[00:00.000 --> 00:01.240]  Get a little more gain on the mic.
[00:01.500 --> 00:02.940]  I don't know if there's a...
[00:04.660 --> 00:07.760]  I'm in a big war with the...
[00:07.760 --> 00:12.040]  But what we can do is give me...
[00:12.040 --> 00:13.320]  Yeah, I know, but...
[00:15.600 --> 00:16.620]  Let's use this one.
[00:16.920 --> 00:18.180]  It's actually at the right gain.
[00:18.420 --> 00:20.720]  And then all you do is you take this mic...
[00:20.720 --> 00:21.720]  And swap it, yeah.
[00:24.040 --> 00:24.840]  That works.
[00:27.680 --> 00:29.960]  This actually works really well on how to run a con.
[00:31.280 --> 00:34.400]  Because the first thing you're going to have to be is very, very flexible.
[00:35.440 --> 00:37.200]  In whatever your arrangements are.
[00:37.620 --> 00:38.700]  Alright, so...
[00:39.260 --> 00:44.020]  You allegedly are here to hear a presentation called, Starting Your Own Con for Fun and No-Profit.
[00:44.140 --> 00:45.160]  A How-To Guide.
[00:46.000 --> 00:46.440]  And...
[00:47.620 --> 00:50.180]  It's being given, obviously, by the two of us.
[00:50.300 --> 00:51.420]  My name is Paul "Froggy" Schneider.
[00:51.880 --> 00:54.680]  This is my wife and business partner.
[00:54.680 --> 00:57.080]  My name is Jodie "Tyger" Schneider.
[00:57.980 --> 00:58.520]  And...
[00:59.300 --> 01:02.020]  It all started, actually, at HackerCon.
[01:02.420 --> 01:05.400]  How we got into this whole con organization business.
[01:05.680 --> 01:10.200]  And we realized when we went to cons like HOPE and Phreaknc and DEFCON.
[01:10.540 --> 01:12.860]  That the reason we went wasn't necessarily for the content.
[01:13.020 --> 01:14.740]  Most of it, which was very good.
[01:15.240 --> 01:20.200]  But we went because of the people that we only get to see maybe twice a year, if that.
[01:20.920 --> 01:28.760]  And we realized there were a lot of other reasons that we went to HackerCons that weren't explicitly in the program or meant to be there.
[01:29.420 --> 01:29.900]  So...
[01:30.800 --> 01:37.200]  When a conference called Rubicon, that went on in Detroit for about five years, went defunct for a number of reasons.
[01:38.780 --> 01:41.900]  We kind of took it upon ourselves to say, well, what's going on in the Midwest?
[01:42.220 --> 01:46.940]  We know there's a lot of people here that have a real love for technology and doing cool stuff.
[01:48.060 --> 01:52.700]  So, what can we do to help continue the tradition of HackerCon in this area?
[01:53.860 --> 02:04.120]  And what we're going to try to tell you about in this presentation is a little bit about what we learned, what we did, and how we started our own con from the ground up with absolutely no experience to what we're doing now.
[02:04.340 --> 02:06.220]  Is what we're doing perfect?
[02:06.380 --> 02:06.600]  No.
[02:07.080 --> 02:07.320]  No.
[02:07.480 --> 02:09.520]  I mean, sure, we have to cut some corners every now and then.
[02:09.680 --> 02:13.720]  But overall, I'm really confident and happy with the job we've done.
[02:14.360 --> 02:19.880]  When we started our event, we only had about 125 people our first year at Not A Con 1.
[02:19.880 --> 02:22.760]  Last year at our event, we had about 350 people.
[02:23.120 --> 02:25.820]  And next year, we're anticipating between 400 and 450.
[02:26.740 --> 02:31.640]  Now, getting any one person to Cleveland is already a pretty big coup.
[02:32.320 --> 02:35.920]  Getting, you know, 400 people to Cleveland, that's pretty damn awesome.
[02:36.820 --> 02:43.020]  So, just as a brief overview of how we're going to structure this presentation, we're structuring it through a lot of questions.
[02:44.440 --> 02:46.820]  What we do, how we do it, and all that other kind of stuff.
[02:46.820 --> 02:50.540]  If you have one, I'm going to ask you to make sure you use the microphone so that everybody can hear you.
[02:51.640 --> 02:52.340]  Let's get started.
[02:53.760 --> 03:00.260]  First of all, if you're going to run an event, any kind of event, hacker kind of whatnot, you have to think about, why are you doing this in the first place?
[03:00.440 --> 03:01.540]  For us, it was pretty easy.
[03:01.660 --> 03:04.380]  We saw a need that was there, a vacuum that we decided to fill.
[03:06.140 --> 03:09.800]  However, you know, there could be many reasons for what it is you want to do.
[03:10.320 --> 03:15.080]  And not only along that, if you have, once you decide what the purpose of your event is.
[03:15.260 --> 03:19.900]  For ours, it was creating an event where we can celebrate community, creativity, and technology.
[03:20.980 --> 03:25.160]  Once you have that down, you have to figure out what are people going to do when they're actually at your event.
[03:25.240 --> 03:32.500]  Are they just going to sit around in a network room, dorking around, loading up porn, and then throwing it on, you know, DriftNet.
[03:33.340 --> 03:34.240]  Lots of fun, Ben.
[03:34.340 --> 03:37.520]  They've done that, but, you know, that's just one of the many things you could do.
[03:37.520 --> 03:42.580]  And here's listed, there are four major areas that a lot of cons usually have.
[03:42.980 --> 03:45.180]  You also have to decide what the length of the event is.
[03:45.420 --> 03:48.060]  A real popular length, obviously, is the weekend.
[03:48.240 --> 03:51.340]  You know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, that most hacker cons follow.
[03:52.440 --> 03:57.920]  There's been other events that have tried to kind of change it up and maybe go during the week and whatnot.
[03:58.700 --> 04:01.040]  And that can work, but it all depends on your audience.
[04:01.360 --> 04:06.460]  And you also have to decide if it's going to run 24-7, like most hacker cons do.
[04:07.620 --> 04:11.700]  Some other things you have to think about are reasonable attendance expectations.
[04:12.640 --> 04:32.340]  When we first started running cons, I have to admit, the first time I ran out of cons, we were going through our first venue, and I was walking around in awe, thinking that we're going to have 500 people in this venue the very first year, and we were going to do a fantastically great job and bring in all these people.
[04:33.080 --> 04:36.860]  And that didn't necessarily happen.
[04:37.060 --> 04:40.140]  So you have to be realistic about what it is you expect.
[04:40.680 --> 04:45.780]  As we learned later, having about 125 to 150 people our first year was fantastic.
[04:46.480 --> 04:48.480]  It was more than DEFCON had their first year.
[04:48.960 --> 04:51.100]  I'm not sure what the attendance numbers were at the first hope.
[04:51.300 --> 04:52.880]  I was like 15 then.
[04:53.840 --> 04:55.180]  I tried to go, trust me.
[04:56.660 --> 05:01.780]  But usually new cons start off small because you have a lot to sell people.
[05:01.920 --> 05:03.020]  You have no brand.
[05:03.100 --> 05:04.220]  You have no history.
[05:04.220 --> 05:14.100]  People don't know what it is you're about if they're going to waste, you know, $900 to $1,000 to come to this city to either be bored to tears or to learn something really cool.
[05:14.760 --> 05:21.700]  And you also have to figure out if you're going to try to attract mostly locals or mostly people from outside of the area.
[05:23.180 --> 05:28.480]  Since our event is based in Cleveland, I figured, you know, this would be a great way to get people locally in the Cleveland area.
[05:28.620 --> 05:31.120]  Northeast Ohio, Columbus, Toledo, Youngstown.
[05:31.640 --> 05:36.540]  As it turns out, 85% of the people that come to Notacon are not in the state of Ohio at all.
[05:37.280 --> 05:40.160]  Or outside of a radius of like about an hour and a half.
[05:40.480 --> 05:46.300]  So most of our people that attend Notacon come from about 35 different states, usually about three or four different foreign countries.
[05:47.380 --> 05:48.900]  And that's something that surprised us.
[05:48.980 --> 05:52.740]  But you want to think a little bit about what it is, you know, who it is you're attracting.
[05:54.040 --> 05:57.140]  Want to talk about venues?
[05:58.380 --> 05:59.140]  The venue.
[06:01.440 --> 06:02.680]  Where are you going to hold this thing?
[06:05.540 --> 06:07.420]  At first, it seems like a really easy question.
[06:07.840 --> 06:15.120]  Go to a hotel or some public space and say, hey, I'd like to rent your space for X number of days to run an event.
[06:16.500 --> 06:24.060]  Most of the time, you know, if you just go in with that approach, you're going to be doing yourself kind of a disservice.
[06:24.840 --> 06:27.000]  Because you have to think about, first of all, what kind of event do you need?
[06:27.000 --> 06:30.480]  Do you need something like a large conference hall or conference center?
[06:30.960 --> 06:38.860]  Do you need simply a couple rooms for board meetings at a smaller hotel if you're only going to have maybe 30 or 40 people for a little party?
[06:39.560 --> 06:42.540]  Are you going to run an outdoor event, like a camping event?
[06:44.500 --> 06:46.000]  CCC, for example, is a good example.
[06:46.080 --> 06:48.220]  You're running that outdoors and kind of doing something like that.
[06:48.720 --> 06:53.240]  So you have to kind of figure out what venue would really best support what it is you're trying to do.
[06:54.560 --> 07:01.560]  Also, and this is one of the words I love to use, most hacker cons usually tend to be at hotels that have just a hint of quality.
[07:01.740 --> 07:06.520]  And what I mean by that is they're not four or five star hotels, but they're not absolute dumps.
[07:06.660 --> 07:08.080]  I've been to cons at dumps.
[07:08.180 --> 07:14.060]  They can be a lot of fun, but chances are there's going to be enough problems there that it's going to kind of ruin the good time.
[07:14.800 --> 07:25.460]  What you want to do is focus on venues that obviously have managers and people that run it that care, but that don't care enough about what it is you're going to do to it.
[07:26.760 --> 07:28.100]  So you have to think about that.
