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Worst Congoing Experience Ever
Aug. 17th, 2014 11:25 pmYeah, so visiting Loncon 3 Worldcon was the worst congoing experience I’ve ever had, but, I hasten to add, not due to any fault on the part of the convention committee, staff or volunteers. Most of it’s due to random external factors, and some due to inadequacies with the Excel Centre’s doings.
Basically, I’ll start with the random shit: Our train down got cancelled (apparently someone threw themselves under it), which led to an expensive upgrade on another train. We then discovered that the walk from Plaistow Tube station to our hotel was about twice as long as Google Maps had claimed. Speaking of our hotel, the Prince Regent, it was nice, but only had like six breakfast tables, which meant that on both Friday and Saturday there were no seats available for breakfast until after they’d stopped doing breakfast. Those of you who know me will know this is not good for us hypoglycaemic types.
Food in the Excel was obviously ridiculously expensive, and my usual standby, egg sandwiches, all had spinach in. Guess what happens if I eat that. So, yeah, sugar-crashes a go-go.
For extra fun, the lifts tended not to work if I was in them, (suddenly I feel like Harry Dresden). Then of course, since I still had the “being stressed about a backlog of work I haven’t been able to do because of travelling” thing, I wanted to work while there. So while I wasn’t needed for the play rehearsals on Thursday, I plugged in the tablet, set it on the keyboard – and the elasticity of the cable catapulted the tablet to the floor, putting several cracks in a corner of the screen, and breaking a pin off the plug, so I can’t charge it even though it still works. (I’ve ordered a new one from Amazon now that I’m home).
We’d promised to get a book signed by GRRM for a friend as well as for ourselves, but he was only doing one item per person after the two hour queue, which meant I have to give up the only thing I actually wanted out of the con… (Lesley got praise for the play, fun with the SCA, etc, and I got hurt, injured and my work fucked up. All at great expense.)
I also managed to take a chunk out of my foot, have to deal with a crashed-out Lesley after the play… Then even on the way home it took more than two hours to get from the Excel to Kings Cross due to large chunks of the DLR and Tube being offlined for maintenance, so we missed our train by about 30 seconds, and had to jump through hoops to be allowed on a different one without paying a pile more cash. And then some thick-set thug tried to harass us at Leeds station when we got back. All the fun of summer travel.
That’s the random shit, now for the con-related stuff.
First, I did also have some problems getting our memberships sorted out online, but I do want to mention the fantastic John Dowd, who, as treasurer, got that all sorted out so smoothly and quickly. The committee were doing great.
So, the things wrong with the con side were certainly not the fault of the committee, staff, or volunteers, who were doing their damnedest to make things work despite the Excel having IMO let them down in some major ways.
Basically, the Excel’s tech suppliers delivered to the con the wrong equipment, in unmarked boxes. They changed the rules on lighting in the theatre half an hour before the play. They also supplied broken radios.
The latter issue meant that the info desk, reg desk, and ops had no comms with each other, and so were basically useless, despite all trying their best. If I was to suggest a course of action for a future occurrence like that, I’d say give runners a special badge sticker, with the security staff instructed that these runners should be allowed to dodge the usual rules.
The only other complaint or suggestion I’d make about the running of the con is how surprised I am that there was no quiet space/rooms available. Most cons I’ve been to recently – Redemptions, Eastercons, and Nine Worlds – have quiet rooms for those attendees who are anxious, sensitive, peopled out, or (in my case) misophonic. Loncon really needed to have one or two of those, for those of us who needed to get away from the noise and the hubbub. This is a medical issue.
But, really, Steve and Alice and the rest of the con folks were doing their best under what I believe must be very trying circumstances.
Now, onto the big problems, which are all with the Excel’s hosting. There are several issues here, which really needed to be addressed because IMO they break all manner of mores and the occasional law.
Monopolised Cartel: Basically, hiring the Excel means you have to hire their favoured Tech suppliers (Blitz), and their favoured security company (Secure-Ops Ltd). Of course the tech suppliers, as I said above, then delivered the wrong equipment, in unmarked boxes, and broken radios, setting the con off with practical difficulties from the start.
Food Hygiene: A food stall was set up in the Fan Village, selling hot dogs and “cheeseburgers”. The burgers were simply a burger with a slice of plastic cheese, no other frills, and in the case of the ones I and several other people bought were not properly cooked. As in still pink on the inside. I feel a complaint to the Food Standards Agency and Newham Borough Council coming on.
Short Measures: The con bar in the Fan Village has real ale in bottles and has dual prices listed for them as for pints and bottles (and the bottles were dearer.) I had a couple of “pints” – which were 400/440ml bottles decanted into plastic tumblers. A pint is 568ml. I’m pretty sure that’s actually illegal, and will be reporting it to the appropriate authorities.
Access and Makework: For some reason, though the entrance to the Fan Village was a total of about fifty feet wide, the Excel staff decided to rope off most of it and just leave a roughly eight foot gap at one end, which they split into entry and exit lanes, watched by at least two of their staff plus one Con volunteer. Apparently (according to the one I asked) this was to prevent people being hit in the shins in head-on collisions with mobility scooters.
