Vivisector
Daggers and Spears and Songs => FA Obsession Collection => Topic started by: Conan on May 20, 2011, 01:33:31 pm
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The con hasn't officially started yet and already the Twitter is abuzz at the fact that FA: United's registration opened nearly two hours late, and some people are claiming to have been in line for 3 hours (http://twitter.com/#!/Lonewolf_666/status/71608923815292930).
Glad to see they do indeed run their con as poorly as they run their website!
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If life truly imitates art, I'm waiting for someone to get a hold of everybody's personal identification info due to poor security at the con front desk.
Wonder who's gonna get outed as a rapist this time...
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I have a confirmation for someone in line for 3 hours, I have a friend there who has been texting me throughout the day.
The problems were apparently "PC Issues" reported at the time of the delay, which ended up delaying registration by an hour and forty five minutes (in other words, they didn't test the PC's ahead of time, may not even have had them set up, and then decided to fire them up at the time registration opened and oops, there's problems.) Registration took Sponsors/Super Sponsors first, then went through the line of unregistered people and told them that anyone who wanted to register for sponsor/super sponsor could skip to the front of the line. THEN they took on the on-site registrations (remember, on site pays more than pre-reg) and only THEN did they start taking pre-registered congoers.
Later on, during Opening Ceremonies, Dragoneer blamed the delay at Registration this morning on the fact that "More people showed up today than showed up ALL of the con last year"
And yet, even tho most of them were on site registrations, that line got chewed through faster. Hmmm.
Other reports:
Sciggles is yelling and screaming at people at the con to sit down and shut up, and is in general bossing the con staff around. Interesting for someone who isn't even officially on staff, no?
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The problems were apparently "PC Issues" reported at the time of the delay
Welp, when you've got a bunch of hardware geeks who don't think PCs (PCs being generic Taiwanese crap) are utter shit, and thus actually get some real, professional equipment for this sort of thing, this is what you get.
Just based on my own experiences in "IT", the industry in which Dragoneer finds himself, I'm going to bet the registration was a giant Excel spreadsheet.
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That, I can confirm it's not. It's actually a pretty decent piece of software.
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Big surprise, Piche spends money on yet another 'solution' that nobody knows how to use.
Great job, go hog wild.
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So did Dragoneer's FA panel happen? I notice it wasn't advertised on the FAU twitter.
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So did Dragoneer's FA panel happen? I notice it wasn't advertised on the FAU twitter.
I wonder too if anyone secured pictures of the new UI that Piche talked so highly of preceding the event.
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There's at least one person on Twitter claiming to have seen the new UI, of course they don't go into details (see: there's a chance they're still showing off static HTML files like in January).
Only one person showed up to SilverAutomatic's panel about dealing with trolls. He was visibly distraught in photos posted to Lulz. Someone mentioned: Actually, it was called "Internet Survival Guide" (although I suppose that would imply harrassment is part of the deal). He didn't actually end up doing the panel, just complaining about how it was the con's fault for having people be in the registration line, and that's why no one came to his panel though.
Thing is though, it was announced you don't need to get into the first couple panels with a registration badge, due to the issues. So really, his excuse is meaningless-- legitimately no one wanted to go to his panel.
And to top off the entire event, Dragoneer used his ability to get up in front of a group of people to propose to Sciggles. But that's a topic for a different thread...
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Only one person showed up to SilverAutomatic's panel about dealing with trolls. He was visibly distraught in photos posted to Lulz.
I'm thoroughly unsurprised. What in hell would he even have to SAY at such a panel? Can't imagine that he's got anything at all interesting or relevant to contribute.
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Only one person showed up to SilverAutomatic's panel about dealing with trolls. He was visibly distraught in photos posted to Lulz.
So how is he dealing with it. Because the first thing I thought when I heard about that panel is that somebody should film it and put it on Youtube.
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http://youtu.be/tFl3uuacYOQ?hd=1
Here is a video of Silver's panel
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http://youtu.be/tFl3uuacYOQ?hd=1
Here is a video of Silver's panel
A little more flamey than I expected, but otherwise standard IRL vs. Internet reality for the fandom.
