Car News

I've never heard much about any of the gaming-specific conventions
that have occasionally cropped up in St. Louis, but I don't think any
of them have caused problems like that. I certainly haven't heard
anything about the gaming rooms / programming tracks at the general
conventions, even the ones run as mini-cons within the con. The larger
conventions (2k-3k people) tend to be fairly rowdy, yes--various
alcohol law & ordinance violations, false fire alarms, general noise
complaints--but those things never have anything to do with the gaming
tracks, which usually involve people sitting quietly in the gaming
rooms for hours at a time, blissfully unaware of the chaos outside.
Honestly, any actual programming track is usually extremely safe and
quiet; it's the people who /aren't/ doing something specific who cause
problems. And I say that as a guy who's worked as security both for
cons and elsewhere.

Besides basics like having enough programming to keep people busy,
requiring registering real names when getting a badge, and requiring
the badge to be visible at all times, it usually seems to come down to
having enough security checking the peripheries of the convention and
enough willingness to come down hard on the people who need more than
a gentle reminder about the rules. (For a wet convention, it doesn't
hurt to have free beer for those over 21 who aren't obviously drunk;
fewer people set up an illegal bar in their room and get smashed if
they can get buzzed for free in the hospitality suite.) I would hope
that explaining such security theory and procedures to the host
facilities would assuage their concerns; it shows that you know what
you're doing and that you've got things covered. Of course, for
something as small as your convention, it's only 30 or so people, many
of whom you probably already know from previous years, and it's fairly
easy to keep track of and manage such a small number; I find it hard
to imaging someone being as concerned over such a small group as they
would be about a cast of hundreds.

Do you know (or could you inquire) if there is any particular reason
why they would think that the gamers in particular are a problem?
SpoCon, from your description and what I can see on its website, is
not a purely gaming convention.

--Alan

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CAR-PGa" group.
To post to this group, send email to car-pga@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to car-pga+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/car-pga?hl=en.