I suspect it was makework to give the overstaffed Secure-Ops folk something to do. Amazingly, it didn’t occur to them to put the entrance and exits at opposite ends, to prevent the creation of a choke point that actually *caused* people to bump into each other going in and out on either side of the line.
Marginalisation: The Excel staff decided on Friday that priority mobility/access badge holders should use only the largest industrial lift rather than the many lifts which the con staff had (sensibly) labelled as available for such priority access on Thursday.
Last-minute messing. Did I mention the Excel’s changing rules on lighting half an hour before the play? Cos they did that.
Secure-Ops’s individual employees interpretation of rules on room filling and fire sweeps. Long story short, most of them on the main concourse – i.e. the ones guarding the stage door for the Thursday night play we were in – were polite and professional, but upstairs in the panel rooms? Not so much. One of them on Friday morning threw myself and two other people out of the Sherlock panel because the room was full – he just grabbed the three nearest people and ejected them. At the time, a person in a wheelchair was trying to enter. I bet she didn’t succeed.
One of them tried to put a hand on Lesley while she was running messages between the info desk and Ops (due to the lack of radios), and found that unwise. Her colleague was most impressed with Lesley’s agility, but a couple of others tried to intimidate her. (They failed,.)
On Saturday lunchtime at room 17, a Secure-Ops guard threw out (using the words “throwing you out”) a young woman from the Dr Who Restoration panel for the same reason. Said woman being a vulnerable person with a priority access/mobility badge. Even though there were still seats available.
This is not how fire sweeps and room filling should be handled. I was trained (yeah, I’m talking as a longtime event security/health and safety guy) that what you do with a too-full room is first ask quietly for volunteers to give up their seats. Furthermore, you do not just fucking eject people with priority access badges, because they’re supposed to have fucking priority. And if there are actually seats left then not only is the room not fucking full, but you *assist the priority access badge holder to one of those damned seats*.
It’s not rocket science.
It was clear to me that some re-training is needed. Also, it’s a problem that use of the Excel requires the hiring of a single company, preventing the choice of checking out a security team suited to the specific type of event.
And yes, I’m dropping a line to Secure-Ops politely pointing out that they have at least one douchebag asshole – and I’d bet it was the same guy who threw me out the previous day – who needs some retraining. On the unemployment line.
Basically, I think the Excel was the wrong choice for a venue, but, anyway… So there you go.
On the positive side- I did buy three fun T-shirts, the concert on Friday night was great, and we had a good time with the Captain Tartan play. So, that was my week till last night.
Basically, I’ll start with the random shit: Our train down got cancelled (apparently someone threw themselves under it), which led to an expensive upgrade on another train. We then discovered that the walk from Plaistow Tube station to our hotel was about twice as long as Google Maps had claimed. Speaking of our hotel, the Prince Regent, it was nice, but only had like six breakfast tables, which meant that on both Friday and Saturday there were no seats available for breakfast until after they’d stopped doing breakfast. Those of you who know me will know this is not good for us hypoglycaemic types.
Food in the Excel was obviously ridiculously expensive, and my usual standby, egg sandwiches, all had spinach in. Guess what happens if I eat that. So, yeah, sugar-crashes a go-go.
For extra fun, the lifts tended not to work if I was in them, (suddenly I feel like Harry Dresden). Then of course, since I still had the “being stressed about a backlog of work I haven’t been able to do because of travelling” thing, I wanted to work while there. So while I wasn’t needed for the play rehearsals on Thursday, I plugged in the tablet, set it on the keyboard – and the elasticity of the cable catapulted the tablet to the floor, putting several cracks in a corner of the screen, and breaking a pin off the plug, so I can’t charge it even though it still works. (I’ve ordered a new one from Amazon now that I’m home).
We’d promised to get a book signed by GRRM for a friend as well as for ourselves, but he was only doing one item per person after the two hour queue, which meant I have to give up the only thing I actually wanted out of the con… (Lesley got praise for the play, fun with the SCA, etc, and I got hurt, injured and my work fucked up. All at great expense.)
I also managed to take a chunk out of my foot, have to deal with a crashed-out Lesley after the play… Then even on the way home it took more than two hours to get from the Excel to Kings Cross due to large chunks of the DLR and Tube being offlined for maintenance, so we missed our train by about 30 seconds, and had to jump through hoops to be allowed on a different one without paying a pile more cash. And then some thick-set thug tried to harass us at Leeds station when we got back. All the fun of summer travel.
That’s the random shit, now for the con-related stuff.
First, I did also have some problems getting our memberships sorted out online, but I do want to mention the fantastic John Dowd, who, as treasurer, got that all sorted out so smoothly and quickly. The committee were doing great.
So, the things wrong with the con side were certainly not the fault of the committee, staff, or volunteers, who were doing their damnedest to make things work despite the Excel having IMO let them down in some major ways.
