Thread: Convention Planning and Suggestions

Folks, as there have been many wonderful posts under the "Convention Cancelled" thread, I thought it would be a better idea to move past the cancellation and into a thread for planning. Please post your ideas, comments, etc. here (and not in the survey thread....). I will start off with a cross post of a message where I outlined potential committee roles.

Re-post:

- Chairperson (proctors meeting and is responsible to SRP members for posing info)
- Vice-Chairperson (in case the Chairperson has a shaving accident or is hit by a bus)
- Finance and Audit - 1 person to track reservation payments, donations from the vendors, disbursement of funds to site. Provides accounting reports to the Committee and SRP membership. (Excel is your friend.....)
- Media/Press - 2 people - both generate press releases. 1 to work with media outlets; 1 to produce and manage printed materials
- Vendors - 2 people: 1for those attending, 1 for donations for prizes, drawings
Site/Co-location Coordination 2 people: 1 for actual site/co-location; 1 for research into permits, tax requirements, etc.
- Membership Liaison - 1 person: respond to FAQs; Registration. This would make sure all attendees are accounted for, any freebies are handed out, and walk-ups are registered. Also, any no shows would be accounted for and any refunds (if applicable) could be disbursed.
- Activities (demos, drawings, lunch, etc.) - 2 people: 1 to coordinate with presenters; 1 to schedule
- Transportation - 1 person: generate list of hotel options; work with site to ensure shuttles or courtesy cars are available for folks bringing tons of stuff (vendors), international arrivals, etc.

Thanks!

Greg

From the convention canceled thread...

One thing that the committee will ultimately have to do is forecast what attendance might be. Without that the committee won't know whether they need a venue the size of the back table at Cheers (the bar) or the large hall at McCormick Place (the convention hall).

Obviously, attendance will strongly correlate to the cost of attending... people will come if they can afford it. But, we don't have a good model of the financial resources of our membership... hence, there's no way to predict how many could afford to attend at various cost levels.

So, a poll was started Saturday to try to nail that down. We should encourage everyone to vote their feelings in the "Will you attend the Convention if it Costs you $X?" thread.

Basically, it asks if you would attend the convention if it cost you:

1. <$150,
2. 150-300,
3. 300-600,
4. 600-1000,
5. 1000-1500, or
6. >1500.

So far, there haven't been many voters... that could be taken as an indication that not many people are seriously interested no matter what it costs??? Hopefully, it's just that they haven't seen the poll yet.

Can you, as site god, do a broadcast PM?

This is a wonderful idea. I never saw the poll (or if I saw it, paid attention to it) with the question about one's limits on paying certain amounts of money to attend the conference.

Or create a separate forum title, group? section? header? whatzitz? which specifically and solely relates to the vaunted conference

whatever, Bruce

I think one of the big problems is that as a group we are spread out all over the place and its not just the cost of the hotel stay there are the transportation costs, meals, time off from work and away from the family. These things could keep many away. I personally think it may make more sense to have regional conventions and maybe a european one also. They would be smaller but more could attend.

Originally Posted by WireBeard

Can you, as site god, do a broadcast PM?

AFAIK, no. Even if we could, many members have PMs and emails blocked, outdated email addresses, etc.

Originally Posted by Bruce

This is a wonderful idea. I never saw the poll (or if I saw it, paid attention to it) with the question about one's limits on paying certain amounts of money to attend the conference.

Or create a separate forum title, group? section? header? whatzitz? which specifically and solely relates to the vaunted conference

whatever, Bruce

Well hopefully you've voted now... but if you haven't. the poll is open and waiting for your vote.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

I think one of the big problems is that as a group we are spread out all over the place and its not just the cost of the hotel stay there are the transportation costs, meals, time off from work and away from the family. These things could keep many away. I personally think it may make more sense to have regional conventions and maybe a european one also. They would be smaller but more could attend.

