Ghosting at conventions

[mechgogo]

Ok, I apologise in advance if this forum is really intended for the anouncement of upcoming cons. But I couldn't find a more spot-on obvious place for a thread like this. Mods feel free to move it wherever you like.

That being said I'd like to address an issue that is becoming one of very real concern at at least one convention I know of. And it occurs to me that if it's happening at one it's probably happening at others. What I'm talking about is people "ghosting" or attending conventions without a badge, doubling up on badges or forging or buying forged convention passes.

For ten years now it's been my privelege to be part of CONvergence, a local con here in Minneapolis that has gone from being a little 500 person spin-off convention to a 3800 registered attendee event that takes over it's hotel as well as parts of three other nearby ones and is receiving increasing local and national attention as more and more genre proffesionals go as guests of honor, have the time of their lives and put the word out that CONvergence is the place to be. Steve Jacksons own Andrew Hackard spent his vacation at CONvergence this year and, by all accounts, had a blast. I know I certainly enjoyed meeting him and hanging out with him.

The problem is every year we get an increasing number of people trying to sneak into the con. These people are invariably the ones who make the most trouble as they are not there to spend time with fellow hobbyists but to freak-watch, score free booze and try to get some presumably easy nerd tail. Now, there's nothing wrong with any of these activities in and of themselves. But when you don't have the simple respect to spend the money for a membership you typically don't have the respect to behave yourself among the legit attendees either. One particularly noteworthy event involved an imbecilic frat boy in a (I swear I'm not making this up I actually have a pic of this jerk) white t-shirt reading "Fighting solves everything" trying to bully his way past a pair of female volunteers tasked with making sure everyone had passes for the convention and FAILING. Out of respect for the board I won't post the motivational poster a friend of mine made of this moron and his merry menagerie of mental midgets but those of you with an LJ account can search the handle I use here and get an eyeful. Oh and did I mention the nice people who got their hands on a convention badge and did a brisk business on Craigslist in forged badges? Very classy that.

So what's my beef with ghosting? Or is it just another excuse for that short tempered windbag Mechgogo to beat on his chest like an ape with a hangover? My beef is very simple; conventions don't just happen. A magical fairy doesn't just wave her wand and hey presto! three or four days of parties, panels and celebrity appearances. People work their rear arcs off ALL YEAR LONG to make these things happen.

Whether it's an all volunteer convention like CONvergence where everything but the dealers room is volunteer run or a for-profit event like GENCON people put a lot of sweat into making these events a reality. THey take time away from friends, family and other interests to put together everything that makes a convention more than a bunch of geeks sitting around talking about Firefly with a six pack of Mtn Dew. Many people put some very serious amounts of their own private cash into creating displays, making decorations for room parties, HOSTING room parties ($400 on average for the room plus expenses for refreshments, decor and any cleanup costs from any spills or stains) . Myself, I dropped the better part of a months pay making my events happen and I'm not even in the top 20% in terms of cash outlay.

So ghosting at a convention takes away resources that are intended for people who ACTUALLY PAY FOR THE CONVENTION. SO basically a ghost is stealing since they are helping themselves to that which is not meant for them. And at some conventions-my own beloved CONvergence frinstance- some or all of the profit made by the organisers goes to charity. MISFITS, the group that puts on CONvergence every year is a non-profit that puts every dime of profit it makes into promoting literacy through interest in science fiction and fantasy. This year they also passed the hat and found the means to help out a group of ladies who were trying to have a room party to raise money for breast cancer research. Only problem was, the person originally entrusted with the cash ran off. So MISFITS found the funds to pay for a piece of prime real estate in the main party area of the hotel and I have it on good authority that the ladies raised several THOUSAND dollars for breast cancer research. So a bunch of class act human beings (700 by best estimation) took it upon themselves to steal from people who try to promote literacy and help out in the fight against breast cancer. Nicely done.

Now, is any of this illegal? Well, some of it is. When a person buys or makes a forged badge or even doubles up with another person they are, in fact, engaging in fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud and whatever crime it is to pay someone for a forged item that is intended to be used to bypass paying for something. Mostly though it's just unethical as all get out. And whatever else unpleasant things can be said about me (trust me I know that runs into the tens of thousands of words. At least one of my wives has a list she uses to prop our front door open on warm days ;) ) I have precious little use for unethical behavior.