[07:28.220 --> 07:30.660]  And likewise, you have to think about what your local resources are.
[07:31.820 --> 07:34.360]  Here being at HOPE is a good example of having a lot of resources.
[07:34.620 --> 07:36.420]  You know, there's plenty of places to eat.
[07:36.640 --> 07:39.620]  You can get here via subway, you know, a bunch of different airports.
[07:40.700 --> 07:43.880]  There's, you know, not... there's never a lack for things to do.
[07:45.840 --> 07:51.420]  One Phreaknic I went to once, and I love Phreaknic as a con, was at a really dumpy hotel.
[07:52.440 --> 07:59.520]  There was absolutely nothing to eat in walking distance, which since we flew on a plane and didn't get a rental car, was really difficult.
[07:59.720 --> 08:10.940]  So we actually ended up having to charter a taxi, which took about an hour and a half to come, to go to a grocery store to spend, you know, 50, 60 bucks on cold cuts to take back to a hotel room that we had to keep on ice because there were no in-room fridges,
[08:11.320 --> 08:11.400]  right?
[08:11.560 --> 08:14.160]  So that pretty, you know, that made it a pretty miserable time.
[08:14.600 --> 08:22.060]  Had I known that kind of thing ahead of time, I would have, you know, gone into it knowing, all right, this is going to be kind of ghetto, kind of, you know, very, very DIY.
[08:23.960 --> 08:25.080]  I'll prepare as such.
[08:26.480 --> 08:29.520]  And the other thing about venues is how do I deal with the potential venue?
[08:29.620 --> 08:34.740]  And when I say deal, I mean initially contact them and explain to them what it is you're going to do.
[08:36.480 --> 08:43.960]  There's a large temptation when you're going to start an event, especially HackerCon, to go in and not tell them that you are, in fact, a HackerCon.
[08:45.520 --> 08:50.260]  When I went to talk to our first venue about what it is we wanted to do, I explicitly stated it.
[08:50.500 --> 08:57.020]  I said, look, what we're going to do is bring in about 150 of some of the smartest people in the entire world.
[08:57.400 --> 08:58.800]  You may know them as hackers.
[08:59.400 --> 09:03.980]  What you know is probably not, you know, not realistic.
[09:04.580 --> 09:11.240]  What you're going to find is people that are very smart, a little eccentric, probably going to have mohawks, blue hair, studded leather jackets.
[09:11.460 --> 09:14.020]  You know, they're going to look strange, but they're going to be good people.
[09:14.760 --> 09:19.780]  You're going to find out that rooms, you know, furniture in your rooms will be reorganized.
[09:20.420 --> 09:23.240]  There will be lots of home decor going on.
[09:23.700 --> 09:25.700]  Beds will not be put together properly.
[09:25.940 --> 09:27.180]  There will probably be lots of trash.
[09:27.560 --> 09:31.320]  And there's probably going to be some noise and excessive amounts of drinking.
[09:32.040 --> 09:40.140]  To which, after sitting down with a polite little old lady at the other end of the counter, talking about venues, she goes, sir, we are the closest hotel to Browns Stadium.
[09:41.260 --> 09:46.980]  If you've ever been to a Browns game or any other football game, you know that these guys coming here are already drunk.
[09:47.620 --> 09:50.620]  Not only that, but we also have the Cleveland Policeman's Ball.
[09:51.660 --> 09:57.380]  Have you ever tried to lift a 500-pound man up an elevator while he's throwing up on you?
[09:57.480 --> 09:59.640]  I think you kids will be just fine.
[10:02.880 --> 10:08.020]  And to that end, we previously were at that venue for five years.
[10:08.360 --> 10:16.940]  They each year asked us back, they wanted us back this year, but for various reasons, we needed more space and a better proximity to things like food.
[10:17.740 --> 10:18.940]  So we changed it up.
[10:22.520 --> 10:23.040]  All right.
[10:25.260 --> 10:27.160]  You have to next consider...
[10:27.160 --> 10:27.240]  Hmm?
[10:28.240 --> 10:29.060]  Oh, you're on order.
[10:29.160 --> 10:29.300]  Okay.
[10:29.620 --> 10:31.400]  You have to think about who your average attendee is.
[10:31.480 --> 10:33.460]  Try to get in the mind of the people that have come to your event.
[10:33.800 --> 10:39.880]  You have to think about what their expectations are, what their needs are, what kinds of things are they going to want.
[10:40.660 --> 10:42.680]  And likewise, you have to keep an eye on your presenters.
[10:44.100 --> 10:47.420]  Are they going to expect free airfare and hotel accommodations?
[10:47.960 --> 10:50.440]  Is it going to be great that they just get in for free?
[10:51.200 --> 11:00.800]  There's a con that I won't mention the name of that actually expects their presenters to do three presentations and still manage to pay almost full price to get in.
[11:01.940 --> 11:02.820]  That's their decision.
[11:02.820 --> 11:08.240]  I think it's kind of ghetto, but, you know, it seems to work for them and they seem to pull about 1,500 people in a year.
[11:10.880 --> 11:24.160]  When you think about conferences, a lot of people that haven't gone to a hacker conference, think of conferences in terms of technological conferences or medical conferences in which certain people will, you know, people will pay $2,500, $5,000 to come in,
[11:24.280 --> 11:29.280]  get everything covered, meals, hotel, transportation, all these details covered for them.
[11:30.120 --> 11:46.800]  So a lot of people that, you know, think about running conferences or a lot of venues that have done conferences before might not understand how things are done with hacker conferences or with conferences that aren't heavily sponsored or, you know, that have huge budgets.
[11:47.320 --> 12:03.320]  And likewise, when you're considering presenters, you want to try to remind your presenters is that you're not in this for, you know, a boatload of money and that you don't have, you know, a six-figure budget, well, you may, but that, you know, that your resource is limited and that you'll try to do for them as much as you can,
[12:03.360 --> 12:05.000]  but what is it that they need?
[12:05.580 --> 12:12.420]  One of our policies at Notacon is asking ourselves, what is the return on investment on the speaker?
[12:12.620 --> 12:19.120]  If we're going to spend $700 and $300 in hotel room, is that person going to bring in potentially X number of people?
[12:19.140 --> 12:20.460]  Is this person the big enough draw?
[12:21.320 --> 12:25.120]  Um, because eventually everybody will try to ask, can I get in for free?
[12:25.540 --> 12:27.460]  We'll deal with that in just one second.
[12:28.880 --> 12:30.160]  Legal and tax stuff.
[12:30.780 --> 12:31.680]  Sure, please.
[12:32.940 --> 12:33.380]  All right.
[12:33.640 --> 12:48.620]  So when we decided to found Notacon, one of the first things we did was looked at things like incorporating under a limited liability corporation, because we didn't want to lose our belongings if the thing failed or if something very bad happened at the hotel.
[12:49.140 --> 13:06.840]  Um, one of the things you really should consider, though, is the non-profit, because the differences that we've run into with the corporation versus a non-profit is that it's very difficult to get good sponsorships, because you can't take donations.
[13:06.840 --> 13:14.860]  It has to be a sponsorship, so we return, like, ad revenue or whatever for the money that they give us.
[13:14.860 --> 13:22.960]  To a non-profit, people can actually donate, and sometimes it's easier to get large corporations to give money to a non-profit.
[13:23.820 --> 13:29.000]  Um, make sure that you apply for all necessary federal and state tax IDs.
[13:29.460 --> 13:35.000]  If you do not pay your taxes, they will probably find out at some point, especially if you start making money.
[13:36.260 --> 13:40.540]  And if you aren't making money, they don't tax you very heavily on it, so that's pretty good, too.
[13:41.420 --> 13:45.460]  Um, make sure you know what is taxable and how much you will be taxed.
[13:46.200 --> 14:00.600]  Uh, currently with Notacon, because we are inside the city of Cleveland, we pay the federal, we pay the state, we pay the city we're incorporated in, we pay sales tax, and we pay an extra tax on registrations inside the city of Cleveland.
[14:01.280 --> 14:03.420]  That kind of hurt when we found out about it.
[14:03.620 --> 14:05.800]  It almost made us move into the suburbs, but...
[14:05.800 --> 14:09.180]  It's like 15 and a half percent of all of our ticket sales go directly to taxes.
[14:09.540 --> 14:09.780]  Yeah.
[14:10.200 --> 14:16.160]  It's... we basically get double taxed on every single registration we take in, and we have to account for that when we set registration prices.
[14:17.360 --> 14:20.540]  Keep separate financial accounts and credit cards.
[14:21.020 --> 14:25.140]  It's much easier to keep everything separate if you just keep it separate.
[14:25.140 --> 14:30.240]  When you're doing budgeting, when you're filing your taxes, just keep track of everything.
[14:30.440 --> 14:31.140]  Cover your butt.
[14:31.620 --> 14:33.900]  And, yeah, uh, that's one thing we didn't do originally.
[14:34.020 --> 14:40.620]  I just kind of financed everything on the Capital One card, and then the Chase card, and then the MBNA card.
[14:41.000 --> 14:52.160]  And, uh, once you get up to about $20,000, you're at a point of figuring out, well, uh, it would be really nice to be able to at least write off all this interest instead of eating it.
[14:52.160 --> 14:56.580]  By having a separate company credit card, it makes it really easy to say, okay, these are company expenses.
[14:56.900 --> 14:58.640]  Company interest that I'm paying on this.
[14:59.080 --> 15:00.500]  Hence, I can write this off.
[15:03.040 --> 15:03.480]  Licenses.
[15:03.480 --> 15:03.640]  Licenses.
[15:03.940 --> 15:07.960]  Uh, not only in terms of ticket tax of Cleveland, you technically need what?
[15:08.140 --> 15:08.960]  Oh, sorry.
[15:09.560 --> 15:14.200]  You, you need, at least in our city, you need a license to sell tickets for events.
[15:14.480 --> 15:17.240]  Uh, this is something I didn't know about until about year three.
[15:17.240 --> 15:20.460]  Uh, most of the time cities are pretty lax about this.
[15:20.620 --> 15:24.680]  And you might be really tempted to say, well, I don't want to drop seven and a half percent.
