Pre-Con Guest Process

You really need to have a lot of social spoons to handle this particular set of tasks. This covers everything we need to consider before the convention happens.

Before we can start

• Before anyone can do anything we must have a contract with the venue and have dates for the year. Once we have our dates, there's no reason we can't get started on contacting guests.
• If you're going to be emailing with guests you need to be able to log into RT and have proper permissions for the guests queue
• If you have actual MS Word, you can update contracts. You'll need access to Bitrix24 and access to the Guest workgroup

Step 1 - Update the Contract Template

Before we can actually reach out to people, something else we need to do as part of the guest department is update the guest contract for the year. We haven't had a lot of updates that we've had to make anymore. Any updates we usually end up doing are when we run into things; we just update the guest contract and go forward from there with the new contract. Normally, we try to get the contract pinned down perfectly before we send it out, but the last few years, it's been more like we update the dates, read it over, and if there's nothing obvious to us, we send it out. Then we remember all the things we need to change, so we've turned it into more of a fluid process. We update the template for the next person and send the updated contract out to the next person.

Our contracts have a Word template that you have to use; you can't use Open Office or any of its forks like LibreOffice.

The actual benefit of using Word is that when you open it, there are various sections you just click on to select the appropriate text.

Editing those sections permanently for the template is a big pain though. Will document later.

Fix all dates in the contract template, and don't forget the header on page 2.

Step 2 - Contact Potential Guests

Step 2A Regular Guests

We determine what guests from previous years we want back, reach out to them with an invitation and an offer. I like to take their previous year's contract and just make a new contract with that, with no changes unless we have changes we need to make.

So once we have a venue contract, we can start actually contracting guests. We contact them and get a contract ready to send with the initial contact. It usually goes something like, "Hey, we're reaching out about SNAFU Con for whatever year; we'd like to have you back as a guest. Here is a starting contract. Please review it, let me know if you have any changes; if it's all good, please sign it and send it back." That right off the bat gets us in contact. If they're okay without any significant changes, they'll just sign it and send it back, and we can go forward. We cannot announce a guest until we have a signed contract; as soon as we have a signed contract, we can say, "Oh yeah, they're a guest."

Step 2B New Guests

Although we sometimes receive guests from guests emailing us, and sometimes from suggestions from other guests, we have started relying more on agents. We've used a couple over the years and don't have a set one we prefer.

Generally we reach out to an agent who has reached out to us. There are many.

We let them know that we're looking for guests for an anime and gaming convention. We're looking for guests that are inexpensive who can bring good quality panel content to our convention. We are also a small con and do not have any handlers or green room.

A piece of text we've sent out in part of emails to new guests:

We have no green room. We have no handlers. We do usually provide an assistant during scheduled autograph signings when requested. Guests are generally left up to their own devices between panels and programming. Some just hang out at their tables. Others hang out at the con in general with other guests and some hang out at the casino.

This was the exact text I sent an agent in 2020, there were COVID concerns:

We're mostly a programming con, we care much, much more about the quality and quantity of panels a guest can provide than the "largeness" of the name. Our budget is fairly small, ranging between {redacted} for appearance, travel, and per diem depending on the programming they bring in, plus hotel. We're much more willing to drop {redacted} on a guest that will integrate themselves into the con vs a guest that comes and does a few panels and then disappears into the casino for the rest of the event (not that a guest shouldn't check out the casino, we know that's a big draw for people outside of Nevada). Our standard ask is that a guest participate in four panels, opening and closing ceremonies, and a VIP meet & greet which is usually a catered lunch, but we're trying to figure out what we're doing for this year due to COVID and not wanting people unmasking to eat in a gathering like that. While panels can be grouped with other guests, we usually prefer if the guest has at least one or two that they're bringing to the table either to host alone or for other guests to sit in on. We cannot offer any handlers although we can offer temporary assistance at scheduled autograph signings, usually only one person though. This year we're pinched tighter than usual with some of our usual staff just not wanting to risk exposure.

Step 3 - Contracting Guests

Before you can actually send a contract to the guest, you have to get it approved. Usually, I'm the one approving it, but if I'm not available, Sammich or Dragon can approve it. Our contracts have a Word template that you have to use; you can't use Open Office or any of its forks like LibreOffice.

