Subject:
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Re: A BricksWest Critique?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.events.brickswest
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Date:
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Wed, 10 Jul 2002 22:00:33 GMT
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Viewed:
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898 times
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Wow, not sure exactly what post to reply to, there is alot of good points in
this thread. But I will reply to this one but still touch upon everything.
First off I want to say that Matt did an AMAZING job, there were alot of
people trying to dictate how things should go but none were willing to step
up to the plate and shoulder everything untill Matt came along. If it was
not for Matt there would not have been a BricksWest, so I thank him for
that, and I think all of us should thank him for being the only person
willing to take such an enourmous chance and risk.
Sure there were things that went wrong - but I do nto see how they were
Matts fault. The shirts were lost in shipping - not Matts fault. The Luau
got lost in the employee shuffle at Legoland - not Matts fault.
I want to touch upon this a little more as I have seen some hints that Matt
could have done more about the Luau. When you deal with Legoland you have to
deal with one person (and AFIK its like that in all of Lego). There is one
person that is in charge of working with you, and thats what happened to
Matt. ANd Matt did call to check up on it often. Some things happend within
the staffing at Legoland and his contact was gone. The person who took over
was not filled in by the Lego employee so the Luau was lost. This was what
was told to me, and from what I know about the employees with Legoland this
is very much true and possible. And this is the story of what happend as
best as I remember it. So this was not Matt's fault - he was playing by
Legoland's restrictive rules and he got burned by the shuffle. Not Matt's fault.
I will reply to further items below...
In lugnet.events.brickswest, William R. Ward writes:
> "Todd Thuma" <thumat@gactr.uga.edu> writes:
> > Is the weekend, the 2nd weekend of February a good weekend for all?
> > We talked at BricksWest about doing it more in the park and more
> > closely associated with LEGO Direct, LEGO Retail, or Legoland.
>
> Sounds good.
Yes, if it is the holiday weekend then this works for me.
> Also, I want to commend Dan Parker for his great job running the
> pavilion. There was some chaos at first but he sorted everything out
> and ran it very smoothly.
Yes, lets not forget him, and everybody that took the time to work over there.
> As for next year, I'm not sure who's going to be running the show, but
> one tradition that I would advocate we adopt for BricksWest is that
> whoever runs it one year should be the assistant the next. This way
> the reins of power as it were are passed smoothly and whoever is
> running the show has someone with experience to guide them, while at
> the same time nobody gets burned out having to do it again and again
> year after year.
I am not sure I agree with this. As long as Matt is willing to be *the* man,
i say let him. He has delt with these people before, and has a working
knowledge of what to do and what not to do. Making a different person the
leader would be a hassle, even with the help of the leader from the year
before. So as long as Matt wants to do it, let him. Why would we not want
him to? I really do not like the idea of a commitie or team or whatever -
that will lead to confusion and the more possibility of a ball being dropped
in the hand-off.
And I thought we as a community were able to voice what we wanted and such
last year on these boards, did I miss something here?
> That all being said, here are some things that I think we could do to
> make it even better. Don't read these as criticisms, as much as
> suggestions...
>
> MOC display
> -----------
> * The people running the MOC display, especially Dan and the SCLTC
> members, didn't have much of a chance to attend convention
> functions because they had to be manning the pavilion the whole
> time. Obviously whoever's doing this is going to miss some of the
> events, but it would be nice to try to make an effort to avoid
> this. (My club is doing the big train layout next year, so I have
> a vested interest in this...)
I think this is more of an in-club area. It is not up to Matt who will be
watching your trains and such, its the clubs deal. This is something your
club needs to work out within its walls.
Perhaps there needs to be hours on the tent, like it will be open 12-4 or
something. this way people are not stuck over there all day long. But this
is more of a club decision I would think. I was under the impression that
the temt would only be open certian hours last year - I was surprised to see
it was open all day, every day. But I am sure the Legoland guests
appreciated this as the tent was prettymuch filled the entire time.
> * There was very little announced about how the display would be
> organized. The models that were brought didn't match up well with
> the categorization scheme that was used in many cases. A bit more
> planning would be good here, and having people pre-register their
> MOCs would help the planning for this.
True, but I do not think this deterred from the amazing MOCs that were on
display.
> * The barriers against little fingers disturbing models were
> inadequate. Some people either didn't put their models on display
> or only did so for a short time due to this.
Once again, I think this is more of a club area. I have only seen Lego in
that tent 2 times, and it was a LUG event both times. AFIK Legoland does not
have barriers that would keep hands off of the display. I am sure the clubs
would have something for when they display at events. The clubs should be
incharge of protecing their dispaly as they see fit. It is theirs afterall.
> * Some form of contact between the various venues (pavilion and
> hotel in this case) would be essential. Talkabout two-way radios,
> HAM, or whatever - but some way to keep in touch is critical. We
> ended up using cell phones, which were in some cases paying
> roaming charges, and dealing with low batteries. That was a mess.
>
> Film Festival
> -------------
> * The choices of categories didn't match the entries very well.
> There should be about a half dozen or so movies per category,
> using a nomination process like the Academy Awards(R). But have
> more categories, so there are more chances to win.