[15:25.040 --> 15:39.640]  However, the thing is, if something happens and you need to call the police, you know, somebody's doing something really nasty, uh, and events happening which you need help, it's really nice to say, uh, you know, hi, uh, you know, Paul Schneider, whatever,
[15:39.860 --> 15:44.000]  we run this event, we're on file with the city, we're running this event, could you send some help?
[15:44.000 --> 15:57.380]  Um, because one of the worst things that could happen is that they find out about you through something really bad, and then notice you don't have all your ducks in a row with paperwork, uh, state ID filing, and all that other kind of stuff, um, because the fees really do,
[15:57.380 --> 15:58.800]  uh, add up after a while.
[15:58.920 --> 16:03.680]  I forgot to pay, for example, our sales tax, uh, for about a year.
[16:04.180 --> 16:12.360]  And about $500 in fees later, on about $400 of tax, uh, I decided I probably should just pay the taxes on time.
[16:12.360 --> 16:12.380]  Okay.
[16:15.020 --> 16:15.540]  Leadership.
[16:16.140 --> 16:17.260]  Ah, organization.
[16:18.560 --> 16:29.220]  As they've been saying in some of the hackerspaces talks, um, you kind of need to have a core group together before you try to take on a venture like this.
[16:29.580 --> 16:31.780]  At least two people in charge.
[16:32.120 --> 16:37.840]  We started out with three when we founded the company, and our third person since has moved on to other things.
[16:37.840 --> 16:43.580]  But you have to have a nice quantity of people who can get along.
[16:44.120 --> 16:51.360]  Because if you have too many people trying to start it, then everybody's gonna fight over what the vision's going to be, what direction you're going to take.
[16:51.580 --> 17:00.820]  If you have a nice, small, close group, you can kind of work it out internally, and then kind of expand your staff later once you have an idea of where you're going.
[17:01.580 --> 17:03.220]  Um, same thing for volunteers.
[17:03.740 --> 17:09.220]  If everybody is a volunteer, then, you know, who's paying everything?
[17:09.520 --> 17:12.860]  If you decide to let your volunteers in for free, everybody's going to want to volunteer.
[17:12.860 --> 17:15.960]  But then you've got all these people to control and not enough jobs to do.
[17:16.180 --> 17:27.840]  So you need to get that right number of people to kind of handle all the problems and deal with things without having too many or without having everybody getting overwhelmed because you don't have enough people.
[17:28.920 --> 17:31.760]  Make sure to separate out the duties and responsibilities.
[17:32.240 --> 17:34.560]  Build some sort of management structure.
[17:34.900 --> 17:40.340]  Uh, we've kind of gone with a little bit of an authoritarian process.
[17:40.340 --> 17:42.620]  I like to call it a benevolent dictatorship.
[17:43.740 --> 17:49.980]  But we do have our core staff of members where we have people who are really good at networking.
[17:49.980 --> 17:52.480]  So we tell them, okay, make the network happen.
[17:52.640 --> 17:54.540]  We have people who are really good at AV.
[17:54.840 --> 17:58.000]  We tell them to make the AV happen and we step back from it.
[17:58.140 --> 18:07.960]  But overall, we are the ones responsible for the big picture and dealing with finances and other things that kind of have to be held within the actual corporation.
[18:10.220 --> 18:11.260]  I'll let you go on.
[18:11.520 --> 18:12.340]  Ah, personalities.
[18:13.680 --> 18:18.320]  You will likely run into people that have very excellent intentions.
[18:18.920 --> 18:27.080]  Um, but for whatever reason, you know, they might have personality clashes with other people in the organization.
[18:27.500 --> 18:29.560]  Uh, there might have been words spoken.
[18:29.560 --> 18:39.780]  I'm thinking one particular for us, where somebody told somebody else that was volunteering for Notacon something in a way that was rather harsh.
[18:39.920 --> 18:42.000]  They got upset and said, well, f*ck you guys.
[18:42.160 --> 18:42.780]  I'm just leaving.
[18:43.900 --> 18:51.720]  Um, and that's, you know, as somebody who's organizing and wasn't party to that communication, I was like, well, that, you know, that really sucks.
[18:51.720 --> 18:53.140]  I'm sorry that you had that experience.
[18:53.840 --> 18:57.020]  And later on to find out, it was just, you know, it was a simple miscommunication.
[18:57.020 --> 19:01.480]  But at this point, you know, it's kind of, it's kind of irreparable.
[19:01.780 --> 19:04.380]  But you have to recognize that there are going to be many different personalities.
[19:04.700 --> 19:10.340]  And you want a lot of strong personalities and strong-willed individuals and people that will get stuff done on your staff.
[19:10.960 --> 19:13.140]  And you have to respect them for that.
[19:13.600 --> 19:21.760]  One of the thing, one of the worst things you could do is just ignore somebody's contributions or not at least acknowledge that they have the experience they do.
[19:23.520 --> 19:29.340]  Sometimes, you know, in our organization, somebody will do something that I might not agree with or think is the best way to do things.
[19:29.860 --> 19:35.100]  But you have to kind of think about it and fight, you know, fight the battles you should be fighting.
[19:35.180 --> 19:36.540]  Not, you know, not all of them.
[19:36.800 --> 19:38.940]  You have to decide how big of a deal is this.
[19:39.660 --> 19:43.320]  A good example at the Hacker Spaces talk was the bike shed.
[19:43.620 --> 19:48.880]  You know, how some organization will decide immediately right off the bat a board to build an atomic power plant.
[19:49.140 --> 19:53.080]  But if you want to design a bike shed, everybody and his brother has to put in his contributions.
[19:53.460 --> 19:57.160]  And it turns into a three-hour discussion of, well, what color is it going to be?
[19:57.220 --> 19:58.300]  What kind of bikes are we going to put in there?
[19:59.380 --> 20:00.940]  And getting lost in the details.
[20:02.080 --> 20:06.000]  Which is another thing that hacker cons have to deal with that a lot of other cons don't.
[20:07.320 --> 20:09.220]  Hackers tend to be very, very detail-oriented.
[20:11.100 --> 20:15.800]  Very interested in trying to make sure everything's the right way, everything's the way it should be.
[20:15.880 --> 20:16.980]  Maybe even a little bit OCD.
[20:17.480 --> 20:20.380]  And when you're designing a network, that's a great thing to do.
[20:20.720 --> 20:25.140]  If you're trying to make sure that your AV cables are arranged properly, that's an excellent thing to have.
[20:25.660 --> 20:29.920]  If you're trying to organize 15 different major topics, that's terrible.
[20:30.120 --> 20:36.240]  Because you're going to invariably, you know, spend a lot of time on three of them and then ignore the other 12.
[20:37.440 --> 20:44.540]  So, if you decide to be like a head organizer of such an event, try to step back as much as possible, but still keep your fingers in the pie.
[20:45.440 --> 20:45.840]  Money.
[20:46.400 --> 20:47.680]  Oh, money, money, money, money.
[20:50.120 --> 20:59.920]  As Paul said, the first year we were thinking that we might, you know, randomly sell out this hotel, surprisingly, totally through word-of-mouth advertising, we would just completely blow the books, right?
[21:00.480 --> 21:03.440]  And instead, we ended up with like 125 people.
[21:04.400 --> 21:10.260]  So, when you're budgeting, be realistic about how many people you actually expect to come through the door.
[21:10.820 --> 21:16.940]  Don't imagine that you're going to fill the space the first time unless you have a lot of really good friends with a lot of money.
[21:18.560 --> 21:20.760]  Budget your expenses for the entire year.
[21:21.000 --> 21:26.740]  Think about things like web hosting, where you're going to put things over the course of the year.
[21:27.020 --> 21:27.500]  Storage.
[21:27.760 --> 21:28.840]  I mean, storage is a big one.
[21:29.480 --> 21:32.920]  Anything that you might need to pay for over the course of a year.
[21:33.440 --> 21:38.020]  We've ended up buying projectors and other sorts of things that we've had to budget for.
[21:38.840 --> 21:40.700]  Make sure you budget for taxes.
[21:41.000 --> 21:42.800]  The taxes will come out.
[21:42.800 --> 21:46.760]  And if you're totally on the level, they're probably going to be a fair bit of money.
[21:46.940 --> 21:53.220]  Make sure you don't set your registration so low that you aren't going to be able to pay out those taxes.
[21:54.280 --> 22:00.480]  And again, any licenses, fees, anything you have to take care of, make sure you have that set up right up front.
[22:02.200 --> 22:03.380]  Itemize your expenses.
[22:03.540 --> 22:05.620]  It'll pay off when you do your taxes.
[22:06.340 --> 22:09.360]  Make sure you keep track of everything you expend on.
[22:09.500 --> 22:11.480]  Make sure you keep track of everything that comes in, too.
[22:12.940 --> 22:15.520]  Tax preparers really like to have all that in detail.
[22:16.320 --> 22:22.900]  When you're setting your ticket price, make sure you're taking into account all of the different fees and things that you are going to have to spend on.
[22:23.360 --> 22:27.660]  Because, like, we figured out that it's about $65 a person to run Notacon.
[22:27.920 --> 22:30.800]  And then we set a whole block of registrations at $50 a piece.
[22:31.360 --> 22:32.940]  That doesn't pay for itself.
[22:33.740 --> 22:34.520]  Can you say something?
[22:34.800 --> 22:35.940]  That's what I was going to say.
[22:35.940 --> 22:38.220]  And levels and types of sponsorship.
[22:38.560 --> 22:45.160]  If you are going to be seeking out sponsorship, because I'm sure most of us are not self-made millionaires expending on our own banks.
[22:47.000 --> 22:59.280]  Set some sort of guidelines on who you're going to approach, what sort of money you need to bring in to make ends meet, and what types of things are going to be sponsorable.
[22:59.280 --> 23:08.060]  We have things like get your name on a badge, get your name on the lanyards, ads in the booklet, banners put over the registration table.
[23:08.240 --> 23:15.260]  We've itemized out all these different things that could have someone else's logo put on them without taking over the conference.
[23:18.300 --> 23:18.780]  Yeah.
