Budgeting

You need a budget. Budgets are your friend. Without a budget, you’re flying blind, and you may crash into a big fat cash deficit when all is said and done. Remember, the con may only take in like ten grand- or less. Don’t assume you have more to work with than that. And your attendees will likely remember the fun events and little details of the con more than the grand gestures.

The simple breakdown of it falls something like this:

Things you spend money on: Hotel Event Rooms, Banquet, Guests, Advertising, Production/Acquiration cost for any Merchandise/Fundraising/Auction items you may be offering, and all your "Incidentals" (which covers everything from the food in the consuite, to the production of con booklets and badges, to banking fees, to the renting of Audio and Visual equiptment if needed for your con.)

Things you (hopefully) make money from: Registration Fees, Banquet tickets, Space sold in the Dealer's Room, Space sold in the Art Room (as well as the percentage the con takes off of the sold works of art), Selling of Advertising Space in the con booklet if you have one, Merchandise (t-shirts, anthologies, calenders, pins, etc.) and the Con Auction.

If you are looking to start your own convention in another fandom, how many people have already said they would definitely come? Your actual number is going to be different from that, since a chunk of those people won't show, and you'll get a handful of walk-ins you've never even heard of. You don't count your chickens before they hatch, and you don't count your attendees until they have paid their registration fee. Registration fees need to clearly be labeled as non-refundable on the registration form.

Now, this covers the cost of most of everything you *might* need. Before you run out and pay for *anything*, make sure that your con actually needs (or specifically wants) the item, and check to see if one of the previous cons already purchased any of said items and whether or not they are available for your con's use.

Hotel Meeting Rooms

...So, now that you have a rough idea of what events you'll have going on and how much room you'll need for it, you get to figure out how much that space is going to cost you. (And then possibly you'll go back and amend your schedule and the number of rooms you'll be using.)

Assumed Costs:

Suite for the con - @ $150 - $180 a day

Smaller Rooms - @ $200 - $300 a day

Medium/Large Rooms - @ $350 - $500 a day

Your hotels, of course, will provide you with their specific costs; adjust your budget accordingly.

Dealer's Room Fees:

The actual cost is up to you- you can check out what other conventions charge their Dealers, but remember, the Gathering doesn't typically have more than 200 attendees at most, so you shouldn't expect to be able to charge fees that cons who get 2,000 attendees or more do. If your Dealers don't think that they'll be able to turn a profit on top of what they have to pay for space (plus possibly travel and rooming and shipping fees), they won't sign up. Again, there is a balance you have to strike - How much money you need to support your con versus how badly you want vendors of a certain type.

They typically come with two "dealer's registrations" gratis, since obviously they need to be allowed in the con in order to watch their booth, and your dealers are more interested in watching their table and making a profit to spend the time attending convention activities.

These fees, however, should not be veiwed as an attendence fee plus table; you aren't selling someone a table for $50 in addition to their attendance. The tables space costs the full amount- you're going to need it to support your con. Special occasions may be made at your discretion; someone who pre-registered to attend the con and then decided they wanted Dealer's space; some level of special guest who may double as a seller.

Things you want in the Dealer's Room: 1 stapler, staples, 1 thing of carbon-paper receipt forms for both the Staff Table and the Art room if they are combined..

Art Room Fees:

The Gathering now typically charges $10 per every 4' x 4' upright panel space, and the same for half an 8' table space. On top of that, the con takes 15% off the top of every work sold.

However, often the cost of purchasing pegboard and the wood needed to frame it has exceeded the amount charged to the presenting artists. Furthermore, due to its weight and rigidity, pegboard has never been passed from one con to the next for use as art panels, resulting in each con having to pay the cost over and over again.

The usual cost of making or renting panels varies. The costs of award ribbons for the show are included with the "Incidentals" along with badge i.d. ribbons.

Banquet:

No matter how good the food is, no matter how good the deal is, and no matter how many special guests there are, half the con will skip the banquet. Keep this in mind when estimating the number of heads you plan to sell tickets to. This is the number you're going to need to tell the kitchens to prepare for, and for the hotel to charge you for. Also keep in mind that there are people with kosher or vegetarian needs in the fandom. Don’t forget them. Ask, several times over the course of the year, for people with special needs to let you know *in advance* about things like that. Be sure they are aware that there are alternatives, *if* they *ask*.