The actual benefit of using Word is that when you open it, there are various sections you just click on to select the appropriate text. For example, sometimes a guest has a hotel room and sometimes they don't. Under the hotel room section, there are two different pieces of language, and you just select the right one. There are many highlighted areas in the contract; these highlights indicate that something needs to be changed. For example, the number of panels a guest is required to participate in might vary. The yellow highlights are there to indicate what needs to be changed, so make sure to unhighlight them before sending out the contract.

In the contracting process, there are various considerations for a guest. Do they have an appearance fee? What do we have to pay for travel? What information do we need to book them a hotel room? Do they have entourage members? All of these questions are covered in the contract, so you should be able to use the contract as a guide for what information you need.

Generally, we don't offer things that the guest doesn't ask for. So, if we contact a guest and ask them what their requirements are, and they say they've got a $250 appearance fee and they need a hotel and travel, that's pretty common. But if they didn't ask for a per diem, we don't offer per diem. If they say they've got a $250 appearance fee and $30 per diem and a hotel room, but they didn't ask for travel, we don't offer travel.

We don't have a lot of money to pay for guests. So we go with the cheapest guests we can get for the most amount of panels, you know, the most bang for our buck really. And we don't offer to pay them extra ever.

A few of the things that we contract them for need to be dealt with on our end once we have them contracted. For example, if they have a flight, we need to buy them the flight. If they have a table, we need to make sure that their table gets set up in the registration system. If they have entourage members, we need to make sure their badges get set up in the registration system. If they have an appearance fee or per diem, accounting, which is me, needs to make sure that those checks get entered.

Something we need to know in terms of contracts is that some guests will require a W-9, but most will not. This is based on the appearance fee. If the appearance fee is over a certain amount, we need to get a W-9 because we will be issuing a 1099-MISC at the end of the year. I believe that amount is $650, but it could be $500; it could have changed so it's good to double-check on the IRS website.

Going back to things we do and do not contract for, guests sometimes ask for us to cover parking. We will do that if asked, but we never offer to cover parking unless they specifically request it.

Step 4 - Recording Guests into Guest Manager

All of the things from the contract get entered into the guest management system in the registration system, so that we can keep everyone on the same page regarding guests.

It's vitally important that the information in the registration system matches whatever we've contracted. If you enter anything wrong in the registration system, it's going to be wrong for what we do.

We do not have guests register themselves. While it's nice when they're comfortable doing that, for the most part, we set up their badges and their entourage badges ourselves through the guest manager. Currently, there is no way of directly making a guest badge, but there's a workaround. There's a button for "force-auth" into them, and someone who has permissions for that can force-auth into the guest user, make their badge for them, and there we go.

Step 6 - And the rest...

All of these happen in whatever order they have to happen in which can vary, so they are lumped into a "okay they're contracted, do all the things" step.

Announcing Guests

The big things that we need from them are a headshot and a bio; those go out on our website. We try to use those to build up some hype. We announce on the website, we announce on social media, we announce anywhere we can, really. We haven't been announcing in Discord, but we probably should be.

So once we have the headshot and bio, you need to go into the registration system. In the staff section, update the web page for guests and get the new announcement up. Oftentimes, this just requires editing last year's information and making it active, while perhaps making other ones inactive. Sometimes, you'll be creating a brand new page.

You do need to do a small amount of HTML editing, particularly with the headshot pictures. You can look at other bios to get an idea of how that code needs to be done. Once we have it up on the website, that's when you go to social media and announce, "Hey, we've got so-and-so announced on the website. Please get them announced on social media."

Another place that you need to update is the home page. We like to get stuff up on the home page because not everyone checks the individual pages. You might include a single sentence blurb about who they are and then link back to their guest page. All of the headers on the website have an anchor, so you can actually link directly to the person's bio. This means that if someone wants to go directly to a particular bio on our webpage, you can link them to that. There should be an index turned on the guest page, so you can just copy that link and go from there.