[23:19.340 --> 23:20.930]  Corporate whoring or complete DIY?
[23:21.210 --> 23:22.720]  I guess I already kind of touched on that.
[23:22.930 --> 23:23.380]  Yeah.
[23:23.380 --> 23:29.400]  But the main thing is, you know, do you want to be such and such conference sponsored by Microsoft?
[23:30.060 --> 23:40.450]  Or do you want to stand on your own and then have kind of minor sponsorships that just help over the cost of registration, but don't completely take over?
[23:40.450 --> 23:44.560]  Do you want to have a trade show where people are talking about their products?
[23:44.560 --> 23:53.000]  Or do you want to have a whole bunch of creative individuals from colleges talking and just have, you know, a banner in the background for a recruiting company?
[23:55.560 --> 23:57.080]  I'll let you talk about how we're coming.
[23:57.900 --> 24:00.260]  This is still an area that we're working on.
[24:00.360 --> 24:01.210]  Let's put it that way.
[24:03.170 --> 24:08.780]  Our ability to do sponsorship has been really a challenge, as she said, because since we aren't a nonprofit.
[24:09.220 --> 24:10.690]  So it's been kind of a hard sell.
[24:11.780 --> 24:17.930]  But when you're trying to think about sponsorships, again, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the person you're courting.
[24:18.080 --> 24:21.930]  And you want to know what it is they want in return for their money.
[24:22.260 --> 24:24.480]  Because essentially they're buying something from you.
[24:24.800 --> 24:30.740]  And what they're buying is either exposure or, well, basically it just is exposure most of the time.
[24:31.840 --> 24:35.460]  And you have to make sure that they understand what kind of exposure they're getting.
[24:35.460 --> 24:39.300]  Because if you tell them, well, our event's going to have about 400 people.
[24:39.480 --> 24:43.640]  They're thinking, well, that's, you know, that's kind of a lot of people.
[24:43.860 --> 24:48.170]  But if you say, well, we're going to have about 400 people between the ages of about 18 and 35.
[24:48.540 --> 24:51.170]  All of them are high tech sector workers for the most part.
[24:51.400 --> 24:52.220]  Very creative.
[24:53.280 --> 24:56.220]  If not, they're in college and will soon be in the workforce.
[24:56.450 --> 24:58.140]  Is this the kind of people you're interested in?
[24:58.320 --> 25:01.300]  To which a lot of them might say, well, that is pretty interesting.
[25:01.690 --> 25:06.020]  One of the sponsors that actually found us last year was a local technical recruiting company.
[25:06.450 --> 25:09.260]  And they said, you know, this would be a great way for us to get our name out.
[25:09.320 --> 25:10.800]  I said, I haven't even heard of you.
[25:11.060 --> 25:15.240]  And you seem to be a pretty big company in the Cleveland area that does technical recruiting.
[25:15.610 --> 25:17.860]  So, you know, they had a very good opportunity there.
[25:18.040 --> 25:23.300]  Yet they still had enough understanding of what we did to say, you know, all we want is our name there.
[25:23.480 --> 25:25.600]  We don't, you know, don't have to promote it too bad.
[25:25.710 --> 25:28.020]  You don't have to say sponsored by such and such too much.
[25:28.020 --> 25:31.040]  Just, you know, make sure that we're seen and that people know we exist.
[25:31.460 --> 25:34.520]  So try to anticipate what it is sponsors potentially want.
[25:35.140 --> 25:41.000]  If you want to go the complete DIY route and just have a completely self-funded, self-financed, you can do it.
[25:41.220 --> 25:43.260]  First year, that's how we did Notacon.
[25:44.620 --> 25:48.460]  Credit cards, borrowing money from friends, begging.
[25:49.800 --> 25:50.560]  We did it.
[25:50.720 --> 25:51.710]  You can do it.
[25:52.020 --> 25:56.560]  The budget for our first Notacon was only about $10,000, or about.
[25:57.380 --> 26:03.300]  And another thing we've run into is that a lot of sponsors would rather give you product than money.
[26:03.580 --> 26:03.840]  Ah, yes.
[26:04.280 --> 26:11.080]  So we had an overwhelming quantity of O'Reilly books, flyers, things that we couldn't get rid of.
[26:11.170 --> 26:14.520]  I think we had 300 Ubuntu discs for 150 participants.
[26:16.140 --> 26:21.740]  So figure out what it is they want to give you and then decide if you really need that.
[26:22.450 --> 26:27.720]  And, you know, there is kind of a break-even point on that because it gives us things to give away to people.
[26:27.900 --> 26:30.720]  We can give out prizes of O'Reilly books and whatever.
[26:31.240 --> 26:35.690]  But at the same time, when what we really needed was money, maybe we should be looking elsewhere.
[26:40.720 --> 26:42.500]  All right, let's try to blow through this a little quicker.
[26:43.190 --> 26:43.720]  Handling money.
[26:44.190 --> 26:47.520]  One of the biggest things to consider when running an event is how you're going to accept payment.
[26:48.290 --> 26:50.520]  PayPal, obviously, is a very popular option.
[26:50.520 --> 26:56.780]  But for a lot of reasons, people don't want to use it for privacy concerns or other concerns, or they simply don't have a bank account or credit card.
[26:58.980 --> 27:02.340]  We take... for what we do, we actually take a whole number of different ways.
[27:02.520 --> 27:03.960]  We handle credit cards directly.
[27:04.000 --> 27:06.460]  We have our own merchant account that you can apply for.
[27:06.690 --> 27:07.280]  It's cheap.
[27:07.840 --> 27:10.670]  You can get your own credit card terminal, which we have and bring to events.
[27:11.460 --> 27:16.080]  We also accept cash at the door and checks, you know, in the mail.
[27:16.380 --> 27:19.040]  One of the things you obviously want to avoid is getting checks at the door.
[27:19.280 --> 27:21.800]  Because if it doesn't clear, you're screwed.
[27:23.240 --> 27:27.320]  We usually don't have too many problems with, like, chargebacks or anything like that.
[27:27.950 --> 27:32.800]  Mostly because, you know, if it is in person, we try to make sure we get a signed receipt slip.
[27:33.000 --> 27:34.670]  Or, you know, get your CVV2.
[27:35.310 --> 27:37.880]  Or even deal with Authorize.net and they'll handle a lot of that.
[27:39.150 --> 27:40.980]  But you want to think about what the costs are.
[27:41.000 --> 27:44.360]  Because, obviously, if you start taking PayPal and credit cards, you're going to take yet another hit.
[27:45.480 --> 27:50.540]  You know, 2%, 3%, whatever, on that money that you're going to lose in that process.
[27:51.850 --> 27:54.320]  Because a lot of people tend to think, well, I have a personal PayPal account.
[27:54.430 --> 27:55.320]  They don't take any of my money.
[27:55.480 --> 27:56.780]  So I'll just PayPal you.
[27:56.950 --> 27:58.260]  And I'll be, you know, that's great.
[27:58.380 --> 27:59.170]  Especially sponsors.
[27:59.360 --> 28:01.950]  One sponsor said, well, we'll just send you $1,500 in PayPal.
[28:02.170 --> 28:06.340]  I'm like, you're aware we're only going to get, like, $1,425 of that or whatever.
[28:06.640 --> 28:08.080]  You're basically throwing away $75.
[28:08.260 --> 28:09.710]  And they're like, oh, I didn't know that.
[28:09.720 --> 28:10.880]  I'll just cut you a check instead.
[28:12.150 --> 28:16.170]  So if you can, you know, get the full value of what it is you want, go for it.
[28:16.170 --> 28:20.210]  And again, as we kind of touched upon, who pays?
[28:21.150 --> 28:25.760]  Not a kind of, we have a policy where core staff, as we call them, don't pay.
[28:26.220 --> 28:27.840]  Most of them end up doing so anyways.
[28:28.500 --> 28:30.580]  Just because they believe in the event and what we're doing.
[28:31.690 --> 28:33.000]  Likewise, volunteers do pay.
[28:33.260 --> 28:35.450]  We don't make presenters pay, though.
[28:35.950 --> 28:40.710]  And likewise, what we've done in past years is actually offered presenters to bring a guest for free.
[28:41.430 --> 28:47.560]  Events like DEFCON, you know, have their honorary array of about, what, $300 and or three or four badges or something like that.
[28:48.390 --> 28:50.460]  And that can work, you know, that can work in your favor.
[28:50.710 --> 28:56.360]  But it's kind of difficult, especially at the beginning, to decide who's paying and who's not.
[28:56.400 --> 28:58.000]  Because you don't want to hurt anybody's feelings.
[28:58.820 --> 29:03.120]  One good way to do it might be the hackerspace model and just say, well, everybody has to throw into the kitty.
[29:03.120 --> 29:06.320]  We're all in this together to make this thing happen.
[29:06.720 --> 29:17.540]  We didn't do that simply because we knew we were going to get enough sweat equity from everybody that, you know, it wouldn't be worth taking people's money or forcing them to pay just to get in.
[29:18.480 --> 29:23.190]  And also, we make sure that our staff are pretty much working with us year-round.
[29:23.400 --> 29:29.380]  Some of them, obviously, certain jobs, certain tasks are more done, like, within the couple months before.
[29:29.380 --> 29:33.170]  But if you're on our core staff, we know how hard you're working.
[29:33.360 --> 29:35.980]  And that's why we don't bother to make them pay.
[29:37.200 --> 29:46.400]  Whereas volunteers, I mean, if you tell the person they'll get in free if they volunteer, well, do you make them pay and then try to refund it at the end after you confirm that they've actually worked?
[29:46.400 --> 29:48.100]  Or do you do it all on blind trust?
[29:48.320 --> 29:51.760]  Do you only let your friends volunteer so that you know they'll actually help you out?
[29:51.900 --> 29:53.710]  It's just kind of a really tough situation.
[29:54.020 --> 29:54.780]  It gets really nasty.
[29:55.210 --> 29:57.100]  So having a consistent policy works.
[29:57.100 --> 30:00.020]  And likewise, you want a policy for refunds and transfers.
[30:00.300 --> 30:06.520]  Because invariably, somebody will register in July for your event in April, and they'll decide in March that they have a new job and they can't come.