Yes!!
> * Some possible categories: parodies, derived works (based on
> movies, TV, etc), or totally original works. People reacted so
> positively to the parodies and derived works that the original
> ones were overlooked in my opinion.
> * I was concerned about the use of copyrighted sound in many of the
> films, apparently without permission.
Well, this is getting back into the over-careful trademark issue that I was
never fond of. But the presenters were not making a profit from them. They
were made for the private use of the indivuduals who chose to enter them in
a contest. In other words, relax ;)
> * A video tape or DVD should be available that includes all the film
> entries, to be sold at the event. Cost should be low enough to
> cover only the costs of production. Entrants should have to
> license their work for such a purpose as a condition of entry, and
> that they own or have permission to use any copyrighted material.
> To avoid technical glitches, the video tape can be used as the
> presentation medium during the show.
This was supposed to happen last year. And AFIK this was the only area in
which a "ball" was dropped. I was really looking foward to the DVD of the
event, but after the event I did not see it mentioned ever again. I would
have at least liked a "Sorry, but this is why it did not happen" post or
something (and if there was one I miissed it). This is the one area I was
dissapointed about.
> * Deadlines for entry should be sufficiently in advance for the
> video dubbing and licensing issues to be resolved in time.
>
> Panels
> ------
> * Panels should start and end on time, at the locations specified in
> the program. It should be someone's job to make sure this
> happens. Allow time between panels for cleanup, people to come
> and go, and furniture and props to be rearranged. Panelists
> should be consulted in advance on how they want the chairs
> arranged, etc.
This was a problem. But who can blame anybody? lol - nobody wanted to see a
panle end, they were all so great! I would suggest blocking off 90 minutes
for each panel, with 60 of those minutes be allotted for presentation time,
and the other 30 for set up / tear down and post-panel discussion. Also,
at-th-door registeration should be done outside. I think the rush of
at-the-door-last-minute-registeration made the first panel 30 or 45 minutes
late, thus throwing everything off for the rest of the day. Have the
regesteration outside, this will allow for the first panel to start on-time
inside.
> * All panels should be videotaped and tapes made available later for
> sale. Panelists should be required to sign authorization for
> this.
They were videotaped (most of them), and they were supposed to be made
available, AFIK - but this did not happen for some reason.
> * More hands-on panels, like the microfig presentation, would be
> cool. For example I could could (help) run a sculpture tutorial,
> where we could teach how to build a sphere and other basic shapes.
That would be AWESOME! But thats requires people to step up to the plate and
do it, this would have been awesome to have last year!!! And I hope somebody
steps up to the plate to do it this year.
> The K8's
> --------
> * Rummaging through the K8 (bulk LEGO supplied by TLC) was noisy and
> distracting during some panels. It should be done in a space
> farther away from the panel areas if possible, or at a time when
> no panel is in session. This was more of a problem towards the
> end of the conference.
> * The K8 volume diminished during the event. The rule is that we
> are supposed to give the boxes back as full as they were when we
> got 'em. I assume that someone managed to top them off, but I
> don't think that people were made adequately aware of the rules,
> or just didn't obey them.
I agree 100% about the K8's. But it would have helped to know in advance
they were going to be there. I found myself empty handed when it came time
to replace parts. Lucky for me I am local and was able to bring parts the
next day from home.
> Robot Challenge
> ---------------
> * This was a great success. I wish we could have a couple of these,
> rather than just one. We could also have other types of building
> competitions at the event.
YES!! But once agian, people need to step up to the plate to run them. Matt
can only scheduele thing people offer to run.
> Scheduling
> ----------
> * Lots of people had to miss the last day (Monday), and many left
> early on Sunday, because it isn't a holiday for many employers.
> Try to schedule events with this in mind, so that the most
> important events are on Saturday or Sunday morning. It'd be
> better if we had a Fri-Sat-Sun schedule for this reason, but the
> holidays in February don't accomodate that well.
True, but AFIK there is no holiday on Friday. So a Fri-Sat-Sun schedule
would be worse than the Sat-Sun-Mon sched. That Monday was a holiday, and at
least some people had it off as opposed to friday, where nobody would have
it off. I would have no problem moving the event to a bigger Holiday
weekend, but Feb was chosen out of respect for BrickFest and the people who
would like to partake in both events.
Mark P
http://www.landofbricks.com
> --Bill.
>
> PS: Apropos of this thread, see Frank Filz's excellent wrapup that he
> posted right after this year's BricksWest event:
>
> http://news.lugnet.com/events/brickswest/?n=270
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: A BricksWest Critique?
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| (...) There are always people willing to sholder responsibility and step up. They need to be encouraged and led so that they finish the tasks they take on. Matthew did a great job but took to much on himself. There were plenty of people like Dan, (...) (22 years ago, 11-Jul-02, to lugnet.events.brickswest)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: A BricksWest Critique?
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| (...) Sounds good. (...) First of all, I want to say that it was a big success, despite all the adversity that Matthew had to deal with... TLC really dropped the ball with regards to the luau and things of that nature, and I hope that they do better (...) (22 years ago, 10-Jul-02, to lugnet.events.brickswest)
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