Convention Poll

[Saintly]

am happy to volunteer some time at my current capacity if required.

[SilverDragon]

I approve. After all, we need some kind of representation in the wider world at least, and if we can't do an event ourselves, what better to do than have a stall at another? There'd be a audience regardless of anything.

Supernova would work because it's more a pop-culture convention than anything else, although the year I went it pretty much seemed like Animania only with a token smattering of American video games.

[kup]

Just curious: What do you do at a Stall in a convention at Supanva?

Most (if not all) of those stalls are bussineses trying to sell something, we don't exactly have much to sell so we will be just there. What do we do when we are there?

[GoktimusPrime]

Individually we don't have much to sell, but I think collectively we could build quite a lot of toys. I'm thinking about making half the stall space available for people to come along and sell/trade their stuff - similar to what Sky Shadow does at Parramatta Fairs, only more collectively.

We would of course need to devise a system of tracking people's toys and sellers would need to either remain at the convention by closing time to collect money made from their sales or leave details so that funds can be sent/transferred to them. I think we would require anyone interested in selling toys to register first, then we can allocate each seller an ID number or something. Every toy has to be bagged (just like at Sky Shadow's Parra stall!) and each bag will then have a seller ID number on it. Part of the registration includes providing me with a comprehensive list of toys that they want to sell, so that I can tick it off as they are sold.

Now, hopefully we can get enough donations to fund the stall, but if it's a bit under I might charge sellers a fee to help pay for the stall hire.

[gamblor916]

Now, hopefully we can get enough donations to fund the stall, but if it's a bit under I might charge sellers a fee to help pay for the stall hire.

Just set an amount eg. if you have x toys you pay y amount. So long as the stall costs are covered I think people will be fine with the fee.
Relying on donations just makes it vague and people might be hesitant to commit.

[Burn]

I don't pretend to be any kind of "expert" on running conventions. It's just that griffin and I are the only ones who've ever done it before in this country. I'd love to see someone more capable run a TF convention here if only they'd put their hand up to do it.

Actually i've, and if I recall, a few others have put our hand up saying we'd help in any capacity.

Yes, i'm no where near the intended target of the convention, but even if I was to do stuff like design posters (which can be e-mailed and printed down in Sydney) or other stuff like that. It may not be much but every little bit helps, especially if it saves a couple of hours, hours which can be dedicated to larger aspects of the organisation.

Back to the topic at hand, a booth is, as someone said, better than nothing. It's probably not something i'd travel for though (but would still help out from a distance with anything I can). A convention I would give serious thought to travelling for. Yes, would still help out any way I can, but actually making the effort would be my way of really showing support for the concept.

[STL]

Again, if u guys do do a convention i think that getting donations isn't just gonna be enough to even sustain that. You need to be able to give people something more tangible. I very much concur with Gamblor's suggestion and feel it would help the longevity of any proposal if we could at least get people to contribuet to the fee.

I tried searching the supernova site but couldn't come up with a cost. Anyone know?

[Lord_Zed]

We would of course need to devise a system of tracking people's toys and sellers would need to either remain at the convention by closing time to collect money made from their sales or leave details so that funds can be sent/transferred to them. I think we would require anyone interested in selling toys to register first, then we can allocate each seller an ID number or something. Every toy has to be bagged (just like at Sky Shadow's Parra stall!) and each bag will then have a seller ID number on it. Part of the registration includes providing me with a comprehensive list of toys that they want to sell, so that I can tick it off as they are sold.

Now, hopefully we can get enough donations to fund the stall, but if it's a bit under I might charge sellers a fee to help pay for the stall hire.

The method of tracking peoples sale items you've outline is pretty much what my wargaming club uses for thier "Bring and Buy" Each seller is responisble for filling out a list of thier items and coding each item, so that the person running the store just has to collect the money and tick the item of the form (stored alphabeticly in an acordian file)when and if it's sold. The club takes 5% of all sales to for thier trouble, the minimum price on any item is $5.

I'm not sure about how to raise the funds for a stall though, it doesn't seem like it would pay for itself as a sale stall alone. And beyond functioning as a sort of swap meet I'm not sure of what the overall goal of the stall would be.

[roller]

can i get my money back that i donated for the aborted convention?

[GoktimusPrime]

I was going to redirect the funds to help pay for the stall, but if you really want your donation back then PM me and I'll make arrangements.