Saw “did all of your volunteers take the night off, you’re severely understaffed, you should know better!” post in regards to AC having reg line issues and my friend in christ you can go over to con ops and volunteer at any point in time.
This specifically was the most tone deaf complaint I have seen about the situation. “YOU NEED MORE VOLUNTEERS!” Oh, really, you know this sounds like an issue that you can help fix by doing this one simple trick…
Complain all you want about everything else but maybe don’t complain specifically about a shortage of volunteers at the volunteer run event you are attending if you do not plan to volunteer.
This being said. Furry cons should seriously consider switching to an electronic solution for attendance badges. Because cons are so big now.
Personally I think a solution would be sending attendees a QR code to their phones that they can then get scanned when they walk in con spaces.
FWA has attendees fill out their information in an account they make via myfwa.com, and there's a barcode on their account. Attendees show up with either the printed barcode, or it on their phone screen, it gets scanned, IDs gets checked, and then they get a wristband.
Yeah it's just...folks are still upset about wristbands. And there's not much I can do or say. Does is suck? Sure. I like having my badges say something goofy. But this measure was designed to prevent ghosting (the act of attendees "lending" their badges to non-payers who have no intention to pay)
I don't know how big your cons get. I know some scientific conferences are switching over to scan a QR code (emailed to registrants) to rapid print a badge, saving time over the old find your name alphabetically system, and that's in the realm of ~2-3k people.
Honestly people really need to realize that cons, especially the larger ones, could use a lot of support from their attendees, and one of the best way to support a con (and stave off boredom between events you plan on attending) is volunteer. Heck, a lot of cons even have benefits for volunteers!
The second part’s the important bit, though. I get the feeling they’d have more volunteers if they were able to help cover more of those volunteers’ expenses. Say, a gift card to a nearby restaurant or a hotel gift card to cover a part of the bill for offering to work reg day 1 when it’s busiest.
People just love to bitch, pretty sure the con I helped run had a core group of people who only attended so they could bitch, and whine how it's changed...