Before a bio goes up on the website, it needs to be reviewed. Some guests are very particular about their bios, but many of them will send them to us with typos. Sometimes they send them in formatting that we don't want on our webpage. So make sure the bio is fully updated for this year. They might have sent us an old one, so just read over it and make sure it's accurate as much as you can. I'm not expecting you to be an expert on the guest. And make sure it's typo-free and free of spelling errors.

Mailchimp Campaign

And then the next big thing that's up to the guest department is emailing a guest announcement out to the mailing list. This happens once we have all or most of our guests contracted. Someone needs to go into Mailchimp and put together a campaign to announce our guests. Generally, you want to include their headshots and bios, and you just kind of go down the list. It's more or less a condensed version of what's up on our website for the guest page.

The goal of this is to get the information out to everyone and build some hype for the convention. It's also a good email to throw in some reminders at the bottom, like remembering to book your hotel, to register if you want to staff, and other last-minute pushes. Maybe some calls to action to get these things done. This goes out to our entire mailing list.

Booking Flights

As part of getting the transportation booked, if the guest is close enough to drive, that's great. We reimburse them twice the amount of their gas receipts to cover both the trip there and back. We don't ask for them to send the receipts for the return trip. We just take whatever gas receipts they have given us, double them, and give them that amount at the convention.

For flights, we have to gather all sorts of information from the guest. Most of that should already be in the contract, so you usually won't have to go out of your way to ask.

And then we look up flights. We send the flight information to the guest and make sure they're okay with it, and then book for them. If a guest is comfortable booking for themselves and getting reimbursed, hooray, that's so much easier for us. Make sure we get the flight itineraries regardless, so that we know when they're supposed to be coming in order.

Realistically, when someone is flying out, we should be texting them and asking if they got on their flight. We should also be texting them when they are supposed to land, asking if they've arrived okay, and reminding them of the shuttle that can take them from the airport to the hotel. Because, unless we have someone that is willing to go pick them up, generally we can't go pick them up. So in the contract, we let them know there is a free shuttle. In the event that the shuttle starts to charge, please send us the receipts, but otherwise, there's a free shuttle from the airport to the hotel you're going to need to use.

Getting Panels Scheduled

Things that we have going on is guest panels. The reason we have guests is to get their programming content. We don't usually get big enough names where the guests are a draw in and of themselves, although sometimes people are really excited about some of the smaller names. But the panels are super important. We used to try and have the panels department reach out to the guests, and that just did not work.

Now, pretty much the person who contacted the guest is the person who will be managing their panels. It's your responsibility to sit on the guest and make sure they send you a panel list. Once you have that panel list, send them over to the programming department and let them decide what they want.

Make sure to let the programming department know how many panels the guest is contracted for. So, if the guest is contracted for three panels and they send us a list of ten, then we have to decide which ones we want. The programming department can make that decision; you don't have to. Unless there's one in particular that you're like, "Oh, I want to go to that," you can also tell the programming department to make sure they schedule that one. But otherwise, I think they'll pick as long as you tell them what the limits are.

Make sure that the programming department gets the panels scheduled.

Before the schedule is finalized, we will send the guests all of the schedules of all of the guests. So we send them, "Here's your schedule. Here's the schedule of all of the guests. Please let us know if there's any you would like to sit in on." I have an email template for that, and I can get that into the wiki when I have a chance. It allows them to double up on things so we can have more guests involved on the same panel. For example, if there is a panel that's about stories in the voice acting industry and we've got three voice actors, we should probably have all three of them in that panel.

The responsibility of who sends out that email technically should fall on programming. But because programming has a hard time coordinating with guests, it makes more sense if the guest department sends it out. As long as someone sends it out, that's all that matters.

Final Communication

Something we need to be very clear on this year is making absolutely sure that the guest understands that we require vaccines for Covid to get your badge. That means they have to have had their last booster since September of 2022. Additionally, they have to wear a mask when they're officially interacting with attendees.