I think there's room for both (meaning a national and regionals). The guys in the Dallas/Fort Worth area are planning (or recently had) a get together and, as I recall, there have been others in the past. A national get together affords the ability of having Vendors involved and hopefully other forums. We're trying to be sensitive to the cost factors... after all, some of us faced that in deciding whether we were going to attend the ill-fated October convention. That's the primary reason for this poll... to see how many people would attend depending what it might cost them.
Understanding the geographical distribution of our membership will help us determine what the best location is to serve the most members economically. That information will come from the Googlemap (which is why we've made a number of requests recently asking members to add/update their location). So if anyone hasn't added their location to that, please do so asap.

Hey, that's a great idea! Folks that can attend multiples are welcome to do so and local folks aren't forced to mortgage their homes to attend. I wonder if vendors would buy in to that as well? Maybe do one quarterly?

Greg

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

I think one of the big problems is that as a group we are spread out all over the place and its not just the cost of the hotel stay there are the transportation costs, meals, time off from work and away from the family. These things could keep many away. I personally think it may make more sense to have regional conventions and maybe a european one also. They would be smaller but more could attend.

Followed up with a big convention in VEGAS!!

Originally Posted by WireBeard

Hey, that's a great idea! Folks that can attend multiples are welcome to do so and local folks aren't forced to mortgage their homes to attend. I wonder if vendors would buy in to that as well? Maybe do one quarterly?

Greg

Just a quick note here, as I posted a long comment under the Poll thread.....and then had to DELETE myself after I saw Joe's comments about not posting....LOL... Damn I have got to stop skimming!!

I as a Vendor could only afford to go to a convention where the most people attended, and I think it would be this way for other Vendors too Unless of course, one is held close by to where you live...and then yeah, sure I'd drive 2 or 3 hours to get somewhere.

Colleen

Originally Posted by churley

Just a quick note here, as I posted a long comment under the Poll thread.....and then had to DELETE myself after I saw Joe's comments about not posting....LOL... Damn I have got to stop skimming!!

I as a Vendor could only afford to go to a convention where the most people attended, and I think it would be this way for other Vendors too ...

Sorry Colleen Hopefully you'll post the long version of your thoughts when you get time.

I would guess most/all vendors want to attend a gathering where there is sufficient attendance to make their investment worthwhile. A vendor can probably sell lots of stuff to their existing customer base at a show... but the real reason they should want to attend is to get new customers. In such a small community as wet shaving, that may prove difficult.

There's lots of posts being made that imply many people are thinking of this "convention" in terms like a big trade show. Perhaps that's their only reference... something they attended as part of their work or membership to some national organization... something someone else paid for... something attended by, perhaps, thousands of people... held in a large convention center in a city with lots of other things to do.

I guess, right or wrong, I see this a lot smaller...

As things stand right now, if we had a national show and 50 people from SRP attended, I'd be ecstatic. Why am I thinking such a small number? Plain and simple, COST. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but if I have to lay out more than $500-600 you probably won't see my smiling face at the picnic.... so I'm thinking along the lines of how do we reduce the cost as much as practical. But before we do that, we need to know how much a significant number of people are willing to pay... otherwise we're wasting our time. Once we know it's viable, we can look at ways to reduce costs... cuz the lower the cost, the more attendees.

For example, just thinking outside the box, there's no reason this has to be held in a hotel or municipal convention center... there's plenty of community centers, fire halls, churches, etc. that host small to moderate sized gatherings all the time... and, hopefully, for a lot less money. Now, if we could find one of these next door to a Motel 6... well, you get the idea. Yes, there's all sorts of other issues too... security, parking, airport access, etc. ad infinitum. That's why this is not nearly as simple as saying "hey, lets have this in Branson!" because that's a neat place.

We'll need to look at ways to attract attendees outside of SRP. (I don't know for sure, but it's a logical guess that Lynn invited all the other wet shaving forums to participate in the October convention to increase attendance so it would be more worthwhile for vendors to attend.) More attendees = more vendors... and vice versa, more vendors will attract more attendees.

There's the potential to get caught up in a lot of chicken or egg scenarios when planning things of this nature... we need to be careful, but if we're overly cautious we won't get far due to our own fears... we need to continue to push this toward completion.