[30:06.710 --> 30:07.950]  They want their money back.
[30:10.140 --> 30:12.540]  We personally have a policy of no refunds.
[30:12.950 --> 30:17.500]  However, we'll allow you to resell that registration or ticket to anybody else you want.
[30:17.640 --> 30:23.860]  And we'll even make sure that it's registered under that new person's name and whatnot so that it could be known as theirs.
[30:24.850 --> 30:27.690]  It's a lot easier to reassign data than to send money back.
[30:28.110 --> 30:28.460]  Yeah.
[30:28.860 --> 30:31.340]  And also then you don't have to give that money up.
[30:31.450 --> 30:35.720]  Because if you're running an event, chances are if you get money in, it'll be spent right away.
[30:37.040 --> 30:41.600]  That's why a lot of events, including ours, do a registration system before the event.
[30:41.900 --> 30:44.720]  Because most of our costs actually happened before.
[30:44.880 --> 30:47.300]  It costs a lot of money to do all the things that we do to do Notacon.
[30:48.160 --> 30:52.840]  So, you know, if we can get that money in sooner, it means we can plan faster and save money.
[30:53.340 --> 30:53.740]  Yeah.
[30:55.640 --> 30:57.710]  There's four cornerstones of running an account.
[30:57.860 --> 30:59.260]  Four big things you have to think about.
[31:00.880 --> 31:08.960]  Registration, what it is you're going to do at your event, how to promote that event, and all of the logistics and security concerns to think about.
[31:08.960 --> 31:13.540]  So, those are four overarching areas that we're going to kind of touch upon in the next few slides.
[31:14.520 --> 31:18.930]  Just to kind of keep in mind when thinking about how to actually run the event.
[31:20.430 --> 31:23.740]  And one other mention that I should have put in your money is branding.
[31:26.670 --> 31:31.780]  What a lot of good hacker cons, especially HOPE and DEFCON have been good at doing is creating a brand.
[31:31.780 --> 31:41.220]  There are certain fonts and certain images and other things that you see in which you immediately think, oh, that's DEFCON, that's HOPE, that's Black Hat.
[31:42.430 --> 31:45.740]  Just like any other product, you want to try to define yourself by something.
[31:46.040 --> 31:49.080]  For us, it's actually been a couple of fonts that we've chosen.
[31:49.780 --> 31:59.080]  We have a logo that we use, and we now have kind of a credo of sort of creativity, community, and technology.
[31:59.580 --> 32:01.340]  Those three words kind of define us.
[32:01.340 --> 32:04.580]  And it helps us explain to people what it is we're trying to do.
[32:05.450 --> 32:09.760]  And likewise, it helps if you have a good graphic designer to kind of design a look for yourself.
[32:10.840 --> 32:19.190]  As you can see, we kind of have this little unfolding cube thing going on, which we brought in, in part because we also run a demo party called Block Party.
[32:19.740 --> 32:24.300]  Well, we don't run it, but Jason Scott and Radman from ACID do, in conjunction with Notacon.
[32:25.060 --> 32:28.040]  But you want to make sure that branding has a place in your event.
[32:29.280 --> 32:32.720]  Here's just a short checklist of items just to think about when you're running an event.
[32:32.860 --> 32:36.740]  A lot of these you might not have thought about at first, like AV needs.
[32:36.930 --> 32:38.260]  Like, do you need plasma screens?
[32:38.300 --> 32:39.240]  Do you need projectors?
[32:39.400 --> 32:40.690]  Do you need projection screens?
[32:42.020 --> 32:43.240]  Do you need audio mixers?
[32:43.340 --> 32:44.710]  How many XLR cables do you need?
[32:44.710 --> 32:46.400]  How many PA system speakers do you need?
[32:46.500 --> 32:47.620]  Do you need speaker stands?
[32:48.070 --> 32:49.500]  How are you going to pay for it all?
[32:50.720 --> 32:54.060]  For us, we actually have a very sweet deal where we have a...
[32:54.570 --> 32:56.000]  Well, we'll talk about it later then.
[32:56.480 --> 32:58.020]  But we have a pretty good deal with that.
[32:58.500 --> 33:00.340]  Likewise, content recording and archiving.
[33:00.450 --> 33:06.190]  For us, it's really important that what we do at the event is kept alive and doesn't end once the event's over.
[33:06.190 --> 33:11.080]  We've had the privilege of working with Ted who's been running around actually recording these events.
[33:11.280 --> 33:17.320]  And he's been a great resource to actually get us DVDs right after the event that we can rip in code and put online.
[33:17.640 --> 33:23.040]  So having that dealt with is, you know, a really big problem to solve.
[33:23.260 --> 33:27.300]  We tried doing it ourselves in year two and it was a complete disaster.
[33:27.300 --> 33:37.900]  Because the logistics of actually running multiple video recorders, keeping the data, making sure it doesn't get destroyed, making sure that everybody's in frame, can be a real pain in the ass real quick.
[33:41.480 --> 33:53.020]  Along with that, again, photographers and historians, we actually had about three or four different photographers running around the event with just a main purpose of taking pictures of everything that's going on.
[33:53.020 --> 33:57.300]  Now, at HackerCon, a lot of people might think, well, you know, that's a little bit weird.
[33:57.460 --> 34:07.540]  But at this day and age, in any HackerCon or anything resembling a HackerCon, you really have no expectation of privacy if you're in a public space with 1,500 people.
[34:10.180 --> 34:18.020]  Obviously, you know, we have a policy, though, obviously, if you go up to somebody and say, please don't take my picture or could you delete that, you know, there's a common courtesy of that.
[34:18.020 --> 34:24.220]  But we try to remind people they really don't have, they shouldn't have any expectation of not being photographed.
[34:24.400 --> 34:30.800]  Because for us, having a number of photographs helps us promote the event by showing people having a good time or showing rooms that are full.
[34:31.420 --> 34:33.180]  Next on the list, comms and radios.
[34:33.680 --> 34:36.360]  This is usually, some people think it's a really easy problem to solve.
[34:36.500 --> 34:41.040]  We'll just find a bunch of people with Yaesu VX5s, VX1s, and we'll just hack together a network.
[34:41.040 --> 34:54.440]  You can do that and it kind of works, but it really doesn't cost that much money to talk to a local communications partner and say, get a half a dozen or a dozen radius radios from Motorola for the weekend and deal with everything that way.
[34:55.120 --> 34:57.900]  And it tends to take people a little longer to find the frequency.
[34:57.960 --> 35:03.620]  Just if you don't really have a standard radio out, sometimes people won't even try for whatever reason.
[35:03.620 --> 35:09.780]  Yeah, and likewise, you know, don't get really crazy with trying to get triple-S crypto radios and things like that.
[35:09.940 --> 35:13.300]  Because honestly, 99% of the stuff you're going to say is going to be boring as hell anyway.
[35:13.540 --> 35:15.360]  And if it's really secure, you have a cell phone.
[35:15.520 --> 35:17.480]  Everybody has a cell phone, so talk with that.
[35:18.320 --> 35:19.760]  But it's one thing to think about.
[35:19.960 --> 35:20.700]  Networking and uplink.
[35:22.400 --> 35:27.140]  Networking is the one thing in a con that takes the most resources that gives the least benefit.
[35:27.340 --> 35:31.980]  But everybody expects it to be there and working because it's considered these days to be utility.
[35:32.740 --> 35:42.020]  At Notacon, we spend at least half a dozen people's efforts over the course of not only the weekend, but, you know, weeks before and after to make sure we have a network that works.
[35:43.000 --> 35:46.260]  Because invariably, some piece of hardware won't arrive or won't work.
[35:46.480 --> 35:50.940]  Or such and such said he'd bring his Cisco gear, but he can't come until Friday night.
[35:52.500 --> 35:55.600]  So you have to think about all the logistics of making that network happen.
[35:55.760 --> 35:58.380]  Thankfully for us, again, as we said, it's just kind of done.
[35:58.600 --> 35:59.920]  So we don't have to think about it.
[36:00.780 --> 36:01.720]  Programs and scheduling.
[36:01.720 --> 36:08.040]  Scheduling can be a real pain in the butt, especially with presenters from different areas and different time zones.
[36:09.360 --> 36:20.780]  But if you have somebody that's really diplomatic and can work out really well, and if your participants, pardon me, if your presenters understand that, you know, you're working under such and such constraints, a lot of the time they'll be understanding.
[36:21.120 --> 36:28.780]  You have to obviously try to make special accommodations for people you're either paying to be there or are otherwise quote-unquote big names.
[36:29.020 --> 36:35.580]  And the other benefit that we have is that we encourage presenters to attend the entire weekend and mingle with people.
[36:36.080 --> 36:38.320]  Because it just gives that much more benefit.
[36:38.320 --> 36:46.980]  If you're coming to see someone to speak and knowing that you'll be able to talk to them later because they will be there, it also gives us the flexibility to schedule people together better.
[36:48.860 --> 36:51.320]  And along with that too is the whole idea of the program.
[36:51.800 --> 36:57.500]  It's kind of one of those things about any con or any event that a lot of people don't give a lot of thought about.
[36:57.500 --> 37:08.860]  But putting together a good program that has accurate information, maps of the hotel, good bio information, brief explanations of all the different events that are going on are invaluable.
[37:11.020 --> 37:18.120]  I can't tell you how many cons or events I've been to that I had no idea what the hell was going on because the program was absolutely useless.
[37:19.340 --> 37:21.480]  And thankfully we've had a lot of compliments about ours.
[37:21.480 --> 37:27.580]  Even though we have some ads interspersion there from our sponsors, you know, we try to keep an eye on keeping things crisp, clean and quick.
[37:27.780 --> 37:30.780]  Just the information you need, nothing more, nothing less.
[37:31.280 --> 37:38.600]  But along with that we make sure we put in things like rules and regulations, where to go to eat, where to find the conference wiki and things like that.
[37:39.580 --> 37:41.300]  Badges and identification.
[37:41.980 --> 37:48.260]  Doing things like this, it's even... well this especially is a huge pain in the ass.
[37:48.380 --> 37:53.200]  I believe during one of the talks they said that these badges ran $7 per person.
