This is my official first blog post … Bear with me, it’s a long one. See you at the end.
Last year I began doing something I have always had an interest in. Working with a convention company, as more than a volunteer. A friend was starting a convention company, and having attended more than forty conventions since 2007, I have a lot of convention knowledge and was asked to help out, and work with them.
Months and months of planning, of Skype calls, of long days and even longer nights planning a convention that would be occurring in the beginning of January 2020.
Flash forward to December 31, 2019. My first day of travel. I drove from my home in Upstate New York to Wilson, NC. Thankfully the weather stayed decent – no snow in sight. Driving through New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and finally North Carolina by myself meant a lot of shuffled music playlists. Probably the most interesting way I’ve spent my New Years Eve in a while.
January 1st – the first day of this crazy New Year – I drove from Wilson, NC to Orlando, FL. I haven’t been to Orlando since 2016, but as soon as I entered Florida I was reminded of the landscape – the palm trees that seem to span almost every inch of space. The hotel I stayed at for my first few days in Orlando was the Flamingo Waterpark Hotel. This place was AMAZING. There’s a water-park in the middle of the hotel, and even though I didn’t get to enjoy it (I just had my hair dyed) I can’t wait to go back and stay there again. The hotel was very accommodating.
January 2nd was spent at Downtown Disney (Disney Springs). I will probably always call it Downtown Disney because that’s what it is to me. Walking around the entire day, taking photos and just relaxing before I was supposed to work was relaxing. Downtown Disney was still decorated for Christmas – including the Christmas Tree Trail that had Christmas Trees themed after several different Disney movies and characters. The food at T-Rex (Mes-O-Bones) was amazing, and I can’t wait to go back again. Seeing a friend that I haven’t seen in years, along with Build A Bear – yes, I said Build a Bear. I’m almost 33 and I have four Build A Bears (don’t judge me).
ForeverCon. My first non-Creation Entertainment convention since 2007. My first time being a part of the staff of a convention. It was an experience to say the least, and not all good. Let me start by saying ForeverCon was founded by someone who I’ve known for years. I was advised NOT to get involved with working for my friend by several people, but I did not follow that advice. You live and you learn I guess.
Working with the Celebrity Talent was something I’d never done before, typically at conventions I’m the food runner or working in vendors, but this time I actually got to be a celebrity handler; but I took to it like a pro, I even had the celebrities shocked when I told them I’d never been a handler.
I finally mastered Orlando’s airport – going there multiple times in three days will do that to you. Airports are not my favorite thing.
And I can honestly say I’ve never attended a more unorganized convention in my life or worked/volunteered for one.
On both Saturday and Sunday, there were only three people downstairs for Early Registration, none of whom were the people who had access to the Registration computer or anything else. When the owner of the event, who was one of maybe two or three people who had access to the registration computer, isn’t on time to Registration, that’s not a good sign. One of the other volunteers, who else felt out of sorts with the rest of the staff, tried to help wherever she could, but was pretty much ignored unless one of the staff who was supposed to be a handler wanted something done because they were too busy hanging around Vendors and his girlfriend.
There was a lot of lack of communication between a majority of the staff and volunteers – no group chat was created or used throughout the event, and there also was a giant clique that most of the staff was in, except for maybe two people (myself included). Lack of communication at any type of event, especially one like this can turn bad very fast. Which it did. On Sunday, the schedule fell behind due to food not being ordered earlier for an event (with a crazy huge convention downstairs), which things happen. Some volunteers were hardly contacted with information or responded to when texting or calling other members of the staff.
When one staff member creates a plan to try and get the schedule back on track so that nothing gets pushed back even further, and communicates that with the rest of the staff, and then another staff member decides to change things because she ~feels~ like it, a lot of chaos ensued, and communication was lost. Typically, at conventions, photo op tickets are taken at the front of the line so that the photographer and staff know who has what photo and how many of said photo. When tickets are taken at the door and nothing is communicated to the person at the front of the line, people could say that they have more photos than they did, which leads to a loss for the convention as they’re basically giving away free photos, which I did find out actually happened.
Miscommunication also leads to lack of information or the wrong information being given. I was constantly being told that one person was told one price for certain things, and then one of their friends was told another.
