Originally written by J. Michael "Spence" Spencer

What you did?
PreCon: Located interested parties to fill designer-level tech positions and arranged for tech gear to be borrowed or rented as needed. Worked with Events Divhead to ascertain the tech needs of each event and ensured that these were accounted for in each designer's plans and equipment lists. Designed schedule of crew calls for set-up, tear-down, and runtime of each event.

AtCon: Tech arrived on-site at 10:00 AM on Thursday to load equipment from Arisia Storage and rented equipment into the ballroom. Between myself and my deputy (Matt Barr), one of us oversaw all room setups and changeovers in the ballroom between Thursday and Monday. Coordinated projector and screen needs for Programming Events taking place outside Molly Pitcher. Ran nightly tech meetings to assign runtime crew positions for events and ensured that all needed positions were covered throughout the con. Responded to emergencies in which one element or another of tech had not been set-up according to event's needs.

PostCon: Oversaw teardown and load-out of the ballroom (task completed by my deputy as I had to leave mid-afternoon Monday to go to a Dr's appt.). Ensured that all equipment was returned to the correct party.

What went right?
Having an assistant who I could trust to take certain event setups and run with them. Nightly meetings. The Masquerade in general (from a tech perspective). The use of lighting truss rather than lighting trees. The use of single-level scaffold rather than double.

What went wrong?
Some changeovers took longer than expected. Airwalls moving at various times when tech was primarily asleep or off-site. Tech needs for some events not known because they were not sent to tech by the events contact person.

What should be done differently next year?

• TD should never not be staying in the hotel.
• Tech requires a room that is not the ballroom for several reasons. Equipment needs to be securely stored, meetings need to be held, and tech crew needs crash space. Yes, it's expensive, but tech needs a suite, and that should not be considered an out-of-pocket expense for anyone on tech.Even if the con charged the TD the rate for a room,that would solve this problem (this solution suggestion brought to you by the ATD…)
• Airwall moves should be coordinated with Hotel to occur in the morning before events begin, NOT at the end of the night before. Airwall moves need to be worked into tech schedule, as well.
• In general, communication needs to be and more frequent and more substantive/productive in the leadup to the con, on all levels.
• The passing of information from one year to the next needs to be streamlined.
• Program A/V needs to be run by program ops.
• Zambia is NOT the correct tool for tech needs for any event or program. Any needs from tech should be sent, in writing, to the TD, ATD, and from there to the appropriate parties to action. There may be a way to MAKE Zambia more useful in this regard, but I don't know what it is. All discussion to tech needs is just that: a discussion. If someone simply puts what they want into Zambia, they WILL consider it confirmed, which will cause trouble when the TD or LD or someone else e-mails them with any questions or problems.
• Keeping better track of what equipment belongs to who will make load-out a LOT easier. Relatedly, having someplace to store equipment that is not "in a big pile in a backstage corner" would solve many of tech's problems with both equipment mixing and with equipment being in the way of airwall moves and events.
• I'm sure more will occur to me at some point…

What sort of schedule/timeline did you use?
A schedule set pre-con based on the published program of events.

Are the any changes you'd make to the schedule for next year?
None

Vendors you used?
Pinpoint Lighting (Jim Housell), Microcenter, Backstage Hardware

Experiments to try next year?

• Split responsibility with ATD between Main Tent and Small Tent (which was started this year, but was not consistent).
• Some sort of "TF University" session (other than "Costume-Friendly Tech"), possibly early on Friday. A "Convention Tech" training session. ("This is why we do things the way we do, this is the basics of what you need to know to run a sound board, to focus a light, to flip-coil a cable"). I know this isn't likely to be feasible, but recent comments kicked off the idea.
• Upon further thought, splitting the TD position into pre-con planning and at-con work (as has been brought up as an idea for A'09) is NOT an experiment I think will end well, and will ultimately hurt the con. Without the knowledge from actually working on pre-con planning, my job at-con would have been a disaster.

Any comments about the rest of the con (other divisions, hotel, ...)?

• Hotel was helpful across the board, but some of that was in fixing things that were already on the resume (tables that were not set up, etc.).
• Volunteer lounge was not open at the times tech most needed people (mainly pre-con), so a lot of our volunteer wrangling involved kidnapping people from the lobby (which worked well.)
• Elevators is a whole separate rant, and I'm not sure how to fix it. The elevators have a weight sensor, so limiting it by number of people is doing nothing but making people wait longer, especially since 7 people (the limit I heard most often) would have to weigh almost 450 pounds apiece to hit the weight limit posted in each elevator. Basically, if the elevator stops for a call, it's not at its limit, so don't tell people it's "full". It can take more people, whether the passengers feel like squeezing or not.