I'm not accusing anyone here reading this of ghosting. I've met a few of you and even the ones I didn't exactly embrace I didn't consider to be the kind of morally null smgheads who would pull a stunt like this. What I am doing is searching for ideas on how to prevent this kind of nonsense and open up a dialog so we can swap tools to combat a pattern of behavior that is demonstrably harmful to the convention scene.

I'm gonna close this now but I'd like to do so paraphrasing one of the giants of comedy, the late Mr Sam Kinison "If you're not involved with ghosting don't get involved and if you are get disinvolved."
Mech out.

[Cheese8242]

I have so far not noticed any ghosting at the few conventions I have gone to. One thing of course is to make sure everyone has a badge and it is displayed on their person in plain site at all times. This is a general rule I have noticed at every convention I have ever been at, and if CONvergence is getting to be a big con, I would think it was a rule there also. Then of course if you see someone who doesn't have a badge, report them if they can't produce said badge immediately.

Of course the con needs security, in appropiate ammounts for the size of it. And if at all possible it should be big burly guys, in other words people that can intimadate the average person. This way no one try's to bully their way in.

Another thing you could do is, have a con starting point. Everyone has to go through these doors and only these doors to get into the con. This might not work out if your con is spread out over several hotels or has large open outdoor spaces, but if it is in one convention center or hotel this should work. At least limit the number of ways to get in, all exits should be exits, just only a few actual entrances. This way any con attendee will have to go by a slew of people to get in.

Some con's I have been to are using plastic cards as badges. These are printed up at the door. These would also be a lot harder to forge.

And of course make it known that any type of Ghosting, weither it be forged badges, no badges, doubling up or whatever, will get you not only immediately thrown out of the con, but appropiate legal action take as well. Let legitimate con attendees know that they should report any ghosting they see.

[mechgogo]

These are all great ideas cheese and in fairness CONvergence already has many of them in place. The printing of badges on-site is one I hadn't thought of and will have to suggest to con-com. Right now, they are pre-printed in advance because we've got, on average 3K people pre-registering and another 800 showing up at the door. But I'm sure it can't be that hard to use the same tech the DMV uses to make a badge complete with picture of the attendee on-site. Might slow things down some but not critically so I don't think.

The two biggest problems we have are that first the Bloomington Sheraton where the convention is held is a BIG building. All kinds of ways in and out so we can't really create a choke point. The second is that the cabanas and garden court where the main party action takes place and which are the biggest draw for ghosts and trouble makers are currently public space. There's a couple areas in those sections that are badged only but most of the party rooms do not, as of right now require a badge to enter. There's talk of making that a requirement but concom needs to look into the liability issues. Say if someone gets tore up at the Romulan Embassy then wraps their car around a telephone pole on the drive home. I'm personally involved with one of the community organisations who's room party tends to set the standard in a lot of ways-we were the first to have real food instead of just little bowls of nibbles frinstance- and I'm pushing pretty hard for us to go to a badged or previously RSVP'ed community member only arrangement. The last bit of that is because we're an alt-life organisation and not everyone in the group is into the con enough to buy a membership but some still like to attend it as a community event. Hopefuly if we institute a policy like that others will follow. Lord and Lady know we regularly get visited by the other room hosts to see what we've done this year and what ideas they can borrow from us. :)

As for legal repurcussions, the con already has that. If you get busted ghosting you get exited off the property. Get caught with a fake badge and the cops get called. Plus you get perma-banned from all future conventions. I know there's no way to totally cure the problem. It'd just be nice to reduce it to a small fraction of what it currently is. I know that for my part I'm recording badge numbers at every event I run from now on. I typically volunteer 20-30 hours on the gaming track running demos. An increasing number of my events are in the public areas due to space requirements. I didn't do it this year but in 2010 it's gonna be "No badge no play.". I reckon fair is fair. I run the events at the con for the con for people who have paid to register and attend the con. Some creep sneaking in and playing without a badge is taking a chair away from somebody who paid their way legitimately in part (and this isn't some of my trademark arrogance here. I get told this every year by my players) so that they can attend my games.