Autographs were another interesting time. Instead of having most of the staff and volunteers in the Theater for autographs on Sunday, it was down to two people to run autographs, which is not possible with four celebrities and a bunch of fans, especially when trying to enforce rules, such as no photography during autographs. But at that point, I was to the point where I didn't want to fight with someone. If the actors didn't say anything, I wasn't going to. Having to feed for actors, mark tickets, call rows, and keep order in the Theatre with only one person's help is not possible, thankfully one actor's agent was with her, and two of the others were able to handle signing on their own.
Typically, conventions have staff and volunteers sign contracts prior to the event. I personally asked for my contract to be sent to me for months prior to the event. Did I receive said contract? No. I was also asked to sign a back-dated contract after the event to “protect me”. Not only did I not receive said back-dated contract, but I also didn’t feel protected or comfortable signing a contract after the event. I wasn’t the only volunteer or staff to not be given their contract, prior to or back-dated post event.
The owner of the event chose to also be the photographer for the event, taking all the professional photos that the fans had taken with the celebrities. I don’t judge her for wanting to do something that she’s passionate about – photography – but when the owner is upstairs, not within easy reach of the convention, editing photos for a majority of the time, it took away another staff member that could have been downstairs available to answer questions, and do other things. Nor was there a central hub for storage of things that wasn’t one of the staff member’s guest rooms. A central hub could be used for storage, and for editing of photos, etc.
There was no signage around the hotel telling fans where to go for the event. The hotel was supposedly supposed to provide that, but you should ALWAYS have backup signage in case something falls through. I had several fans telling me that they had no idea where they were going at first when in the hotel.
I had several fan complaints about things that were out of my control. Receiving a plastic badge holder for free but having to pay for the lanyard. Also, the badges didn’t fit into the badge holders. The Silent Auction items were set to end at certain times, and when I went to pull one of the items several minutes AFTER it had already ended, I had fans asking me why it was pulled. Having already being pulled in several directions, having to pull Silent Auctions is something that one of the many volunteers at the vendors table should have been doing.
Merchandise was being made in the hallway in the hotel where the talent was supposed to have been transported back and forth as to keep them out of the open area. Instead of an empty hallway with room dividers at each end, there were shirts, boxes, and other things – a heat press among them – laying around, even after the event was over for the day, unsupervised. Merchandise could have been stolen, the heat press (which was left on unsupervised, mind you) could have injured someone, or been a huge liability. I also nearly tripped over a laptop that was left in the doorway while escorting one of the celebrities into the Saturday night event. That hallway was supposed to be for transporting talent, not a work space, as far as I was told anyway.
I tried to fix things as they went wrong, before they spiraled out of control, and then later was told that I did things I shouldn’t have or stepped out of line. If I did something that was out of my jurisdiction or something I was not supposed to have done, I should have been pulled aside and told so by the Owner when it happened, not after the event ended. Solving problems AS they happen instead of after the fact can solve a lot of problems. I overheard several volunteers/staff mumbling about me, asking questions about why I did certain things that I was supposed to be doing. If you have a question, ask; if you have a problem, talk to me. Don’t talk about me behind my back.
I personally felt very out of sorts with the majority of the staff. Awkward if one will. I never felt like I could say anything without being overstepped or told that I wasn’t needed by most of the people there. Having worked several cons, and attended more cons in the past, I know what has to be done and how to adjust on the fly, which does help in the long run. I hate cliques, I always have, and there was a large one at the convention. I felt like I was on the outside of it, like I was a third party.
One of the volunteers, probably one of the only other staff/volunteers of the event that I didn’t feel out of sorts with never received their photos, even after they were told that they were sent out, and they had to constantly message to get their gas money, which was supposed to be a part of the payment.
All in all, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to cry while working an event. Well there’s a first time for everything. I was at the point Sunday where I was stretched like Gumby, doing multiple things because some of the other volunteers were too busy hanging out at vendors with their significant others or doing other things. Thank you to Kellan, Jodelle, Erik and Kiowa for helping me stay sane as I ran around like a crazy hooligan all weekend, and to Mandi for being the one volunteer/staff at the convention who didn't make me feel like an outsider. I know now that I probably shouldn’t have started working for ForeverCon, and I am no longer, as of January 6th, affiliated or working with ForeverCon or Digital Volumes Productions. I am glad for the friends that made while in Orlando, and glad to see old friends, but I feel like while 2019 was a year of learning, 2020 will continue to be that.
