The 4 pillars of how to choose where Convergence will be,
1) What a bidder has to do.
Bid Proposal Requirements
If you are at all unclear about what is and is not acceptable, ask
The_C*B*L before acting. If you act first and get it wrong, your bid
could be disqualified.
If you want to put this show on, you need to read these requirements.
If your bid breaks the rules, it will not be included in the vote. We
does not want to have to do so but we have to be fair to all the
people who invest time, effort and money in putting a bid together.
The core planning and decision making membership of a Convergence
committee should consist of at least 50% net.goths. We prefer it if
ALL members of your committee have attended at least one past
Convergence. These numbers do not include and are not relevant to the
volunteer and paid staff who assist in actually presenting the event
on its scheduled days.
In your Convergence Bid Proposal you must
1. Introduce your Bid Committee. We put this at the top, 'cos it's
the most important part. We have to trust you to put on our party and
to do it right so knowing who you are and why we can have confidence
in you is really important.
2. Explain why we should come to your town.
1. What's in it for us?
2. How does it rock?
3. Outline what your tentative plans are for Convergence. Over the
years this part has typically been the most emphasized in the bids,
and has become way rather more than 'tentative'. Since you will only
have about a year between vote and execution the more planning you can
do in advance the better.
Audience
Your core audience are the denizens of alt.gothic and their friends.
The expected attendees includes our friends and families from the
alt.gothic.* news groups, related mailing lists and other forms of
electronic communities.
Content
The themes, locations and activities are up to your committee's
creativity and resources. We are trusting you to design an affordable,
accessible and highly social event for us to attend.
As long as your committee keeps its core audience in mind with
realistic goals and strives to maintain a high degree of organization
and professionalism, you can expect great success in planning and
executing your alt.gothic Convergence^(SM) party, should the vote be
in your favor.
[edit] Submission
To have your proposal included on this year's ballot, you must
1. Register for web space on altgothic.com as noted below,
2. Submit your proposal via email to Siobhan
(***@virulent.org)
3. Await receipt that your proposal has been accepted
4. Upon receipt, you must cross-post your proposal alt.gothic,
alt.gothic.announce, alt.gothic.fashion and alt.gothic.convergence
during the proposal nomination period.
The first public posting of your bid must be on alt.gothic. After
that, feel free to post and discuss it anywhere you want, but
alt.gothic MUST come first.
You can talk about your potential bid prior to this anywhere you want,
and indeed we encourage you to ask alt.gothic what we want, and to get
input from previous organisers and attendees to make your bid the best
possible.
Posting to weblogs, regional mailing lists, web communities and other
resources is permitted but not required.
Bid Proposal Submission Period
See the timeline.
Bid Proposal Web Sites
Proposal web sites must be hosted on altgothic.com. No exceptions.
Each Bid Committee will be allotted 10MB of disk space, CGI-bin access
and a single FTP login account with 24 hour access. No other website
may be used to provide informational content, only to provide a
reference to the altgothic.com-hosted proposal site.
To receive your altgothic.com web account, you must send Siobhan at
the ***@virulent.org address the following information
immediately:
* Your full contact information (name, address, phone number,
etc).
* Your Bid Proposal Committee information (city/state/country).
Best Practices
(Some advice from past committees)
* Talk to alt.gothic as you build your event. We are your
audience. We can give you very fast feedback about what is worth
investing your time and money on when you put the event together.
* Talk to former Convergence committees. Odds are someone has
relevant experience that you can learn from, instead of making the
same mistake twice.
* Talk to The C*B*L. We have experience putting on the party. We
have experience attending the party. We know an awful lot of people
who know stuff about things that you can leverage. We do this because
we love Convergence. Not for the money, drugs or women[2]. We will
keep anything you talk to us about in the strictest confidence.
* Avoid scheduling conflicts with similar events. It'll limit the
people who can come, and since most others are on a regular calendar
schedule but since Convergence floats chronologically, you'll look
like a dick. Piss people off and they won't buy tickets, and because
Convergence is first and foremost a social event that can have a
ripple effect. For instance Whitby Gothic Weekend, WaveGotik Treffen,
Black Sun, the various 'Dark Arts' festivals.
* Listing specific musical acts, venues or other information which
can change drastically over the next 9 to 12 months in your bid is
strongly discouraged. Firstly because it's not about the bands;
secondly, if you promise to resurrect Ian Curtis and don't deliver,
there's a good chance you'll be lynched.
* Keep your committees small. A small committee of 4 people or
less is far more efficient and likely to succeed than a larger
committee.
* Maintain regular open communication within your committee,
volunteers, hired help, venues, venders, DJs, bands
* Maintain regular open communication with alt.gothic and The
C*B*L.
* Nominate one person to speak on behalf of your committee. It is
a practice which can spare your audience from a lot of confusion and
your committee from embarrassment. However, make sure it is somebody
who has time and energy to spend on answering seemingly dumb
questions.
* Limit your live band rosters. Live bands are nice but not
essential. The primary focus of Convergence is the people of
alt.gothic. Events should be people oriented and inclusive, relaxed,
inexpensive and above all FUN.
Extended Resources for Bid Proposal Committeess
A growing library of text documents written by the past alt.gothic
Convergence^(SM) Committee members who now act as advisors will be
available to all Bid Proposal Committee members, as well as specific
contacts in all areas of Convergence planning. These members have
volunteered their time and expertise to remain highly available to
assist all of you in constructing the best Bid Proposals and
eventually the best Convergence events possible. Browse this wiki for
more information.
It cannot be emphasized enough the importance of consulting with past
Convergence committees members (especially Siobhan and Axel of
Convergence 8, Eilis of Convergence 9) and the plethora of web and
Usenet based diaries of past events to get a solid perspective on what
works and what does not.
--
--
Axel... ...The Voice of the Mystero^H^H^H C*B*L
There is no fucking C*B*L
http://www.altgothic.com/wiki/index.php
<***@eol.ca>