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

[alicebentley]

> Sorry about the long rant - this has been building up a while

Gosh, I guess it HAS been building up for a while - because this thread has been quiet for weeks. And I can't help but feel like your response is triggered by more than reading the somewhat ambiguous comments here.

I usually prefer to have these sorts of one-by-one discussions in person - more dynamic, more personal, far more effective. But I've found that by moving 1700 miles away that's become a bit challenging. So I'm going to do what I almost never do, and answer your points here. This is not meant as any sort of argument or attack. I hope it can be the start of more discussion and less, um, dissing.

This particular venue is also quite small, not that mean people read my lj, and the vast majority are unlikely to be reading posts this ancient. But if I happen to say anything useful, please fell free to repeat it elsewhere.

You complain that the posts here make sweeping statements about the future of Capricon, but not a single person here said anything like that. In fact, I specifically mentioned that I knew the rules changed ever year. And only one person was mildly rude about the situation.

Name-calling (what else can I label your use of "boycotters" (or for that matter "elders")) adds heat but no light to the discussion. It helps if you are aware that most of the people responding here are interested in convention choices as a whole, but are not ideally positioned to attend Capricon itself anyway. Most-of-a-continent can put a real damper on ones travel plans.

As far as remedies go, I'll admit that I approached that potentially delicate matter in private (once I knew more, which came as a result of my first posting here), talking to several of the people in question, and concluding that if there was a good solution, it wasn't one that I would be able to help with.

It did lead to my second post here, after it had been made clear to me that, yes, indeed, books were considered to be of at most minor interest to the convention, and that the already small amount of dealers carrying them was to be cut back even farther. That is something that's personally very sad to me, and I don't think it's inappropriate to say so in my own journal. I also don't think that comes close to trashing the convention or the people who work on it.

I've chaired Capricon a few times myself, and had my own share of difficult decisions or unfortunate events. But that's now far in the past, and I don't expect that it have any impact on how things run now. And I'm not saying it should.

It's true that I felt it was particularly agravating that, if only a single new book dealer was to be chosen, they opted for the recent arrival that mostly carries the mainstream publishers instead of the long-time dealer, but from what you've said I gather that there even less information transfer from one year to another than there was in my day.

But the real source of the gripe was the down-grading of books itself. And while I'm sure that this will change, as everything does, it was an unfortunate capper to the events of my closing the bookstore, and then moving cross-continent.

Please do feel welcome to rant here. Things being discussed are almost always better than things building up. And it looks like you've been hearing a lot of things from other sources than this rather skimpy journal.

sigh.

[daddy-guido.livejournal.com]

Yes, dear, I'm afraid I have brought some ire from other areas. I apologize for unleashing it here, I likely should have put it in my own journal instead.

First let me clarify...

I did not intend to "name-call" - the term "elders" was actually a term of respect that i use to identify those who have worked on these conventions in the past, and encompasses you, and and unidentified number of others who I know have done work, but i don't know them all by name. Passovoy, Roper, Silver, etc. are the immediate circle of "elders" that the current generation turns to for advice. You'll recall that I have also approached YOU in the past about contributing to current events.

The term "boycotters" also was not meant with any malice - it's just the term i use to describe the small group of people who take the events of a past convention, and then use those to justify their absence from, and attacks on, future versions of that same con.
Often, those folks will rant for years after the issue has been resolved, expecting that by their absence they are somehow damaging the con. Again, just a descriptive to describe a group.

I understand your concern about the choices made this year for the dealers room - my point (which somehow got lost) was that changes made this year are not necessarily PERMANENT changes. The decisions of a single chair do not set policy for the con forever.

you said "You complain that the posts here make sweeping statements about the future of Capricon, but not a single person here said anything like that."

but statements of yours like
"The number of places where one can browse shelves, actually hold a book in hand before purchase, is growing steadily fewer. Now Capricon is yet another place where that's the case."
and
"But books have always been central to my enjoyment of science fiction, and I'm seriously bummed that Capricon has decided not to have that as a focus anymore."
imply that there has been a drastic paradigm shift in the con, which will be carried forward as a policy for the future.
This is NOT the case.
Me myself, I'm a bibliophile, and i like books, and i like having a human being with a big stack of them tell me what's good, and recommend new things i wouldn't have sought myself. So likely, next year there will be more books than this year. It so happens that books fit well into the theme i've selected, and so on.
Hell, 2-3 years from now, some renegade con chair may decide to have nothing BUT book dealers, and then fans of henna tattoos will protest THEIR choice.

You see?

My major point of protest was that Deb has gotten poked on this from many directions, and the ease of broadcasting said poking across the 'net has blown the thing Way out of proportion. She made a choice - the consumers wil validate it or refute it, and then the following year, we'll evaluate the feedback and adjust accordingly.

i apologize if you felt like I was dissing you, or attacking you, especially in the domain on your own personal journal. I have nothing but massive respect for the work that you put into this con in it's youth, and hope to add to the history of it, as I'm sure does Deb. We'll make our choices, as those who have gone before made theirs, but i beg tolerance of those choices, as we explore how to best serve the majority of the con membership.

peace,

G