies have to be transported to the convention site, and you must be able to make supply runs throughout the weekend. If any staff members have access to trucks or vans for transporting supplies, then this cost is minimal. If not then a vehicle needs to be rented, which for a U-haul pickup or van starts at $20 a day plus mileage, fuel and insurance.

Art room: If you have an art room/show, then you need to have racks for display. This is where being on friendly terms with neighboring conventions will work out to your mutual advantage. The great folks at Anime Mid-Atlantic have been gracious enough to provide us with their wire racks plus run our anime room in exchange for a fan table and a dozen weekend passes. Otherwise, you will have to beg, borrow, steal, build or buy your own display racks.

Sound system: Events in large rooms will need an adequate sound system – especially band performances, masquerade competitions and charity auctions. Hotels will provide sound equipment at an additional cost (outside of the facility rental), otherwise equipment must be procured from an outside source. Talk to a local deejay service or ask another convention if they have a sound system they are willing to loan out for the week in exchange for some free passes. MarsCon has been gracious enough to provide Ravencon access to their sound system for the last several years.

Storage: One last expense to consider is year round storage. I can see a few folks scratching their heads at this one---- A convention will have leftover supplies and equipment that must be stored safely and securely until the following year’s convention. Donated shed space at a staffer’s house can help save money, but at some point people get tired of tripping over convention gear to get to their fishing poles and lawn equipment. If any of the con staff has a paid storage space that is underutilized, con supplies could be stored there and possibly help the staffer defray the cost of their storage space. If there are multiple cons in the local area, storage spaces could be shared along with supplies.

I hope my disjointed ramblings have given any potential con-runners some food for thought on how to help make your event profitable, or at least minimize any red ink associated with it.

-John Jones

About the author: John Jones has been a staff member with Ravencon (www.ravencon.com) since 2007, and has been the vice-chair since 2009. He was also Volunteer and Operations Director for Wrath of Con in Panama City , Florida in 2008.

 

Convention Accounting 101 - Budgeting

When it comes to accounting, running a convention is pretty much like any other business.  Yes, there are some things that are unique to cons, but pretty much all business comes down to income vs. expenses.

Seems pretty straight forward, huh?  And, frankly, it really is.  The most important thing to remember is that your books (accounting, not your SF library) have to end up with more money coming in than going out... kind of like your check register.  For those of you who don’t know what a check register is, ask someone who is over 30 years of age.  Have them explain having to manually keep track of your income, and checks written, in a check register.

To help you manage your books, I suggest either getting a program like Quick Books, or utilizing a spreadsheet program like Excel.  If you go the route of spreadsheet, make sure to track your income and expenses separately, but also have a summation page that compares the two.

To begin your convention, you will need to start with a budget.  Simply put, you need to record everything you expect to spend money on, as well as everything you think will generate your con income. 

Expenses

For expenses, you literally to need to add in projections for everything from pens to airlines tickets.  If it costs money, you need to have a “line item” in your budget.  You may be able to circumvent certain expenses (I know people who used to make copies of fliers at work, for example), but until you are absolutely certain that something will not cost any money, it needs to be in your budget.  Some sample items might include: paper, pens, laminate for badges, hotel rooms, PO boxes, airline tickets, hotel convention space, consuite food, etc.  If you have never created a con budget, you might want to enlist some experienced help.  Barring that, you might try to see if a successful convention will let you have a peek at a previous year’s budget to get you started. 

No matter how you create your budget, my primary advice on expenses is that you need to be liberal in your projections.  Cons often fail because of unforeseen expenses.  If you have some “padding” in your expense budget, you might find that useful later on.

Income

Income is not nearly as complex as expenses, and thus many people consider it the easier part of the budget.  I don’t.  To me, the hardest thing to do is to try to come up with a solid projection of income.  Some areas to make sure you include are registrations, dealer tables, and sponsorships.

