[Board] Fwd: Re: Would you like to be a Guest of Honor at Penguicon 5?

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 28 July 2006 10:42 pm, Tracy Worcester wrote:
> Actually, this is another interesting question:  if the Board is going to
> try to help acquire excellent guests in advance, which is one of the better
> ways to get the most shiny ones, occasionally a chair is going to get handed
> guests in advance.  Personally, I still think advanced guest acquisition is
> a good plan, but it is obvious this is not always going to be the case.  I
> think it's worth discussing, either online or at the meeting.

Year 1 and year 2 were the only years we invited GoHs more than a year in 
advance.  This year we couldn't get Tamora because her schedule had already 
filled up, and we were inviting 10 months in advance.

The problem with waiting to clear stuff with the new con chair is it's too 
late to get the really interesting people easily.  The other fun thing is 
that GoH invitations are always really tentative and you generally want to 
have your first five overlap and then invite more as soon as the others 
conflict, and doing it right is sort of a dynamic thing (If we get A and C 
but not B then we definitely want to invite E, but if we get B we should 
invite D instead.  And getting C gives us much more leverage to get F, but 
doesn't guarantee it, so make sure C is a good guest by themselves and who 
else would work well with them?)

This kind of reasoning doesn't even make it _into_ guest selection committees, 
let alone through an open debate process.  I realize guest selection is too 
important to wing it, but it's a bit like saying art is too important to be 
left to artists.

> ...Tracy

Oh, P.S.  Wen Spencer moved to Boston.  No longer a potential Nifty, she's in 
plane ticket land now.  But that's ok because she writes fantasy that appeals 
to children, so we apparently don't want her anyway. :(

Rob
-- 
Never bet against the cheap plastic solution.