[37:53.740 --> 37:56.580]  And we obviously don't spend near that much on ours.
[37:56.740 --> 37:59.880]  We don't go as far as electronics because we just don't have that kind of budget.
[38:00.540 --> 38:03.680]  But, you know, it's one of those things that you can do.
[38:03.800 --> 38:06.140]  And things like this are nice because they're unique.
[38:06.260 --> 38:10.580]  They're not going to be duplicated, which have, you know, has been tried at other events.
[38:11.340 --> 38:13.540]  There's a couple people here who have been on Notacon in.
[38:13.900 --> 38:15.320]  There's an example of one of our badges.
[38:15.520 --> 38:19.320]  Cost us about a buck to do on a standard lanyard.
[38:19.400 --> 38:22.280]  And there's a couple great places you can get it done really, really quick.
[38:23.240 --> 38:25.580]  Bandpasses.com being a really great resource for that.
[38:25.720 --> 38:26.660]  They do backstage passes.
[38:26.900 --> 38:30.480]  And they usually do next day work and ship at FedEx second day for free.
[38:31.600 --> 38:33.280]  So, you know, there's good places to do that.
[38:33.300 --> 38:35.340]  And one of the things we do is we keep the design under wraps.
[38:35.340 --> 38:41.660]  Usually only core staff, sometimes not even all of core staff, knows what the badge will look like until it actually arrives.
[38:41.860 --> 38:45.340]  It kind of minimizes the chance that people might try to duplicate your badge.
[38:45.340 --> 38:50.880]  I do know of some like sci-fi cons where they just use a printout in like one of those name tag holders.
[38:51.340 --> 38:53.480]  And I guess they're just all going on blind faith.
[38:53.820 --> 38:55.720]  Yeah, like that wouldn't be too hard to photocopy.
[38:57.380 --> 38:58.980]  But, you know, it's things to think about.
[38:59.140 --> 39:02.520]  And along with badges, sometimes I don't know what the badge design is until I'm done with it.
[39:02.520 --> 39:08.340]  And the other thing is, you know, if you're charging 10 bucks a person, then maybe you can go with a photocopied badge.
[39:08.580 --> 39:23.480]  If you're doing $100 a person, you want to give them something that will work as a souvenir and will work for security purposes because you don't want people just, you know, randomly wandering through if they haven't paid the money because then you're giving resources to the people and they're not paying for it.
[39:23.900 --> 39:28.020]  And one of the other important things to keep in mind is always having a place for people to write their name.
[39:28.340 --> 39:32.720]  Because at events like this, you know, people will come up to me and we'll have a conversation.
[39:32.880 --> 39:34.580]  Fifteen minutes later, I'll say, yeah.
[39:34.760 --> 39:35.880]  Or somebody will say, hey, Froggy.
[39:35.880 --> 39:37.120]  And they'll go, oh, shit, you're Froggy?
[39:37.500 --> 39:38.000]  I didn't know you.
[39:38.000 --> 39:41.640]  I just thought you were somebody that, you know, was halfway not sucky to talk to.
[39:42.160 --> 39:45.840]  So having a place to put your name is actually really important because then people can kind of recognize you.
[39:46.340 --> 39:49.260]  Especially at Hackercons where we all have pseudonyms or aliases.
[39:49.840 --> 39:52.740]  T-shirts go along with badges is another thing you have to consider.
[39:52.940 --> 39:56.680]  It's another one of those things that you're going to spend a lot of money on and get very, very little return from.
[39:57.240 --> 40:01.860]  You might think that if you're going to buy t-shirts, you can buy them at five bucks, sell them at ten, you're going to make plenty of money.
[40:02.320 --> 40:06.440]  Until you have half your t-shirts still left over in a brown box.
[40:07.160 --> 40:12.060]  We actually ended up losing money on every single t-shirt sale for the first four years.
[40:12.260 --> 40:15.440]  Yeah, we went for the bigger bulk because it's cheaper per t-shirt.
[40:15.480 --> 40:19.380]  But then when you only sell less than half of them, then you have to store those t-shirts.
[40:19.560 --> 40:24.120]  You have to write them off as inventory and you didn't recoup your costs on that box of t-shirts.
[40:24.120 --> 40:30.200]  And you end up with about 1,500 t-shirts in your bedroom at your house, which really sucks.
[40:31.300 --> 40:35.980]  One of the things that's really important about a con, especially organizing one, is keeping the high.
[40:36.120 --> 40:39.940]  And what we mean by that is keeping your staff motivated outside of the event.
[40:41.040 --> 40:46.360]  What essentially happens after the event, everybody spends a lot of effort, there's a lot of energy, there's a lot of emotion.
[40:47.260 --> 40:50.680]  Sunday hits, and then all of a sudden everybody's like, has this catharsis.
[40:50.860 --> 40:51.920]  And they say, you know what?
[40:52.500 --> 40:54.420]  I can't even think about this for a few days.
[40:54.440 --> 40:56.140]  Or I don't want to think about this for a month.
[40:56.840 --> 40:58.500]  We actually went with that model.
[40:58.660 --> 41:04.800]  And I went on a... I had a rule where I wouldn't talk about the next Notacon for, you know, until a month after it was over.
[41:05.200 --> 41:07.200]  And that really was a disservice to us.
[41:07.200 --> 41:18.200]  Because what I realized was there's a lot of things that you really have to decompress and talk about and debrief yourself over about how things went, what went wrong, what can you do better.
[41:19.320 --> 41:23.500]  And along with that, you want to try to keep regular communication with your core staff.
[41:23.640 --> 41:27.280]  We have an IRC channel, for example, that we use that core staff can use and talk about.
[41:27.540 --> 41:30.900]  We have another IRC channel for just everybody to kind of hang out.
[41:31.440 --> 41:34.700]  I try to make an effort to have informal get-togethers to meet about things.
[41:34.700 --> 41:38.180]  You know, at somebody's house, we'll just say, hey, come on over, crash the night.
[41:38.440 --> 41:43.420]  We'll buy shitload of booze and we'll just talk about what it is we need to do or just talk about whatever in general.
[41:44.080 --> 41:47.720]  And in particular, there's a lot of other meetups that you can have at other cons.
[41:47.800 --> 41:50.920]  For example, how many, of course, like people that are involved in Notacon.
[41:51.140 --> 41:52.220]  Shardy helped out.
[41:52.580 --> 41:54.720]  Yeah, there's like, yeah, there's like four or five people.
[41:54.860 --> 41:56.480]  And I, you know, hang out with these people this weekend.
[41:56.680 --> 42:01.140]  And it just kind of keeps, it keeps the relationship there instead of just being online.
[42:01.940 --> 42:02.560]  Yeah, go ahead.
[42:03.060 --> 42:11.860]  And one of the things we've decided to do, to keep momentum and to keep the history, is to share everything that is created as best we can.
[42:12.120 --> 42:14.760]  We keep records of things that happened during events and contests.
[42:15.240 --> 42:17.520]  We try to keep records of what sort of art was displayed.
[42:17.700 --> 42:20.680]  And we record everything that is presented.
[42:21.020 --> 42:26.460]  Now, we've started recording the off-hours stuff, but we don't generally share that for lots of reasons.
[42:26.460 --> 42:33.140]  But we make sure that we put everything online, creative commons, attribution share alike.
[42:33.500 --> 42:35.360]  You can download anything.
[42:35.360 --> 42:36.520]  You can remix it.
[42:36.580 --> 42:41.340]  In fact, we encourage you to remix the content into other things, because that's free advertising for us.
[42:41.340 --> 42:43.880]  All we ask is that you put the name Notacon on it somewhere.
[42:45.100 --> 42:49.140]  And likewise, it's important because there's a lot of people who maybe can't attend the event or don't have the resources.
[42:49.760 --> 42:52.180]  And it allows them to still stay involved.
[42:53.680 --> 42:55.720]  And finally, be your own cheerleader.
[42:56.640 --> 42:59.140]  Nobody knows the event better than you, so yeah, try to do it.
[42:59.420 --> 42:59.520]  Okay.
[42:59.840 --> 43:00.180]  Security.
[43:01.080 --> 43:09.480]  One of the things that happens at Notacon is trying to make sure that things stay level, that nobody gets into trouble, that nobody does anything they shouldn't do.
[43:09.660 --> 43:13.200]  And so a lot of times, you might run into people that are like super, super hard asses.
[43:13.320 --> 43:15.700]  If they see you do anything wrong, they're going to kick your ass out.
[43:16.560 --> 43:20.620]  And likewise, there's the other group that kind of ran Rubicon.
[43:20.620 --> 43:21.680]  They were kind of like, ah, f*ck it.
[43:21.840 --> 43:22.480]  Do whatever you want.
[43:23.720 --> 43:24.540]  Break the hotel.
[43:25.980 --> 43:27.780]  Which was, I think, what was the phrase?
[43:27.940 --> 43:28.520]  Yeah, it was...
[43:30.440 --> 43:31.540]  Yeah, there was a...
[43:31.540 --> 43:32.220]  It was something like...
[43:32.220 --> 43:35.860]  At one point, one of the organizers actually told people, the hotel's not respecting us.
[43:35.860 --> 43:36.540]  Go have fun.
[43:37.220 --> 43:37.460]  Yeah.
[43:38.400 --> 43:38.580]  And...
[43:38.580 --> 43:39.500]  F*ck shit up.
[43:39.680 --> 43:40.540]  F*ck shit up.
[43:40.540 --> 43:41.060]  Yeah, I didn't want to say that.
[43:41.140 --> 43:41.260]  Yeah.
[43:42.100 --> 43:42.420]  So...
[43:47.180 --> 43:49.140]  So, you know, there's kind of that continuum.
[43:49.700 --> 43:53.300]  But one of the things you need to do is, first of all, say what's cool and what's not cool.
[43:53.300 --> 43:58.440]  For example, in Cleveland, obviously here in New York, there's an indoor smoking ban.
[43:58.580 --> 44:01.400]  And we try to remind people that, you know, you really shouldn't smoke indoors.
[44:01.680 --> 44:03.780]  And we try to provide a place where they can do that.