Banquets are not a requirement at a con by any means, although they became something of a tradition for the Gathering.

Some of the time your hotel will give you a break on the cost of the room for that entire day if you are having a banquet catered by them, and the cost break might be worth it. The staff needs to be able to tell the hotel how many heads they expect to have, and not vice-versa; if the hotel is demanding a minimum head count of 100 in order to hold the event, you may want to rethink having it, or at least, rethink letting the hotel cater it. You can look at banquet as a money-making venture, or a chance for the bulk of your attendees to come enjoy themselves, because if you jackup the cost to where you're really turning a profit, most of the attendees won't be able to afford it.

Guests and their costs:
It is considered bad form to speak of your guest’s Per Diem (their daily living expenses that the con must cover, which isn't quite the same as an appearance fee, which they may also have) outside of your staff discussion list, and to discuss any of the costs with the guests themselves. Your Guest Coordinator will inform you of what you need to know, and handle the other side of it. But the Big Names (tm) -like anyone who has ever been an actor on Star Trek- will run you to scary fees. Don’t plan on getting Frakes or Sirtis unless you’ve got, like, 15 grand rolling around in your petty cash drawer.

As for other guest requirements: You will have to pay for their flight to and from the con. You will have to pay for their hotel room for their stay, and some will arrive a day before and sometimes leave a day later than the con dates itself. You will have to pay for their ground transportation from their homes to the airport, and from the airport to the hotel, and back again. (Unless you have your con in LA, 20 minutes from where many of your guests live and work.) Your Guest Coordinator may or may not be in charge of all or any of these arrangements, but obviously the costs come out of the con funds, not his/her own pocketbook.

You are not, however, required to pay for the travel expenses of any family members they choose to bring with them. As for free t-shirts/calendars for said family members, it is up to your discretion. If they offer to pay for these, take them up on the offer.

Now, in reverse order:

Ground Transportation - about $300 a guest in LA, round trip. That is $150 car service from their house to the airport in LA as they head to the con, and $150 from the LA airport back to their house at the end of the con. And then there is the con-side ground fees from the airport to the hotel, unless you arrange to pick up the guests yourself.

No, you cannot avoid this fee, or find a cheaper service. No, one car can't pick up two guest in one run to save on cost. I asked. You can ask again, if you like. Who knows, maybe things will be different for your con.

Hotel Rooms - You have your hotel, and hopefully a slight decrease in cost under your convention room block rate. So, if your con is running F-Sun, and you are bringing your guests in friday afternoon and having them go home Sunday afternoon, that is two nights worth of hotel costs. If you bring them in a day earlier, and/or send them home a day later, well, those are each extra nights of hotel room costs. Take out a calculator (or click your calculator function) and do the math. Don't forget to add in the room tax.

Flights - go ahead, pull up Expedia.com and Travelocity.com and Southwest.com, and check the average costs of flights from your intended locale from LAX, round trip. (oh, and some of your guest may want to fly out of Burbank, not LAX.) Put the date off by about 5 or 6 months, since if you leave it as today's date the prices will be higher.

Add up the subtotal from each of the above three sections, and that is the *base* of what you will have to pay, per Professional guest, since it doesn't include guest fees or per diems. Oh, and that is if they don't want first class on the plane, or a suite for their room.

Advertising:

Selling advertisement space in your con booklet...first, when you commit to selling space in your con's booklet, you are commiting to actually doing a booklet for your convention. Which- as it states below in the "incidentals" section- is goign to be more than you realize; probably most of the reasons previous Gatherings haven't had booklets is because they are so very incidental that the staff thinks they can leave them until the last minute- and then the last minute comes, they discover how much effort and money it will take to get them done, and settle for just printing out the schedule and maybe an extra sheet with a staff greeting. Most attendees won't raise a hue and cry if a con booklet is not part of their con packet, but it is a nice memento, a good place to centralize information about your con and special guests for your attendees, and if you are going to do them anyway you may as well try to cover the cost of produce them by selling some ad space.

A note on both size and material used in printing- take a moment before you commit yourself to the idea you have in your head right now of how your con booklet will look- especially if it is appearing as a 8.5" x 11", with full-color, high-gloss pages.

