Originally written by Pat Vandenberg, possibly with some help from Allan Kent

What you did?
Check coats, bags, packages, cameras and cell phones with cameras and made sure they got back to their owners.

What went right?
Having the closet at the juncture of the 16th floor elevator ‘lobby’ and the hallway into the Art Show display area was a definite win. People pretty much had to stop since there wasn’t a lot of space for them to squeeze by. Most people were happy to ‘take the load off’ and be able to wander the Art Show without all the impedimenta!

We had bought additional clip clothespins and brought additional cards – both of which got used.

We adjusted the cell phone policy for those who were expecting calls: keep in pocket out-of-sight. If have to bring it out to answer call, must come out of Art Show.

Most people actually had no problem leaving their stuff with us; having a closet with only one entrance helped. Had only one real paranoid and she solved the problem by bringing a second person with her who stayed outside the Art Show with her stuff. Had a few people argue and/or try to slip by. Having the badge check person further in helped stop the ‘slippers’. Most seemed aware of what happened at last year’s Art Show and were very cooperative; especially after I explained that we were doing this so we Wouldn’t have to search people on their way out.

Many thanks to DDA who stepped in to help when the lines suddenly got long.

What went wrong?
The Volunteers we requested didn’t show up so Allan and I spent many more hours actually running the Bag Check than we had planned and didn’t get to see much of the con.

Closing early on Sunday was a definite win for us. Need a better ‘filing’ system so we can retrieve items checked much quicker. That was, at times, the really slow part of the process. When someone says they have a black bag and just about every bag in the check room is black, it doesn’t help.

What should be done differently next year?
Only had one time – Saturday – when we had a coat that didn’t appear to belong to staff left in the closet. Was thinking it would be nice to be able to put names on cards or post-its in case things were left when we closed, but it would slow the process down too much.

Two of the volunteers we went to the lounge to get had enough down time to organize the closet into red and black – something Allan didn’t think we needed but was very glad they did – and that helped, but we really need a 4-part identifier: Black, Red hanging items; Heavy/non-hangable on floor; and shelf space. Some sort of system to make finding things easier and faster but that does not slow down the accepting items process.

Possibly use a ‘card’ of some kind developed for our bag check instead of the playing cards.

We did get almost full on Sunday when the downstairs Coat Check had to close. From the report I read, if they had a bigger space this probably would not have happened.

What sort of schedule/timeline did you use?

We tried to be open before the Art Show opened and closed soon after the Art Show closed Friday through Sunday.

Are the any changes you'd make to the schedule for next year?

If they are going to use the closet to store things for those people sleeping in the Art Show, should have those things clearly identified or open the Bag Check on Thursday.

Vendors you used?
Bought the clothespins at a supermarket.

Experiments to try next year?
See above

Any comments about the rest of the con (other divisions, hotel, ...)?
Art Show had extra volunteer sheets available; this was a win.

The Student Art Show was very popular.

Had fun on my two panels.

Heard both positive and negative comments from various Dealers regarding the lack of a Dealer’s Room.

Don’t know what happened with the Volunteer Lounge’s list of people requests. Had sent Mary a request for two volunteers every 2 hours while the Art Show was open, which appeared to have been misplaced as they couldn’t find it when I finally got free for a few minutes to get dinner on Friday and dropped in to find out what was happening. Was able to scoop up two volunteers while I was there so Allan was able to go off and get dinner when we got back. I know they were very short of volunteers on Saturday when I went down, but they did send a couple up later and we did get a couple on Sunday. If it hadn’t been for Lisa going and getting us food on Saturday afternoon I’m not sure most of the Art Show staff would have gotten fed. Tamar brought up meat and cheese platters for Art Show check-out on Sunday, but those two instances were the only times I saw food on the 16th floor. (By-the-way, as a note for next year. Please put the ham on a separate platter. Those staff who are Jewish were unable to eat any of the meat since the ham was on the same platter as the turkey etc. They were able to eat the cheese as it was separate.)