by iserlohn » Fri Dec 27, 2002 10:10 am
0090: thank you for your large and mostly useless post.
What the original poster is talking about is "gophering/gofering" at conventions. Most cons don't have enough true staff people to handle everything going on once the con begins (35 people are enough to plan an event for 5,000 people, but keeping them all organized once they show up is another story), so they recruit volunteers from the attendees to help out with things like line security, making sure the right tape goes on at the right time in the video room, watching over the equipment in said rooms to make sure it's not stolen, check badges at the dealer room, etc. In return for giving up your time to the con, gofers can get such benefits as crash space, a refund on their ever-increasing reg fees, food, a con tshirt, and so on. Most cons require at least 10 hours of work to get the good stuff.
As I stated earlier, the smaller and more fan-oriented cons will probably have nicer gofer staff and if you're lucky a lower number of req hours for stuff. The larger cons like AX and Otakon, though, are gofer hell. Otakon requires a hotel reservation in advance (no more free crash space, you get a comp check instead) and unless you go all out for your work and take a lot of shifts you'll get treated like crap (PM me for the story of my personal experience), and AX won't give you anything unless you work 28 hours.
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