Basically, the Excel’s tech suppliers delivered to the con the wrong equipment, in unmarked boxes. They changed the rules on lighting in the theatre half an hour before the play. They also supplied broken radios.
The latter issue meant that the info desk, reg desk, and ops had no comms with each other, and so were basically useless, despite all trying their best. If I was to suggest a course of action for a future occurrence like that, I’d say give runners a special badge sticker, with the security staff instructed that these runners should be allowed to dodge the usual rules.
The only other complaint or suggestion I’d make about the running of the con is how surprised I am that there was no quiet space/rooms available. Most cons I’ve been to recently – Redemptions, Eastercons, and Nine Worlds – have quiet rooms for those attendees who are anxious, sensitive, peopled out, or (in my case) misophonic. Loncon really needed to have one or two of those, for those of us who needed to get away from the noise and the hubbub. This is a medical issue.
But, really, Steve and Alice and the rest of the con folks were doing their best under what I believe must be very trying circumstances.
Now, onto the big problems, which are all with the Excel’s hosting. There are several issues here, which really needed to be addressed because IMO they break all manner of mores and the occasional law.
Monopolised Cartel: Basically, hiring the Excel means you have to hire their favoured Tech suppliers (Blitz), and their favoured security company (Secure-Ops Ltd). Of course the tech suppliers, as I said above, then delivered the wrong equipment, in unmarked boxes, and broken radios, setting the con off with practical difficulties from the start.
Food Hygiene: A food stall was set up in the Fan Village, selling hot dogs and “cheeseburgers”. The burgers were simply a burger with a slice of plastic cheese, no other frills, and in the case of the ones I and several other people bought were not properly cooked. As in still pink on the inside. I feel a complaint to the Food Standards Agency and Newham Borough Council coming on.
Short Measures: The con bar in the Fan Village has real ale in bottles and has dual prices listed for them as for pints and bottles (and the bottles were dearer.) I had a couple of “pints” – which were 400/440ml bottles decanted into plastic tumblers. A pint is 568ml. I’m pretty sure that’s actually illegal, and will be reporting it to the appropriate authorities.
Access and Makework: For some reason, though the entrance to the Fan Village was a total of about fifty feet wide, the Excel staff decided to rope off most of it and just leave a roughly eight foot gap at one end, which they split into entry and exit lanes, watched by at least two of their staff plus one Con volunteer. Apparently (according to the one I asked) this was to prevent people being hit in the shins in head-on collisions with mobility scooters.
I suspect it was makework to give the overstaffed Secure-Ops folk something to do. Amazingly, it didn’t occur to them to put the entrance and exits at opposite ends, to prevent the creation of a choke point that actually *caused* people to bump into each other going in and out on either side of the line.
Marginalisation: The Excel staff decided on Friday that priority mobility/access badge holders should use only the largest industrial lift rather than the many lifts which the con staff had (sensibly) labelled as available for such priority access on Thursday.
Last-minute messing. Did I mention the Excel’s changing rules on lighting half an hour before the play? Cos they did that.
Secure-Ops’s individual employees interpretation of rules on room filling and fire sweeps. Long story short, most of them on the main concourse – i.e. the ones guarding the stage door for the Thursday night play we were in – were polite and professional, but upstairs in the panel rooms? Not so much. One of them on Friday morning threw myself and two other people out of the Sherlock panel because the room was full – he just grabbed the three nearest people and ejected them. At the time, a person in a wheelchair was trying to enter. I bet she didn’t succeed.
One of them tried to put a hand on Lesley while she was running messages between the info desk and Ops (due to the lack of radios), and found that unwise. Her colleague was most impressed with Lesley’s agility, but a couple of others tried to intimidate her. (They failed,.)
On Saturday lunchtime at room 17, a Secure-Ops guard threw out (using the words “throwing you out”) a young woman from the Dr Who Restoration panel for the same reason. Said woman being a vulnerable person with a priority access/mobility badge. Even though there were still seats available.
This is not how fire sweeps and room filling should be handled. I was trained (yeah, I’m talking as a longtime event security/health and safety guy) that what you do with a too-full room is first ask quietly for volunteers to give up their seats. Furthermore, you do not just fucking eject people with priority access badges, because they’re supposed to have fucking priority. And if there are actually seats left then not only is the room not fucking full, but you *assist the priority access badge holder to one of those damned seats*.
It’s not rocket science.
It was clear to me that some re-training is needed. Also, it’s a problem that use of the Excel requires the hiring of a single company, preventing the choice of checking out a security team suited to the specific type of event.
And yes, I’m dropping a line to Secure-Ops politely pointing out that they have at least one douchebag asshole – and I’d bet it was the same guy who threw me out the previous day – who needs some retraining. On the unemployment line.
Basically, I think the Excel was the wrong choice for a venue, but, anyway… So there you go.
On the positive side- I did buy three fun T-shirts, the concert on Friday night was great, and we had a good time with the Captain Tartan play. So, that was my week till last night.