[44:04.540 --> 44:10.940]  And one element of our contract is that any alcohol that is seen in the space must have been purchased from the hotel bar.
[44:11.100 --> 44:12.100]  So we lay it out.
[44:12.340 --> 44:20.880]  You know, if we see you with booze, it better have come from the bar because our names are on that contract and we're the ones who will get hurt if you don't follow those rules.
[44:20.880 --> 44:26.580]  Likewise, if you have something in a Nalgene bottle, I have no idea what it is and I'm certainly not going to taste it.
[44:27.460 --> 44:29.660]  But keep the rules relatively simple.
[44:29.880 --> 44:42.160]  Because if you want people to actually express themselves and then you stick a whole pile of stupid rules on them that have no, like, legal reason behind them, they're either going to fight back against those rules or they're never coming back.
[44:44.460 --> 44:50.200]  And for us, you know, again, we have kind of a philosophy of, you know, we will be very, very lenient.
[44:50.320 --> 44:52.560]  You know, we'll give you every opportunity to be yourself.
[44:52.940 --> 44:57.500]  Likewise, everybody knows that if you f*ck around with me, I will kick your ass out after having taken your money.
[44:57.720 --> 44:58.580]  That's the way it is.
[44:58.660 --> 45:01.020]  If you want to be an asshole, that's great.
[45:01.280 --> 45:04.560]  Be an asshole out in the parking lot where you can get, you know, picked up by the cops.
[45:05.580 --> 45:11.840]  And thankfully, our community has really bought into this because they know that they can be safer and not have to worry about their shit getting stolen.
[45:11.840 --> 45:14.200]  Or have to worry about people doing stupid stuff.
[45:14.940 --> 45:16.600]  And they kind of help us police.
[45:16.900 --> 45:21.440]  And they police each other by saying, you know, somebody, for example, will be putting a sticker on the bathroom mirror.
[45:21.640 --> 45:23.280]  And they'll be going, you know, hey, what are you doing?
[45:23.480 --> 45:25.080]  You know, you're f*cking up our space.
[45:25.260 --> 45:26.320]  Why do you need to do this?
[45:26.420 --> 45:27.500]  Let's do something else.
[45:27.660 --> 45:31.420]  And that's actually one of the benefits of a slightly higher registration cost.
[45:31.560 --> 45:39.800]  If you're spending the money to be there and you're putting yourself that much financially into it, you're less likely to cause a lot of trouble for everybody else.
[45:39.800 --> 45:45.520]  We actually last year had someone lose a wallet and we had it returned to them before they even knew it was missing.
[45:45.800 --> 45:50.080]  Because the community cared about making sure that something didn't go bad.
[45:50.240 --> 45:53.720]  And it was actually a wallet from a very well-known person.
[45:54.020 --> 45:54.500]  Organizer.
[45:54.840 --> 45:55.820]  Organizer of HOPE.
[45:56.980 --> 45:58.600]  Lost his wallet and had it returned.
[45:59.240 --> 46:00.280]  Like five minutes.
[46:00.500 --> 46:07.760]  And the other thing is when I say here us versus them, I make sure that the staff members follow the same rules that the attendees do.
[46:07.760 --> 46:09.000]  Nobody is exempt.
[46:09.760 --> 46:15.760]  If I see a staff member with alcohol drinking in the knock, which they tend to do, I'll tell them, get it out of here.
[46:15.980 --> 46:18.080]  You know, you have to set an example for everybody.
[46:18.440 --> 46:23.960]  And even though we have authority, we don't need to be, you know, flaunting that authority in everybody's face.
[46:24.120 --> 46:27.920]  We have to... whenever we exercise authority, we want to do it in a very...
[46:29.060 --> 46:33.940]  Well, in a very measured manner to make sure that we do as much, you know, just as much as we need to do.
[46:34.060 --> 46:34.780]  Nothing more, nothing less.
[46:35.860 --> 46:36.540]  Okay, great.
[46:36.620 --> 46:38.700]  A list of things to do and not do.
[46:38.880 --> 46:40.100]  And we're running short on time.
[46:40.720 --> 46:41.960]  Write everything down, always.
[46:42.160 --> 46:44.280]  If you don't write it down, it's going to get lost and forgotten.
[46:44.420 --> 46:45.860]  Just write everything down.
[46:46.240 --> 46:47.480]  Be honest and forthright.
[46:47.600 --> 46:53.700]  Do not lie to anybody, especially your venue, a sponsor, a presenter, even your attendees.
[46:53.700 --> 46:56.900]  If you make an error, admit to it real quick.
[46:57.040 --> 47:03.740]  This is all common sense stuff, but I've seen way too many events just kind of bandy about that kind of thing and really get into trouble.
[47:04.060 --> 47:10.600]  Be professional always, especially when you're dealing with other people that aren't hackers, because they usually don't understand what it is you're trying to do.
[47:11.420 --> 47:15.400]  And, you know, they have a very different perception of how to do business.
[47:16.420 --> 47:17.120]  Assume nothing.
[47:18.380 --> 47:20.100]  Clarify and define almost everything.
[47:20.260 --> 47:22.340]  And what I mean by this is what it says.
[47:23.100 --> 47:27.300]  Don't assume that if somebody says, oh, I think I can do this, that they're going to get it done.
[47:27.680 --> 47:28.560]  Follow up with things.
[47:28.700 --> 47:29.360]  Make sure it happens.
[47:29.500 --> 47:30.520]  Follow up with your sponsors.
[47:30.880 --> 47:32.240]  Follow up with your AV.
[47:32.840 --> 47:37.860]  Follow up with everybody to make sure that they know what's going on and what their, you know, what your expectations are.
[47:38.980 --> 47:39.900]  Value your history.
[47:40.940 --> 47:47.260]  You know, don't forget what happened in the past and make sure that you respect it and try to, you know, keep it as part of the living culture.
[47:47.260 --> 47:50.160]  And be ready to sell your event to anyone at any time.
[47:50.500 --> 47:55.160]  It's really important, especially for us here at HOPE, because somebody will say, hey, what's Notacon?
[47:55.340 --> 48:02.580]  And I have to kind of go into a real two-minute speech about what the event is, how they might have a good time being there, and how they can get involved.
[48:02.580 --> 48:04.780]  And you can never, ever promote too much.
[48:05.940 --> 48:06.880]  More things to do.
[48:07.060 --> 48:13.600]  Be flexible, because if you can't go with the flow, you know, you're going to have a real hard problem.
[48:13.720 --> 48:21.060]  There was a demo party that happened in Utah, run by an organizer who had to have it his way or no way at all.
[48:21.560 --> 48:25.480]  The party really doesn't exist anymore, because everybody said, hey, screw this.
[48:25.480 --> 48:31.580]  You know, if you won't accept my thoughts, or at least be a little bit flexible, I can do something else elsewhere.
[48:32.180 --> 48:36.680]  Keep receipts for everything, especially if, obviously, if it's business related, we did that.
[48:36.920 --> 48:38.700]  Keep it simple, unlike these slides.
[48:39.500 --> 48:40.560]  Utilize and motivate your community.
[48:42.400 --> 48:44.980]  Oh, get involved with other conferences.
[48:45.220 --> 48:47.180]  We're going to be talking about this one in two minutes.
[48:47.380 --> 48:49.600]  And finally, steal good ideas and share yours.
[48:49.600 --> 48:56.610]  A lot of the art you see here at HOPE, I would hope to think, is actually somewhat inspired by Notacon.
[48:57.420 --> 48:59.080]  Because we had the privilege of having Bernie S. and Emmanuel come to Notacon last year.
[49:01.540 --> 49:03.240]  And they said, you know, this is a really great event.
[49:03.380 --> 49:07.440]  You really captured the spirit of what the hacking movement is about.
[49:07.760 --> 49:11.120]  And this year we come, and we see lots of art and interactive exhibits.
[49:11.220 --> 49:13.660]  And I said, you know what, I'm glad they stole this idea.
[49:13.840 --> 49:15.480]  And I'll steal it back and do it even better.
[49:15.660 --> 49:17.100]  Because that's the way we do things.
[49:17.100 --> 49:24.740]  And the reason that Google PageRank is on there is that we actually underestimated how important it was to be really high ranked on Google.
[49:24.960 --> 49:29.360]  But we kept our site stable long enough that it just magically appeared.
[49:29.560 --> 49:34.940]  And we have an audio visual sponsor who gives us everything we need and everything we ask for.
[49:34.940 --> 49:39.500]  Simply because we had a really high rank and we put their name in the footer of every page.
[49:39.800 --> 49:45.700]  That is all it took to get us plasma TVs, projectors, computers, anything we ask.
[49:45.700 --> 49:47.220]  If they have it, they give it.
[49:47.440 --> 49:51.020]  And last year I think they actually bought new equipment just because we requested it.
[49:51.140 --> 49:53.860]  And they also gave us like gift cards as prizes and stuff.
[49:54.180 --> 49:55.320]  Okay, things not to do.
[49:55.720 --> 49:57.420]  Again, kind of going along with what we said before.
[49:57.600 --> 49:59.180]  Don't ever assume anything on blind faith.
[49:59.940 --> 50:01.820]  The second one is really difficult.
[50:02.100 --> 50:05.240]  A lot of the people you're going to be working with are also going to be your friends.
[50:05.240 --> 50:10.620]  But you have to recognize and have them recognize as well that what you're doing is essentially a business.
[50:10.880 --> 50:12.140]  You know, it's not personal.
[50:12.320 --> 50:15.360]  We're here to get this event and these things off the ground and happening.
[50:15.640 --> 50:17.160]  So, you know, don't take it personally.
[50:18.040 --> 50:18.760]  Ignore backups.
[50:18.880 --> 50:19.280]  Do backups.
[50:19.280 --> 50:21.440]  I didn't and I lost our entire site last year.
[50:21.540 --> 50:21.800]  Oops.
[50:24.100 --> 50:30.400]  And if you are leading, try not to demonstrate any, you know, any confidence problems or questioning your own judgment.
[50:30.400 --> 50:33.600]  You have to be a good leader if you're going to make other people believe that you can do what you're doing.