We also had an issue last year where a guest wanted to take off their mask in a panel. They asked the room if it would be a problem to just take off their mask, which of course the attendees didn't care so they took off their mask. That's not allowed and that's not okay. If they would prefer, they can wear a face shield for their panel, but they have to at least have a face shield when talking to the room. If we find out that they are unmasking during their panels, we will probably have to have a staff member sit in on their panels to remind them constantly. If we have to cancel their panels, then we cancel their panels. If we have to remove their guest status over it, we will — hopefully, we don't have to do that.

Something that we should probably look into is providing specific directions on getting to the shuttle from the airport and how the shuttle works, so that we can give them a little guide on what they need to do when they get to the airport from wherever they've left.

When the guest arrives and they make it to the hotel, one of the first things they usually want to do is check in and drop off all their stuff. They generally don't want to go straight to programming, so ideally we want to make sure that they are arriving with lots of time before the opening ceremonies. That is the first thing that we expect all of the guests to attend, so you want to make sure that their arriving flight is at least a few hours before the opening.

When they arrive and go to the hotel to check in, we need to make sure that they know how to check in. While they should be set up to not have to put down a credit card, the hotel staff are not trained on how to handle that. So, what we need is basically a cheat sheet of how to get through this process. I've asked our venue liaison, to get with the venue and ask for how we can check in without having to put down a card. This is a problem every year. The hope is that we can get a little cheat sheet of magic words that we can hand out to all of the guests before they even arrive on the property, to tell them how they need to check into the hotel.

Things that need to be sent to the guests before the convention, before they've even left their house, include things like their flight itinerary, their schedule, maybe a reminder of our policies, and probably a venue map. Where are they getting dropped off by the shuttle? How are they getting to the convention from where they're getting dropped off by the shuttle? Can we get a venue map to them to show them, "Here's where you check in for the hotel, here's how you get to the convention, here's where you get your badge"?

Before the guests arrive, we should have a list of who they can contact if they run into trouble. This is primarily going to be Dragon or the chair. But if you're comfortable giving out your phone number, that would be helpful.

It's in the contract, but you might want to remind them that we will give you your per diem when you show up, if they have per diem. Don't say anything about per diem if it's not in their contract. You will get your appearance fee partway through the weekend, and if you have any reimbursements, you will get them by the end of the weekend.

Appearance fees will not be paid until we have a W-2 in our possession. They don't need to email it; they can fill it out on site. In fact, we would prefer they fill it out on-site because it contains social security numbers, so make sure they know not to email a W-9.

What would be good is the guest department reminding the guests to promote their appearance. Technically, we've put it in the contract, but we don't actually follow up on that. Reminding them to tell all of their fans that they're going to be here this weekend once or twice would probably be really helpful to get some more hype for the con.

That's something we need to do as part of the guest/programming department.

Registration Bags

Before the guests show up, we put together their registration bags. This is really late in the process, often happening just before guests arrive. Sometimes we're even doing this on the morning that the guests are arriving. I've had to tell some guests, "I don't have it for you. Please come back later." So if we have anyone available to get this done, it's really helpful.

What we need is a bag for each guest, already put together. I pull their badges out of the main badge box to ensure they can't be handed out accidentally. I then attach them to a differently colored bag. Last year's color was purple, but the color may change every year.

The bag has the con book. It has a schedule. The guest's individual schedule is highlighted in the pocket schedule, and there's also a full-size sheet schedule. The bag also contains their per diem, which is attached in an envelope. Along with this is a signature page that they have to sign to verify that they've received the per diem, because the per diem is given in cash.

We used to give out checks, but it turned out that getting those checks cashed was a big pain in the ass. Like, Llama had to drive someone to the bank one year to get it handled. So rather than give out per diem in checks anymore, we give it out in cash. But to be able to have that paper trail, we now have a receipt that they have to sign to verify, hey, I got the money and how much it was.

The paper goes back to me at my desk at the convention.

And that can be handled more or less before the convention. If someone's got the information and the drive, the harder part is, we might not have the schedules ready until the day before the convention, or we might not have the con books in time until right before the convention. But getting the per diem out of the cash box isn't that big of a deal. And finding out, oh, we're short on cash, and someone's got to go to the bank and pull some out of the checking account— we can handle that in advance of the convention.

And that is everything that we need to consider before the convention happens. There are definitely things that happen after the convention starts, but that is a different thing.