Ah well, fixable problem that, like most is just a matter of doing the legwork and being too dumb to give up :)

[RevBob]

Originally Posted by mechgogo

These are all great ideas cheese and in fairness CONvergence already has many of them in place. The printing of badges on-site is one I hadn't thought of and will have to suggest to con-com. Right now, they are pre-printed in advance because we've got, on average 3K people pre-registering and another 800 showing up at the door. But I'm sure it can't be that hard to use the same tech the DMV uses to make a badge complete with picture of the attendee on-site. Might slow things down some but not critically so I don't think.

Actually, Chattacon tried that sort of on-site printing, and it was nightmarish. Imagine prereg folks having to wait two and three HOURS for their badge. After the second nightmare, their controlling organization has dictated that the badges WILL be printed ahead of time. They won't get into the wild before the con starts, of course....

I didn't do it this year but in 2010 it's gonna be "No badge no play.". I reckon fair is fair. I run the events at the con for the con for people who have paid to register and attend the con.

As it should be. Every con I attend has security at the convention function areas to make sure that the only people getting in there have badges. Room parties are certainly harder to police, but con-only areas should always be secured that way.

[Strongbow]

(The following depends on both your municipal ordinances and the policies of your local police department.)

Hire police officers for your event.

HPD policy prevents me from being the person that actually checks badges at the event (i.e. the door person), because that constitutes enforcing a house rule and not the law, and we're not bouncers, we're cops. It does not, however, prevent me from chucking out / arresting anyone who is trespassing inside your event--meaning anyone without a bone fide badge for entry.

There are all sorts of ways to coordinate just how the relationship would work, but both vendors and event staff appreciate having us on site.

I've worked concerts, Budweiser stockholder meetings, sports events, dance clubs, country clubs, golf courses, and private residences as security. I volunteered for Owl Con last year, and will do so again this year.

Having uniform cops on site is a great way to stop the idiots. We run for anywhere between $30-45 an hour, but the event coordinators seem to really appreciate the effect of having us around.

[Dave_67]

Well, I know that it's not just gaming, but all sorts of conventions that that sort of problem happens, and has for years.

One convention I help out with here in Toronto, Anime North, had 14,800 paid attendees this past May - so on-site badge printing would be a major disaster to the Nth degree. The conference center where a good deal of the events happen had one point of entry that made badge checking much easier. (Not to say that the way the setup last year wasn't, just that one point instead of two helped quite a bit.)

However, the security volunteers at every 'check-point' had to ask attendees to show the back of their badges. See, somehow, someone was able to get a copy of the badge and sold a number online. Problem was, they only had the front of the badge, not the back - where the convention decided to print out con policies for the first time. Hopefully there will be measures taken so that doesn't happen next year.

The main hotel we use, right across the street, has only a couple of entrances, but access to events can be monitored as they are all in the rooms, not the hotel corridors themselves - with the exception of one large open space, which is right next to one of the operating offices, so there is always someone there to keep an eye on things if need be.

Another convention I help out at, a science-fiction one called Polaris, has a lot less people - about 2,000 or so, depending on the guest list each year - where ghosting was a bit of a problem due to the fact that the hotel being used up until last year (the same one used by the other convention) had a large bar just off the main lobby that some ghosters could spend time in and meet with their friends. Now, ghosting is cut down at that one by there being karaoke in there on the Friday night, and then having the charity auction (open to the general public) Sunday morning.

One way that was used to help cut down on such, and increase attendence, was the offer of a two-hour pass which allowed access to the conventions with some restrictions - such as the guest talks, autograph & photo sessions. What happens is that a deposit equal to the one-day attendence rate is given to Registration, and a time-stamped wrist band is issued. If you return within the two hours, you are returned your deposit minus the cost of the pass.

However, a dedicated ghoster will always find a way to ghost the con. I for one know of a friend who said that he only went to one local convention on the Saturday night in order to attend the room parties. All you really can do is inform your staff to keep their eye out, and try to install in all of them the self-esteem to be able to (politely but firmly) confront a ghoster.