For starters, if you want to do that size con booklet and make it look professional, you'll need to print out on 17" x 11" sheets, folded in half and stapled in the center. (As opposed to printing on 8.5" wide and stapling through the margin...which you can do, but it won't look quite as nice.)

Printing on this size of paper alone brings the first (possible) complication- most home printers can't handle more than 8.5" x 11", most of them are limited to 8.5" x 14" at the most. They physically cannot print *wider* than 8.5"...which means, you probably can't print 11" x 17" yourself.

This doesn't hardly prevent you from printing full-size con booklets...it just means that unless you do have access to a printer that can handle the full paper size, you may need to have it done by a printing company. The plus side to this is, having your con booklets no matter their size done professionally means *you* don't physically have to do it, saving you a fair amount of time and energy, as well as the cost of buying the paper and extra ink cartridges - not to mention a stapler that can handle 8.5" without squinching the paper.

Of course, this does mean you otherwise have to pay for someone else's time, energy, and the cost of supplies at your printing company of choice; in this case as anywhere else it is *always* cheaper to do things yourself. You can find places cheaper than Kinkos, but probably not *much* cheaper, and it does stand as a good example because they *are* all over the country, 24-hour, and fairly reliable.

Take the time to skip down to the "con booklet" section and ponder its contents.

Now, assuming you've decided the costs are worth it to print full-sized books, and you want to solicit advertisements for it, here is a *suggested* price list for ad sizes based off what the charges were in 2005 for b/w advertisements:

• $40.00 for the inside cover (10.5” x 7.5”) (remember, you can only sell this one once if you choose to make it available at all)



• $30.00 for a full page (10.5” x 7.5”) (most of the ads bought in the 2005 booklet were of this type)



• $20.00 for a half page (5” x 7.5”) (we sold none of these)



• $10.00 for a quarter page (5” x 3.5”) (sold a couple of these in 2005, all of the ones for 2004 were of this type- and possibly the only size available during that year.)



• $5.00 for a business card size (2” x 3.5”)



• $2.00 “banner-sized” (1” x 6”) (didn't sell any of these either...we didn't really push them though. I think they could have done better if we'd made it more clear we were persuing personal webpages for this.)

...Now, costs to buy into *other* conventions booklets may be much higher; it varies per con, and the larger cons charge more because their advertisements are seen by more people. This is where trying for advertising exchanges with other conventions can come in handy; some may not care about the cost difference between the space you are selling and the space they are selling. At the very least, you may be able to work out a trade plus a small additional fee and pay $10 for what is usually a $100 advertising slot.

Advertising falls into different types:

* Traditional Media ads - advertising in other conventions booklets (or trades with them), Sending Fliers to Conventions and Comic Book Stores, advertising in Magazines, Newspapers and Zines.

* Online ads - Listing the con on Convention Listing Websites, advertising where allowed in forums, paying for or trading banners on Websites like Webcomics and other Conventions, word-of-mouth through Livejournal and DevArt, Ebay.

* Podcasts and Videos posted online, via YouTube and suchlike.

Timing of your ads - "Whenever we did a push. Mostly fall and winter. Then we did one in Spring. May and June. Want to do web advertising? Look at about 130 bucks a month. Con programs, look for cons that do swaps. You can't afford to pay for what you can get for free. There are times you want ot make a splash. And times you just want people to know you exist. One thing I've noticed from watching the HTTP referer is that mentions in webpages - old journals and such can be huge for getting hits."

Merchandise:

For all merchandise, you will want a minimum number to fill your pre-orders, cover any freebies you owe , and a *small* amount to sell at the con. The Gathering has had burdens of left-over t-shirts and calendars in the past. Remember, you can take in orders to mail-out shirts during the con, and send them later. Even with the added postal fee, this will still bring profit to the con.

Have your merchandise made up a month in advance of the convention, if that is possible. This may include figuring out how many extra items of each to include for sale on-site.

You will need to make arrangements for the merchandise to be shipped to your locale (the house of someone within driving distance of your con, that is) in time for prepping your con packets. You will want to put together these packets (including badge, schedule, pre-ordered merchandise like t-shirts and calendars, etc.) in advance if you can as well. Two days in advance, if possible. You will thank yourself for the time concession when you are not spending your last few minutes before registration opens still stuffing envelopes, wishing you’d had time to eat breakfast.

