Capricon question

[alicebentley]

Know of anyone who is attending Capricon and might be interested in putting some Foglio stuff in the Art Show?

I've recently taken on the task of getting some of Phil and Kaja's limited edition prints out to conventions that take mail-in art. But it's already too late to do that for Capricon. And I think that would be a particularly appropriate place to start with.

There's still plenty of time to ship the art to the Chicago area, but it would need a local handler from that point.

Any suggestions?

ETA: Turns out it is NOT too late to mail the art in - I was looking at an earlier year's web site. (doh!)

So I'm no longer looking for someone else to carry them in.

Comments

[robotech-master.livejournal.com]

You could come on my live interview with Phil & Kaja (http://terrania.us/biblio) this afternoon. Maybe you'd find a Chicago area fan willing to help in the audience there. You never know!

[alicebentley]

Somehow I'm sure you will have more than enough people pestering you to pass on questions - but I'll be listening!

(Also, I can ask them questions any time I want - and I do!)

Mailing to Capricon

[ladyjestocost.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Confused here.

Either Priority Mail (most expensive), Parcel Post, or Fed Ex Home (costs about the sames as Parcel Post) will get there before the deadline of Feb 9 if you ship by January 30 (Wednesday).

Priority Post - 2 days
Parcel Post - 6 days
Fed Ex - 4 business days

I'm planning to ship tomorrow or Tuesday and do not expect any particular difficulties. Probably Fed Ex Home.

Re: Mailing to Capricon

[alicebentley]

OK! Looks like I was getting my dates from an earlier Capricon's web site. Thank you for the correction.

Now to round up the paperwork and get these shipped out!

[qnofhrt.livejournal.com]

Um...well, Capricon might not be a good place to start. They're having organizational issues.

[alicebentley]

What, again! (I kid)

I have been out of the smoffy loop for so long that I don't even recognize the names of most of the people running conventions these days. I think doing mail-in art always requires a level of trust, or maybe just-don't-care, even if the staff is well known.

The art we're going to be sending are signed and numbered limited edition prints of some of Phil and Kaja's earlier paintings, mostly done for Wizards of the Coast's Magic the Gathering. On the one hand, these are pretty cool and fairly rare. (They're marked as being from runs of 500, but in many cases no more than a couple dozen were printed). On the other hand, they have been sitting in storage for a coon's age, so some trips around the country can't hurt.

Are you going this year? I'd love to hear back about how their "organizational issues" settle out.

[daddy-guido.livejournal.com]

Um, I think this is a case of someone having their head up their ass for a sufficient amount of time that they don't know the current score of the game.

I don't know why gnofhrt is making that statement, but she might be thinking of several years ago, when there was a transition in leadership that was less than smooth. Long since resolved, and it never affected the con itself, which still has the best-run and most profitable art show in Chicago.

She might be thinking of a different convention, or she might just be clueless.

I'd be willing to forgive ignorance, but ignorance coupled with absolute statements that are untrue is just rude.

[alicebentley]

I've heard nothing but good things about Capricon in the five or so years since I've been able to go myself. And while hearing about personality clashes can be delicious gossip when one is part of the community, it's been so long since I was involved with the running-of part of conventions that I don't even know the names of the people doing the work.

From a "been there, done that" stance, I still enjoy hearing how the ever changing challenges of organizing a convention are handled, especially since it's rarely just a reinvention of the wheel each time.

Anyway, I was with Capricon back at its beginning, was active concom for a good long while, and still think of it kindly even though I can't easily attend anymore. Which is why it was the first one that came to mind once I was given the task of getting art prints out into the wider world again.

So, are you going this year? I'd love to hear more about it.

[daddy-guido.livejournal.com]

hehe - I can't share info about the current politics/challenges, of conrunning as I'm on a grad-school induced gafiation period. I imagine the challenges, and for that matter the political issues, have not much changed since you were here in Chicago. Time marches on, fandom seldom changes.

[qnofhrt.livejournal.com]

My information comes from the person who has been part of the team that ran Cap's art show in the past and who was called at the last minute by the person running this year's art show for assistance because this year's person has apparently never run an art show before and had no staff, computer program or anything resembling a plan. If the status of the artshow has somehow changed in the past week, I apologize.

[daddy-guido.livejournal.com]

Cap has a (recent, past 5 years or so) history of trying to get new people involved, and it seems they may have placed a new person in Art Show. However, if she was smart enough to realize she needed help, and brave enough to ask for it, the show will likely run just fine.

In any case, one department head asking for help hardly qualifies as "organizational issues".

[lverhulst.livejournal.com]

Hi Alice. I am conchair of Capricon this year and I think that qnofhrt may be referring to the fact that there are a number of new people running departments at Cap this year. This is deliberate. I wanted to bring in a bunch of new people who were interested in learning how things ran and who were excited to be helping. Of course, as with any new people, there were a few bumps in the road. And there was a little bit of difficulty in finding staff members to help in art show. (And there have been problems there for a number of years, so this year is no exception.) But that has all been resolved and the person running art show is a very hard worker and will do a good job even though she may not be experienced. She and I and controuble (who runs Windycon's artshow) have had a number of meetings this past year talking about how art shows are run and I know that she'll do a good job.

I am not sure if qnofhrt will be at Capricon, but I know that daddy_guido will - he is one of the art show auctioneers! :-)

I have an excellent team of people this year who are really happy and excited to be helping to run Capricon and who are learning a lot!

I wish you could come to Cap. I think you would have a blast! And thank you very much for thinking of Cap when deciding where to send the limited edition Foglio prints. If you check out the Cap schedule, you will see that we have a number of Magic the Gathering events scheduled. So, thanks!!!

[alicebentley]

Having new department heads all the time is an old, beloved Capricon tradition. Back in the first handful of years, there were rules to *prevent* anyone from running the same department repeatedly.

If it's anything like usual, about 1/3 of the Capricon attendees will be friends of mine. I've always had a fabulous time when I went. But airfare to Chicago runs about $500, and that's more than I can justify even for a really fun weekend.

At least this year I'll be getting to several other conventions. I'm already set up to work at Potlatch, SakuraCon, Emerald City, ComiCon San Diego, Denvention, GenCon Indy, and World Fantasy Con. Yeay!

Thanks for putting in the massive amounts of time and attention needed to chair a convention.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

I think controuble was offering to help people with mail-in art the other day.

[controuble.livejournal.com]

Hi - all the mail-in art for Capricon is coming to my house and I will be taking it to the con. I am agenting 8 artists already as well as collecting all the mail-in (because there's somebody home at my house during the day to accept it). I will be helping out in the art show as much as I can around my duties in the Internet Cafe since the person running it this year has never done one before. I am experienced - I run the WindyCon art show. If you have any questions feel free to email me - kerrylkuhn (at) comcast (dot) net.

[alicebentley]

I don't have a lot of the usual questions, because I have run Art Shows myself in the (now distant) past. Running Windycon 5's Art Show was my first Department Head concom position, but I've done others since then (including Capricon, now that I think of it).

Thank you for taking on the significant job of collecting the mail-in art - I well remember how much work that could turn into.

But now I'm curious. What all is involved with agenting other artists? How does that differ from handling the mail-in folks?

[controuble.livejournal.com]

The artists I am agenting for will get everything done by me - hang art, pack art, collect check, mail back art & check. The rest of the mail-in is just being collected at my house and delivered to the con. The ASD has to deal with it after that. Of course, I will probably end up helping with all of it. but not to the point of mailing it back.

I get a lot of artists wanting to be agented to Cap because they charge a higher commission for mail-in, but not for agented (that's treated like attending) and they get their checks and art back faster.