Universal Orlando has always been one of my favorite places in Orlando. From the rides, even the ones I can’t ride to the characters, and the atmosphere, it’s infectious and I love it. My favorite character to meet is Beetlejuice, and my favorite parts of Universal and Islands Adventure will probably always be the Harry Potter parts of it. I did learn that I can ride the Fast and Furious ride, while I can’t ride Hagrid’s ride due to the speed and movements that it makes. I got to hang out with old friends and new friends, a good start to reversing the stress and other things that I felt from the weekend. And for the first time out of the several times that I’ve been to Universal, I was able to ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey without having any sort of side effects from my Vertigo. Yay for Sea Bands.
Last days of trips are always sad. Maybe spending it at the happiest place on earth isn’t such a bad thing. I do want to say that my first time at Magic Kingdom wasn’t the best. We were basically invisible because of the staff members prioritizing children over the grown twenty-something year old adults who had never been to Disney. This time was a complete 180. From the moment we walked in to Magic Kingdom until we left after the fireworks it was amazing. Being joined by a friend who we hadn’t seen in years, who also was nice enough to give us free passes to Magic Kingdom, we were able to use Fast Passes for the first time – something we didn’t know about the first time we went.
Our first stop on our Magic Kingdom adventure was Adventureland and Tortuga Tavern. We actually got to meet Jack Sparrow - I’m sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow – this time as he wasn’t out for pictures when we went a few years ago. I did forget the Rum, but I did bring a new swashbuckler. After having ridden the Pirates of the Caribbean ride – something we didn’t do last time due to time – it was off to Cinderella’s Castle where we got to meet Cinderella and Elena. Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café was our lunch destination. The burger and fries were decent, but some of the food my friends had was not the best. Definitely not worth the price.
After filling our stomachs, it was off to Fantasyland to go under the sea to visit with Ariel, and then riding the Under the Sea ride. Heading over to Gaston’s Tavern was probably one of my favorite stops of the day. Gaston was one of the only villains that was out that I was super excited to meet. Gaston was charming and totally Gaston-like, which was amazing, even if that’s not the type of guy you want to bring home. I do wish that the shops near Gaston’s Tavern had more Gaston merchandise, a pin and his bow & arrow are not cutting it.
After Gaston, it was off to Pete’s Silly Side Show to meet Donald, Goofy, Daisy and Minnie. Meeting these characters that I grew up with and never got to meet as a child was probably one of the best things that we did. After that hilarious adventure it was off to Tomorrowland. While my friends rode Space Mountain, I was off to meet an alien. Stitch was amazing, and after everyone got off Space Mountain, it was off to Buzz Lightyear’s ride, followed by the Move It! Shake It! MousekeDance It! Street Party where Keisha and I were able to get sort-of photos with Pluto, Max, and Chip or Dale (I don’t know which one). After the insanity of the Street Party it was off to my favorite ride – The Haunted Mansion. It’s still as spooky and as fun as ever, and I was even possessed by a spirit at the end of the ride.
After riding Haunted Mansion, it was a mad dash to Town Square Theatre to meet Tinkerbell. And when I say “mad dash” I mean mad dash. Keisha nearly took out several people on her walk, including one of the actors I had the pleasure of working with over the weekend. After discussing rainbows and how they make your hair change color with a pixie, we headed up to watch the fireworks. While I wish I was able to watch the fireworks from closer, it probably would have been insane getting out and the photos I got from where we stood are great.
All in all Disney was amazing this time around and I actually can’t wait to go back. Some things I learned – go to Disney in the morning, you get more time to do things. The characters are amazing – Gaston and Ariel were probably my favorite of the day, followed by Tinkerbell. They were so interactive.
The ride home was one of reflection and remembering. I learned a lot this trip. About myself, and people that I’ve known for years. I’ve met a lot of new friends and made some decisions about my future with certain things. I know that I’m going to start trusting the judgement and gut instincts of certain people more, as well as my own.
Thanks for coming along for this four page-long-ride. See you for the next post.
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