When it comes to budgeting your income, be very conservative. If you expect to have 500 people at your con, consider that you may well give away 200 memberships.  Sounds high, doesn’t it. You have to consider a number of factors in this.  Do dealers get any memberships included with their tables?  How many total volunteers do you realistically need to staff your con?  Are you considering GM’s as part of your staff?  How many guest and companion badges will you be giving away? 

It’s been my experience that “comps” can add up quickly.  Obviously, you need to try to keep the number to a minimum, but understand that the minimum might be higher than you expect.  Of the remaining 300 memberships, many of those will be at your lowest offered registration rate.  Certainly, you will have folks pay “at the door” rates, but I typically only budget that number to be a small percentage of my overall memberships.

The next major area of income is the dealer room, assuming you plan to sell dealer spaces.  Make sure your dealer room manager has a realistic idea of how many spaces will be available to be sold.  The best way to do this is to lay out the space early on and keep the layout moving forward.  Also, keep in mind you might have to give away up to 10% of your spaces to guests.  This will seriously cut into your income.

Now we come to sponsorships.  Sponsorships are easy to budget for. Until you get one, simply enter $0.00 into the budget.

Final Steps

Once everything is in your budget, check out your summary page.  Are the expenses higher than your income?  If so, you have some work to do, either by cutting expenses or finding more income (or, most likely, some of both). 

After “tweaking” your budget, if the expenses are still higher, my best advice is to stop there and review your business model.  Most likely you will need to cancel, or at least postpone your convention… because you are truly headed for financial disaster. 

Assuming you do finally get the income to come in higher than your expenses, there is still one step you need to take.  I strongly suggest that you let someone with some convention experience review your budget. Be patient with this part.  It is not uncommon for things to unravel at this point.  That’s okay, it just means you have more work to do.

Once the budget is finalized, you can move on to actually running your con.  Keep in mind, however, your budget is going to be somewhat fluid as you move forward towards your con.  Also, you will need to replace your projections with real numbers as you go along.  Be prepared to make adjustments to keep the income higher than our expenses.  If you do that, you will mostly likely be okay.

Inclusion

I have recently been made aware of a Facebook post [a certain guest] had made regarding women who show up at cons dressed in provocative, but genre appropriate, costuming.  The issue seems to be that [guest] believes these women are not really fans, but merely desperate women looking to increase their self-esteem by attracting the attention of “drooling fan boys.”

I’m not writing this post to complain, or single out anyone.  Instead, I’d like to call on all conventions to establish inclusion policies.  I realize that some folks take offense to “non-fans” attending cons, but I have to ask… why?  In the early 80’s, I was only dipping my proverbial toes in the water of fandom when I attended my first con.  If the fans back then had treated me like an outsider, I probably would not be sitting here writing this blog today.

As fans we should welcome everyone who attends and try to be inclusive.  That “non-fan” must have SOME interest in the genre, or she/he would not have created the costume in the first place.  I admit I have no hard evidence on this next point, but I have a hunch that if we collectively befriend this “non-fan,” instead of berating them, there is a significantly greater chance that person will become a life-long fan (assuming he/she isn’t already).  And really, what’s the harm in trying?

So, what can cons do to help?  Well, how about each con writes  up an inclusion policy? It doesn’t have to be a long policy, just state that the con openly promotes inclusion and/or openly discourages exclusion.  Many of us in fandom have experienced exclusion at some point in our lives, and we know it doesn’t feel very good to be excluded.  

Now, if you’re not a con organizer, you can still help.  Practice your own inclusion policy by walking up to the person and saying “Hi.”  Please note, though, this is not an excuse to become a “drooling fan boy.”   In other words, this is not a suggestion for you to try to pick-up said “non-fan girl.”  My guess is if you try to make her your friend, she’ll let you know if she’s interested in a date.  And if she doesn’t, well, you’re no worse off than you were before you said “hello.”

So, in conclusion, as fans, I say let’s all try to make sure inclusion is a very real thing at conventions.  And con organizers; let’s try to ensure that folks know it’s not okay to exclude people, just because someone doesn’t think they’re a “real fan.”