Guests Procedures

General Procedure Summary

1. Email is Received
2. Guest is Considered and approved/denied by chair
3. Upon Denial Guest is Emailed
4. Upon Approval Contract Process Starts
5. Once Contracted
   1. Reg created badge
   2. Social Media blasts info
   3. Programming Schedules Guest
   4. Design uses bios for con book
   5. Accounting Books flight (if necessary)
   6. Venue Liaison books room (if necessary)
   7. Merchants get contract signed for table (if necessary)
6. At Con
   1. Merchants handles checkin/out of table (if necessary)
   2. Chair checks in on guests
   3. Programming checks in on guest panels

When [email protected] Receives An Email

This task can be handled by any trustable lackey who can write somewhat business-like (no typos). So - higher level general staff, or upper staff, cleared through Beta, Llama, or Sammich (as the best 3 business writers on staff).

Guests email should probably get an RT and no longer forward to Programming or Social Media once this procedure is in place

1. Once an email comes in, review the Evernote SNAFU Con Guest File for the guest.
2. If the guest is in the file:
   • Update the file with new contact info and/or any new info from the email
3. If the guest is not in the file:
   • Create a new note for the guest from the template. Fill in as much information as possible.
4. Email guest back to ask for more needed information, or verify information on file. We need to know:
   • Appearance fee and other requirements
   • Bio
   • Headshot
   • Contact Info
   1. Add "[email protected]" as a One-Time BCC on your reply if you are requesting they reply to you for missing information
   2. Wait for guest reply
5. If guest does reply
   1. Update the Evernote
6. If guest does not reply within 1 week, FUT will email you a reminder about the email. Move on to the next step.
7. Send Chair@ an email with the guest name to notify that the file exists in Evernote and needs review
8. Change RT ticket status to Stalled. (This will not remove it from the guest Queue)
   • NOTE: FUT will still send you a reminder email - you can ignore it. It may reopen your ticket, so you will want to reset the ticket to stalled. If you know how to use FUT, you can cancel the reminder before it comes in.
9. Follow up with Nathan every so often until you receive approval/denial of guest.
10. If guest is approved, close your ticket - you are done.
11. If guest is denied, reply to guest using a customized standard ("Canned") response in RT and close the ticket. You are done.

Guest Approval Process

The head of guests or the chair decided on the guests. We have no head so Nathan makes the decision.

Nathan's Procedure after decision:

1. Tell person handling email whether guest is approved/denied
2. If guest is approved, CC approval email to Contracts Department for contracting

Contracts Department

Once the guest has been approved they need to be contracted.

Contract's Procedure:

1. Review Evernote for information on approved guest
2. Create or update the current year's summary file for approved guests per the template
3. Create contract using previous years as templates
4. Attach the doc file to the Evernote Note (Dropbox no longer required for this step)
5. Create a signable PDF of the contract (Can save to dropbox - no need to save into Evernote)
6. Reach out to guest via email with their signable PDF contract attached
7. CC: [email protected] - NOTE: FUT will email the guest on your behalf if they do not reply-all back to you. You may choose to use BCC or edit the FUT pending alerts.
8. Keep following up with guests until you have a signed contract
9. attach signed contract to Evernote file
10. email: registration@, sm@, programming@, chair@ with the names of the contracted guests and a reminder that the information for them is in the Evernote file
11. If guest has a table, make sure they also fill out a merchant contract. Do not wait for this contract to alert everyone about the guest.
    • Note: As of 2014, YOU are responsible for guest merchants checkin/checkout at-con

After Contracted

Registration

Once contract email is received, an admin or staffer with sufficient rights needs to create the badge for the guest.

1. Log in to BACON
2. Navigate to Guests Management (Registration --> More Options --> Staff --> Users --> Manage Guests)
3. If individual was a guest in a previous year, find the person and click "Add me to (year)!"
4. If individual has a BACON account, but was not a guest before:
   1. Click "Make a current user into a guest."
   2. Yell at the administrators when you realize that it's a broken link
5. If the individual is new to us:
   1. Click "Create a new guest"
   2. Fill out the form as completely and accurately as possible using the Evernote File.
   3. Click Submit

Social Media

Once the contract email is received, social media needs to post on the site and blast social media with guest info.

