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Subject: 
Re: BrickFest registration fees (was: LEGO Adult Fan Convention at Legoland California?)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.events, lugnet.events.brickfest
Date: 
Sat, 9 Sep 2006 00:32:57 GMT
Viewed: 
5904 times
  
Anthony Wrote:


   However.

The Brickfest organizers put on this expo where they invite all these AFOLs to attend their event. Why do the AFOLs come? Not for profit. They come to share ideas, visit with friends and show off their creations.

You are absolutely correct to this point
  
Now let’s say for the sake of argument that the Brickfest organizers are making a profit from Brickfest. Brickfest has now become no better than a zoo.

Well to many, including myself, a well run zoo is a cultural resource that has value and needs to be sustained and nurtured. Literally thousands of people volunteer their time and money to make them possible. All the way from vets to sales clerks. So perhaps I do like your analogy. But to really make it a well run zoo; one that cares for the needs of the animals and the public, you need a director--and in all well run zoos, that means compensating the director.

Go into a zoo, and you will find volunteers working at all sorts of jobs. Just as in Art Museums, and every other kind of museum or historical building. Why, because they believe in it. My mother was a docent for 40 years at the governor’s mansion--why--she wanted to help.

The more I think of it, the better the analogy works. Most zoos and museums have membership dues if one wants to contribute. Those dues help fund the zoo, and give the members some added benefits--such as special behind the scenes tours, discounts, etc.

In many ways BrickFest is the same thing--the dues give you access to the lectures and presentations which from what I gather are not only getting better and better but also very well received. And for many, the 25% discount at Tysons Corner Store more than paid for the registration fee. One NXT at discount saved the whole registration fee.

As far as I know, it is not a requirement for one to register to exhibit. If it is, then, I probably have a problem with that.




   Certain AFOLs then decide to take on even more responsibility and volunteer their services to do the Brickfest organizer’s job in organizing the different themes of the event for no compensation.

Which they do of their own free-will. No coercion involved. They want to see the event succeed. Just as volunteers at say the History Museum want to make it succeed.

   And then Brickfest invites the public, who also pay their dues, to come see what? The AFOLs creations, which would not be there if the AFOLs had not come.

The same is true for a museum or zoo--they come to see works of art or animals that were almost always donated to the museum.

   A for-profit organization in this situation is getting money from three sources: The public, The exihibits, and the help (by saving money by not paying the help).

We are not necessarily talking about a for-profit organization--just not a completely volunteer organization.

   In essence, the attending AFOLs are making money for the Brickfest organizers without making money for themselves.

No, they are partaking in the experience that they deemed to be of value and understand that there are financial obligations that need to be met in order for the experience to take place. Yep--just like going to a zoo.

   They are a perverted combination of zoo exhibit, natural resource and employee.

maybe--but leave out the “perverted”. And it is not really the AFOL’s that are the exhibit (unless they want to be)--it is their creations that are the exhibits.

   The difference is a side-show versus a public exhibition.
There is no “public exhibition” that I know of of any quality that does not incur expenses that have to be paid--

   That is my reasoning. Agree with it or not, you won’t change my mind.

I am not really trying to, but think your analogy of a zoo is not bad. I, myself am not anti-zoo.


Tommy Armstrong



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: BrickFest registration fees (was: LEGO Adult Fan Convention at Legoland California?)
 
(...) "Kids, they are going to call you America's most valuable natural resource. Have you seen what they do to valuable natural resources? The're going to strip mine your souls..." a nice quote from (Bruce) U. Utah Phillips Frankly, though...it (...) (18 years ago, 9-Sep-06, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: BrickFest registration fees (was: LEGO Adult Fan Convention at Legoland California?)
 
(...) I don't work for the restaurant when I eat there. Thus this is not a valid comparison. Let's look at it this way: A regular venue, say, a business expo, the attendees are there for personal gain. They pay their entry fee and do their business (...) (18 years ago, 8-Sep-06, to lugnet.events, lugnet.events.brickfest, FTX)

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