[50:34.420 --> 50:34.980]  Never procrastinate.
[50:35.080 --> 50:36.180]  That seems to be one of our problems.
[50:36.320 --> 50:38.720]  We'll just say, oh, well, we'll do this next week or next month.
[50:39.500 --> 50:41.780]  If you're going to do it next week, you're never going to do it.
[50:41.960 --> 50:42.680]  So, set a time.
[50:42.820 --> 50:43.320]  Set a deadline.
[50:43.760 --> 50:45.100]  Set somebody to do it and do it.
[50:45.720 --> 50:48.480]  Along with that, you know, never use those phrases and take anyone's...
[50:49.100 --> 50:50.220]  I don't know what the f*ck that was.
[50:50.580 --> 50:50.860]  All right.
[50:53.180 --> 50:53.720]  Real quick.
[50:54.560 --> 50:57.820]  You know, these are just a few ideas on how to promote the event.
[50:57.820 --> 51:01.000]  The one I'm going to talk about a little bit is the rule of three.
[51:01.400 --> 51:07.820]  This is an idea I came up with after kind of understanding how people came to find out about Notacon.
[51:07.960 --> 51:13.780]  One of the things that I'd ask attendees is, how did you, you know, how did you decide to attend Notacon?
[51:14.000 --> 51:16.800]  And they would say, well, I saw a flyer to Cannes.
[51:17.140 --> 51:19.160]  And then I went to your website.
[51:19.400 --> 51:21.040]  And then I spoke to my friend who went.
[51:21.240 --> 51:23.140]  And I thought, hey, that would be a good thing to know.
[51:23.920 --> 51:37.860]  And what I realized is that through all the various avenues we have of promoting Notacon, if somebody was to hear about the event three different times in different ways, they more than likely would either decide to attend or not attend.
[51:38.060 --> 51:39.940]  They would kind of make up their mind based on that.
[51:40.320 --> 51:43.660]  Just by putting a flyer in front of somebody's face, they're not going to do it.
[51:43.800 --> 51:45.320]  You have to do more than that.
[51:45.320 --> 51:51.860]  You have to give them additional reasons and reminders of what the event is and what's going on.
[51:53.040 --> 51:54.760]  So that's something important to keep up.
[51:55.160 --> 51:57.260]  A few quickie tales from the trenches.
[51:59.140 --> 52:01.420]  Fog machines, just say no, trust me on that one.
[52:01.560 --> 52:03.280]  If anybody wants to bring in a fog machine, no.
[52:03.520 --> 52:05.820]  No fog machines, never, I mean, no.
[52:06.020 --> 52:06.960]  Just throw them outside.
[52:07.320 --> 52:09.340]  Fire alarms suck, all right?
[52:09.600 --> 52:11.840]  Five fire alarms in one night, suck.
[52:12.980 --> 52:14.560]  Tree climbing interlopers.
[52:15.320 --> 52:17.400]  Notacon 3, 2?
[52:17.620 --> 52:17.940]  2.
[52:18.140 --> 52:26.160]  Notacon 2, we decided to partner with a local underground music collaborative that did a lot of great underground electronic music.
[52:26.820 --> 52:31.920]  They happened to book acts that were such a big deal.
[52:32.020 --> 52:41.480]  We had people driving in from Pittsburgh that weren't necessarily part of Notacon, just to attend this little mini rave that we were throwing on Saturday night of our event.
[52:42.660 --> 52:47.880]  We had 500 people in addition to the 250 or 300 that were already there for Notacon.
[52:48.120 --> 52:50.080]  Who didn't pay a cent to be there.
[52:50.180 --> 52:51.580]  Who didn't pay a single cent to be there.
[52:51.700 --> 52:59.220]  And we actually ended up with people high on acid and E and God knows what else, climbing trees and jumping out from them.
[53:00.040 --> 53:06.600]  So, you know, you want to try to... that's an example of security of trying to be firm, but at least nice about it.
[53:08.300 --> 53:09.380]  Elevators, elevators suck.
[53:09.500 --> 53:10.940]  They will not work no matter where you're at.
[53:11.020 --> 53:11.820]  Don't expect them to.
[53:12.180 --> 53:13.420]  People will f*ck them up.
[53:13.820 --> 53:20.000]  Having a good staff that knows to check the elevators and check them off, and just like your blood sugar, will be a very good thing.
[53:20.000 --> 53:23.320]  And sometimes people will mess with the elevators.
[53:23.700 --> 53:26.420]  Admittedly, people like to sticker elevators for whatever reason.
[53:26.880 --> 53:32.220]  What's more interesting, and we actually had happen one year, is people added extra buttons to the elevator.
[53:32.420 --> 53:34.420]  I kind of encourage that sort of hacking.
[53:35.400 --> 53:36.360]  Extra buttons are always good.
[53:36.560 --> 53:37.000]  Stickers.
[53:37.320 --> 53:38.640]  You want to buy lots of stickers.
[53:38.640 --> 53:39.540]  They're super cheap.
[53:39.740 --> 53:41.820]  However, don't give them out at your event.
[53:41.820 --> 53:43.860]  Send them out either beforehand or after.
[53:44.460 --> 53:45.180]  Before or after.
[53:45.400 --> 53:51.520]  Because the worst thing that could happen is that somebody goes in the parking garage and plasters somebody's car with 500 of your stickers.
[53:51.640 --> 53:53.040]  It kind of sends the wrong message.
[53:53.220 --> 53:55.040]  Yeah, if you're going to have stickers around, sell them.
[53:55.160 --> 53:58.960]  Because any sort of value means they're less likely to just put them everywhere.
[53:59.260 --> 54:00.660]  Freebie stickers need to be hidden.
[54:01.500 --> 54:01.900]  Alright.
[54:02.860 --> 54:03.720]  Are we out of time?
[54:04.660 --> 54:05.060]  Almost.
[54:05.180 --> 54:05.600]  I'm screwed.
[54:05.720 --> 54:06.100]  I'm going on.
[54:06.400 --> 54:07.020]  30 seconds.
[54:07.180 --> 54:07.500]  Alright, cool.
[54:07.780 --> 54:08.340]  Tequila bottle.
[54:08.700 --> 54:10.060]  Ah, the tequila bottle.
[54:10.220 --> 54:10.660]  Shardy here.
[54:11.280 --> 54:11.860]  Came in.
[54:11.960 --> 54:13.060]  I think it was not a con one or two.
[54:13.420 --> 54:15.040]  It was one of the early renowned non-cons.
[54:15.300 --> 54:16.820]  And he comes into his talk room.
[54:17.680 --> 54:20.020]  About to give his presentation with a full bottle of tequila.
[54:20.220 --> 54:24.740]  Knowing full well that the rules of the concept do not bring outside alcohol in.
[54:24.960 --> 54:29.720]  So I go up to him in front of the room going, Shardy, what the f*ck are you doing with this bottle of tequila?
[54:30.060 --> 54:31.360]  And he just smiles at me.
[54:31.480 --> 54:33.120]  Pulls out a receipt from a hotel bar.
[54:33.320 --> 54:35.620]  Said they tried to sell it to me shot by shot.
[54:35.620 --> 54:38.820]  Until the bartender manager finally said, I just sell it to him at cost.
[54:39.060 --> 54:42.380]  So, you know, some people will follow the rules and do it the right way.
[54:42.900 --> 54:44.160]  Including getting cheap booze.
[54:45.220 --> 54:48.580]  And the reason that I don't do art is on there.
[54:49.100 --> 54:51.840]  We were trying to sell the event at Ohio Linux Fest.
[54:52.340 --> 54:54.820]  And this guy comes up and picks up a flyer.
[54:54.900 --> 54:57.140]  And we're like, yes, we're an art and technology conference.
[54:57.320 --> 54:58.940]  And he goes, I don't do art.
[54:59.060 --> 55:01.040]  And slams the flyer back down in front of us.
[55:01.040 --> 55:03.880]  Realize that sometimes people won't get it right away.
[55:04.100 --> 55:06.800]  And maybe they're not your target audience and let them go.
[55:07.700 --> 55:08.140]  All right.
[55:08.440 --> 55:09.260]  Just two final things.
[55:10.160 --> 55:11.540]  I started this today.
[55:12.040 --> 55:13.400]  So there's not much there.
[55:17.240 --> 55:18.880]  Thankfully, I have a good VPN connection.
[55:18.880 --> 55:21.460]  So I didn't have to do all this, you know, over the regular network.
[55:21.920 --> 55:23.580]  But I'm starting up ConOrg.
[55:23.680 --> 55:30.140]  And what ConOrg.org is, is a place where hopefully con organizers can meet, share details, share resources and information.
[55:30.480 --> 55:34.520]  Because one of the things I've realized is that a lot of us are kind of our own little islands in the sea.
[55:34.740 --> 55:38.860]  And there's a lot of things we can do and a lot of things that we can share that would make a lot of sense.
[55:39.900 --> 55:41.360]  So I'm going to be starting that resource.
[55:41.580 --> 55:44.780]  And finally, Not A Con is going to be running from 16th to the 19th in Cleveland, Ohio.
[55:44.980 --> 55:46.120]  If you need more information, contact me.
[55:46.200 --> 55:46.460]  Thank you.
[55:55.710 --> 55:55.990]  Yeah.
[55:56.390 --> 55:57.590]  We'll be outside taking questions.
[55:57.590 --> 55:59.310]  If you have any, you know where to find us.
[55:59.390 --> 56:00.650]  We might be going out for a smoke in a bit.
[56:02.010 --> 56:02.650]  Smoking pancake.
[56:07.060 --> 56:08.660]  We had too much duplication there.
[56:08.940 --> 56:09.180]  Yeah.
[56:10.500 --> 56:11.360]  Should have written it.
[56:11.360 --> 56:13.320]  Should have written it right before so we didn't have questions.
[56:13.680 --> 56:16.500]  Yeah, we should have just gone slideless and just...
[56:16.500 --> 56:18.240]  No, we shouldn't have gone slideless.
[56:18.380 --> 56:19.200]  We read the slides.
[56:29.820 --> 56:30.500]  Hey there.
[56:30.500 --> 56:30.660]  We're there.