Note: At this time head shots must be uploaded by the website admin. Email webmaster to request specific head shots be uploaded.

1. Retrieve guest head shots & bios from the Evernote file
2. Post the guest to the guest list and index
   1. Log into BACON
   2. Navigate to the Webpage UI (Welcome --> More Options --> Staff --> Site & Other --> Webpage)
   3. Click "guests.php"
   4. If last year's guests are active, set all the guests to inactive.
   5. Set any guests to "archived" if we are not going to have them this year (if we need to unarchive any past guests, request it of the webmasters)
   6. If the guest already has a profile, set them to active and update it
   7. New guests can be added at the bottom
   8. Pay attention to the Order numbers. Update all guests so that the newest guest is on top and the oldest contracted guest is on the bottom. Alternatively, you can order them alphabetically.
   9. Once you have updated all guest bios as necessary, click "Submit" at the bottom (or click in a small field and hit "Enter" on your keyboard)
   10. Click "Return to website management index." to go back to the index.
   11. Click "index.php"
   12. Scroll to the bottom to add a new announcement
   13. Write an announcement for any guests you have posted. Include pictures, names, and links to the guest page (not bios!)
3. Do a social media blast for newly posted guests
   1. Post the guest bio and picture with a link to http://snafucon.com/guests to Facebook
      • IFTTT posts facebook posts to tumblr. Facebook connects and posts to twitter.
   2. If necessary, update tumblr to make post look better

Programming

Once the contract email is received, programming needs to schedule the guests.

1. Get the list of panels from the Evernote file.
2. If there isn't a list of panels:
   1. Contact the guest via email and request their panels. CC (or BCC): [email protected]
   2. Continue to follow up with guest until panels are received
3. Enter desired panels in BACON
4. Schedule the panels
5. Contact guest with proposed schedule and ask for approval or changes
6. Negotiate schedule with guest as needed until finalized
7. Keep guests apprised of any necessary schedule changes
8. A few weeks before the convention, email all guests their final schedules again.

Design

1. Pull all approved guest bios and head shots from Evernote file
2. Use head shots and bios for designing con book guest pages
3. Make sure to leave a good amount of white space for signatures

Accounting

Flights

As soon as a guest is contracted the flight should be purchased immediately.

1. Get guest flight information from the Evernote file
2. Find cheapest flight from necessary airport on the required days around the con (usually arriving Thursday and leaving Monday)
3. Contact Guest with flight options for approval before purchase
4. Negotiate flight with guest as needed
5. Once approved, purchase flight
6. Email guest with itinerary (many times this can be handled automatically by the airline in the purchase process)

Checks

Any guests that have appearance fees and/or per diem must have the checks run before con.

1. Issue appearance fees checks for any guests who have them
2. Issue separate checks for per diem fees
3. Sign the checks
4. Put appearance checks in individual envelopes - one envelope per guest
5. Place these envelopes in a large yellow envelope and label it for Nathan
   • Appearance fees are to be given to the guests by Nathan halfway through the con.
   • If there are any guests with appearance fees over $600, attach the guest's envelope to a Form W-9.
     • Form W-9 must be filled out and returned for guest to receive appearance fees.
6. Put the per diem checks in separate envelopes - one envelope per guest
   • This envelope will be attached to the guest con bag and badge as per diem fees are due to the guest at the beginning of the con. In 2014 we put the badges in this envelope but it caused confusion.
7. Follow up with registration to ensure that guest con bags are complete

Venue Liaison

Venue liaison or applicable individual needs to reserve rooms for any guests who need them.

1. Get or create a list of all guests who need rooms
2. Create a room list for the guests
3. Send room list to venue to place on master account