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Looks like they forgot to order one of the gifts for the supersponsors:
Yea! I want to know what snafu happened in registration that jinxed not only the computers, but also the engraved badges that all Pre-Registered Survivor and Wastelanders orders were supposed to get. Furthermore, if it was a known problem nearing the convention, why was there no statement to the people that registered that there was a snafu? A simple heads up of backlogging would have been nice..( not just "We ran out of money" once I entered the reg. room), but there has been nothing about it stated... therefor, I made this thread for an answer to this question.
I am not trying to cry about this as a 'where is it attitude'...as I have put in the maximum sponsorship this year and last.. but just an explanation and maybe one for the others that might be thinking of this same thing. ( because I know there are others wondering why they paid 75 dollars for a shirt. lol )
- Bakani
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I get the distinct impression this guy doesn't know what the word SNAFU stands for.
However it is a particularly apropos term for anything involving FA.
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( not just "We ran out of money" once I entered the reg. room)
Waitaminute, what?
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( not just "We ran out of money" once I entered the reg. room)
Waitaminute, what?
From Dragoneer:
My apologies for that. We removed the information some time ago about that on the main site. Unfortunately, we ran out of pre-con funding to complete them. That said, we are still planning to honor the engraved badges and will be contacting those who pre-regged to provide customized con engraved badges (free) and we will send notices via email before we send them out to ensure proper shipping addresses, along with FA lanyards as well.
Thanks,
Dragoneer
Note - Also, convention sponsorships are designed to help out the convention. The extra money goes to help provide neat things for our con members, and we're grateful to each sponsor who helps support the convention. We will uphold our end of what we promised, and the badges will be wearable at any convention, and we will remove FAU branding from them (at request) to offer a custom acrylic con badge.
More info will follow. If you want to keep updated on on that please join the FA United mailing list. We will be making announcements regarding that soon.
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Get ready to add it to the timeline.
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From Dragoneer:
So they ran out of money but had their party anyway? Nice.
I'd be really interested to know precisely how they ran out of money. In other words, what cost projection was so wildly wrong that you *ran out of money* and could not provide things promised to paying customers? I am also led to wonder about what the law says about this sort of thing: if it's a charitable donation, what happens if you don't get those donor perks promised? Etc. etc.
Not that it'll ever matter; his donors won't hold his feet to the fire and we all know Sean Piche does not operate in the same financial dimension as the rest of us schmucks.
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What a douche; "You're doing us a favor so you better not expect any of the stuff we said we would give you!"
Customer service at its best. Also how hard is it to figure out the margin on a sponsor... Sponsor pays X amount of money and badges cost Y amount of money. X-Y = how much I make per sponsor. Seriously, it's not that hard Dragoneer; it's called algebra....
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From Dragoneer:
f it's a charitable donation, what happens if you don't get those donor perks promised? Etc. etc.
To make things more interesting, the convention was being operated by the for-profit entities Ferrox Art, LLC and FA United, LLC. Unless they specifically stated somewhere that the gifts may be substituted or that they might not actually be available, there's a good chance they could get in trouble. That is, if someone decided to take it that far.
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To make things more interesting, the convention was being operated by the for-profit entities Ferrox Art, LLC and FA United, LLC. Unless they specifically stated somewhere that the gifts may be substituted or that they might not actually be available, there's a good chance they could get in trouble. That is, if someone decided to take it that far.
Even if they did, I'm reasonably sure that taking people's money, not giving them what you promised them, and spending it (I'm sure that money has been long since spent), is not exactly what the legal profession calls "kosher". With no other remedy he'd have to give them their money back. Which would turn into an endless "Oh, not *this* month, sorry...got to pay off my previous cell phone balance plus these data overage charges...next month I promise!" At which point you either go to small-claims court or just roll your eyes in disgust and decide that FA:U4 will be the last time you give welfare money to Sean Piche.
Which, you know, if you've got some money to burn and you really like a convention...sure, go for the super-sponsor thing or whatever. The little goodies aren't really worth it; but that's not the point. It's more of a "support something you like" thing. But Christ people, this is a vanity con if there ever was one. It's just another stop on the circuit for most furfags. It's in freaking New Jersey. Would anyone care about this festival of sadness if it weren't associated with FA?