What's up with Capricon?

[alicebentley]

Does anyone reading this know who's running the 2005 Capricon? I know the staff changes around every year (in general, a good thing) but I just heard about a policy change they've put in this year that made my jaw drop.

Greg Ketter (from DreamHaven Books in Minneapolis for those who have just joined us) just told me that Capricon returned his check for tables, saying that they wanted more new blood and felt that there were too many book dealers anyway.

This would have been his 25th Capricon. That's right - he's been to every single one. I was trying to work out with other long-timers whether he is or is not the ONLY dealer to have participated so long. I should ask Steve Salaba, who would be one of the few other contenders I can think of.

I think this was a very poor decision on someone's part. Do they really feel that books are no longer part of science fiction? Or that Mad Science (this year's theme) is only about gadgets and sparkly stuff? There were only four book dealers last year anyway - how many fewer can they be planning on!

I wasn't at all sure I'd be able to afford going this year anyway, since for the first time it would mean flying in. Now here's one more big reason not to try too hard.

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Maybe we should have Alicecon and come visit you that weekend.

I looked over the web site in some detail, but there's no list of who is on the concom, nor who is responsible for anything. If you dig really hard, you can find a few data points. Having followed every link on the Capricon web site, I learned that:

They have a book club, and Helen Montgomery is the coordinator.

They have a "Dark and Stormy Planet" contest, and the judges are: Tracey Callison, Eloise Mason (nee Beltz-Decker) and Moshe Yudkowsky.

They have a "featured filker" named Erica Neely and also expect Steve Macdonald, Bill Roper, and Eric Coleman.

It seems that Siobhán M. Murphy is in charge of the art show.

They are run by a group that exists to run Capricon: Phandemonium. Its board of directors includes: Phoenix (Board President), Vicki Ortega, Doyle Blooding, Gretchen Roper (retiring), Brent Warren and the Capricon XXV Chair Deb Kosiba.

I don't know most of these people.

K.

[billroper]

There should be a better staff list on the Capricon website (something that we discussed today for WindyCon, actually). Let me say that there are a lot of good people working on Capricon and they're actually running a good convention, despite what you might infer from the situation in the Dealers' Room.

Of course, I do know -- at least peripherally -- everyone named above. (And Gretchen wrote the blurb for filking, since she's helping run that area this year. Erica's (catalana) just passed her Ph.D. defense in Philosophy down at U of I, so this is likely the last year she'll be in the area.)

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I can't tell if you are the more clever, for saying that you know (but then not telling) who's working on Capricon by I guess assuming Alice's question was rhetorical and that she didn't expect an answer to "Does anyone know who is running the 2005 Capricon?" Or if tanac is, for supplying the requested information.

These sorts of things always baffle me, and Alice hasn't said.

K.

[billroper]

At the time I responded to you, tanac had already supplied the necessary information to Alice. I thought that Mike had already gotten the information separately on the GT list (but I may misremember) and would provide it to Alice as well. And in my response to Mike on the GT list, I offered more information via channels less public than an e-mail list or LJ, because -- like most people -- there are things that I'd rather not commit to print.

I'm not trying to be clever. It's too late an hour to try to be clever.

[jerrykaufman.livejournal.com]

Maybe we should have Alicecon and come visit you that weekend.

Sounds like a good idea to me. What weekend does Capricon fall on? With luck, we'll have sort of party going on.