Originally written by Michael Whitehouse

What you did?
We ran the panels for the convention. We also conducted a few experiments this year, some of which were successful and should be continued to next year.

• Debate Panels
  We ran one debate panel this year which asked the question “Which had more influence on society, Star Wars or Star Trek?” The panel was well attended and got excellent reviews. One key was likely Maryanne Johanson’s excellent moderation of the panel. I would suggest that we have a few more debate panels in the future, but we must make sure that we have excellent moderators to run them.
• Panels Scheduled Against Masquerade
  This year, we ran panels against the Masquerade and they were all relatively well attended, so there is clearly con-goer demand for these panels. In future, we need to continue to be careful to make sure that the topics of these panels are such that those who want to see them will not want to see the Masquerade.
• Night Panels
  In addition to the adult panels that usually run at night, we ran some other panels at night. Generally they were fairly successful. The numbers show that there are attendees up at that time who will attend panels if it is something of interest. Convention Party Horror Stories and Carpe Noctum did not do well, but that is likely because the topics were uncompelling rather than as a function of time.
• Early Morning Panels
  We ran one 7 AM panel this year called “Being a Morning Person in Nocturnal Fandom”. It had 14 people in addition to the panelists. The main feedback we got on this panel was that there should be more panels before 10 AM. There are many morning people who get up early then just sit around waiting for the con to start, and they would like some programming at that time.
• Late Late Panels
  We ran a 5AM Monday morning panel which was about nothing more than being up really late, and it got 14 people in addition to the panelists. There are people up at that time, and they are looking for something to do. For the most part, the people up that late seem to be teenagers, anime fans, and teenage anime fans. There are also gamers up that late, but the are mostly gaming. This data indicates that some teen targeted programming could be run in the late night. We might also want to see what other kinds of panels could be successful at those times.

What went right?
With the capable help of our fantastic Program Ops team, we were able to address every issue that came up to the satisfaction of all parties (with the one exception of that DivHead meeting that got double booked). Generally, the attendees and the panelists seemed fairly pleased with how the panels ran and how well they were informed of things.

An excellent group of hard working folks came to help us set up the schedule in December, and their help was fantastic in that monumental project.

Dr. Richard Staats “Resurrection From Eden” got the most positive reviews of any panel that I heard about and we should definitely make sure to get him back next year.

What went wrong?
What should be done differently next year?
There were two key areas where this division ran into trouble. The first was a key email failing to reach its destination in October. The second was a failure to adequately set and adopt a communications protocol to make sure that all emails were dealt with properly.

In early November, an email was sent out to notify panelists that it was time to sign up for panels. For some reason, only 60 of the 200+ recipients got it. No one knows why this happened, nor does it matter. The result was that we had to go into the meeting on the first weekend of December with only 1/3 of the information from panelists that we needed.

Ultimately, this resulted in many panelists with less than 3 panels because we had to apply their preferences after the schedule had been made.

In retrospect, the correct solution to this would have been to delay the scheduling meeting by two weeks to give people a chance to respond, as we had most of the replies in by the middle of December. This would have left less time to correct mistakes, but it would have resulted in less mistakes in the first place.

Programming uses a Gmail account to keep track of incoming mail. Messages are given labels as they are categorized and acted upon. The problem we had was that messages were being read and set to “read” without anything being done with them. This resulted in many of those messages disappearing into the void. For next year, I recommend setting a clearer protocol for the use of the Gmail account, which clearly has fantastic potential. If the protocol is put into place earlier and used consistently in the low pressure times, then it will be in better shape later when things heat up.

In addition to those issues, there was also a general lack of awareness in the community of the general program timeline. Even though we ran fairly late this year, people were still trying to do things months after they should have been done. We should make efforts to keep the community informed of our timeline and how Programming works. I would suggest using the LJ community to get information out in general and the panelist emails to inform the panelists specifically. While many people would not notice the information, it does eliminate the problem of people saying “you never told me that.” I have found that most people want to work with us if they know what we need them to do.

What sort of schedule/timeline did you use?
June – announced brainstorming
August – called for panelists to express interest and submit bios
September – closed brainstorming and worked on vetting panels
November – called for panelists to sign up for panels
December – Set schedule

Are the any changes you'd make to the schedule for next year?
Move everything earlier. I would recommend the following schedule:
Immediately: open brainstorming and start recruiting panelists, encouraging them to sign up and submit bios as we go.
August – close brainstorming, start vetting
September – call for panelists to sign up for panels
October – set preliminary schedule
November – finalize schedule
December – deal with last minute changes only

Vendors you used?
N/A

Experiments to try next year?
I would like to see us try 24 hour programming.
It is something that we tried to do this year, but were not able to. I firmly believe that there is an audience for the right panel at every hour of the convention. The demographics that tend to be up late also tend to be the ones that feel disincluded at Arisia, so running overnight panels would serve to promote the diversity and inclusiveness that makes Arisia the wonderful event that it is.

Any comments about the rest of the con (other divisions, hotel, ...)?
There needs to be better interfacing between Gaming, and LARPs specifically, and Programming. Once the Program schedule is set, it is very difficult to squeeze LARPs into it. Perhaps next year, we could pre-block slots for LARPs and fill them when the LARPers appear. Doing so would likely create more LARPs and help to convince the skeptical gaming community that Arisia really does have a place for them.

A form should be printed up for last minute Program comps for Reg. This year, I used the back of ripped up sheets of paper, which seems a little informal.

In the past, there were comment forms for attendees to fill out as they left. This would be good to do next year. Even if nothing is done with them, people feel better to have the chance to fill them out.