T-shirts:

Since you are selling an in-potentia shirt before having to have it made, your t-shirt production costs should be provided by the pre-sells.

Traditionally, an open contest is held to whoever can come up with the best design using the con’s mascot. The winner receives a free shirt. Your special guests will usually receive a free shirt. Your staff probably ought to pay for their shirts, although they likely won't expect to. A minor point, but this should be cleared up early on.

CONSTANTLY REMIND PEOPLE OF THIS CONTEST. The fandom has many good artists, who are not so much lazy as easily distracted by work, life, and other projects. They will procrastinate. Do not let them forget the deadline.

Shirts usually sell for $20 for a pre-order; $25 at the con. They may cost you between $6 and $12 dollars to make, per shirt, depending on the type and quality. There is a long-lasting battle between silkscreen vs. iron-on decals. Silkscreen has a limited color pallet, and iron-on does not; iron-ons tend to peel off of the shirt after repeated washings, so if you actually indeed for your shirts to be worn, you may want to keep that in mind. Some fans don't really care about low quality shirts as long as they don't feel overcharged for them, and there are others- I've met them- who flat-out refuse to buy iron-on shirts, no matter how lovely you can make them.

Again, pre-sells provide your production cost, and the art is typically provided by the fandom itself, through contests and such. Typically, you will want thirteen images total, one for each month plus a cover. See above statement about the contest reminders; you want a calendar that has art in it that people will be willing to pay for. Usually this art will take a fair amount of time to put together- on the other hand, it has become a proven fact that at least 80% of all artists work best under some sort of pressure... If you have friends who are good artists, don’t be afraid to pester them mercilessly about submitting. If you get several amazing images from one artist, don’t be afraid to use more than one- like the t-shirt, people who’s submissions are chosen for the calendar traditionally get a free one. You would not have a calendar to sell at all without your artists. But calendars are given out per winning artist, not winning entry. Two images from one artist is one less free calendar you have to give away...but be reasonable. The art should be the focus here, and if your 13 top pieces are all from different artists, just be thankful you have that many talented people submitting. On the same note, you typically don’t want half a calendar all in one person’s style.

Calendars usually sell for $25 pre-ordered, and $30 on-site at the con. You can also take in orders during the convention to be shipped post-con. It will still bring in profit- but in this case I’d suggest adding in a Shipping and Handling fee to the Calendar cost. Make clear why this cost bump exists to the buyers.

Several of the previous cons have had the calendars made at Kinko’s- which has a “Photo-A-Month Deluxe Calendar: 11" x 8 ½" flip calendar features 13 of your personal photos” option that costs between $18 to $20 to make per calendar, depending on the numbers you order- But there are cheaper printing alternative available. I highly recommend checking out both local and online sites to find the best (cheapest and most reliable) bargain. MyCalendarMaker.Com is a good place to start; they send samples of their calendar materials out on request, and were easy to work with.

Having a couple test calendars made up early on to ensure that you like the results wouldn’t hurt either, regardless of what company you go with.

Anthologies :

The 2005 Anthology cost about 5.75 per copy to have printed through http://bookmobile.com/

Other:

These are more items that will (provided you gauge the numbers of people willing to buy them and arrange for the proper number to be created correctly) bring some money into the con, and like the T-shirts and Calendars should be initially paid for by pre-sales. (If your pre-sales of an article do badly, you probably want to re-think the number you intend to have made.)

Prints/mini-posters, pins, totebags, baseball caps, shot glasses, puzzles, are all items that have been done, but they are not all that could be offered. Be creative and original; sometime it's the sheer novelty of an item that leads to its sales, and such novelty can wear off after the first year an item is offered.

Such ideas include first and foremost the Gathering 2004’s response to how to showcase the fandom writers the way that the calendar typically showcases the artist’s talent- a printed and bound written Anthology, not simply an enter-by-email writing contest. The Phoenix Gate Anthology was met by a tremendous amount of approval, and being an amateur writer as well as artist, I for one hope to see Gargoyle Anthologies in future years. (edit: It did return for 2005 and 2006 so far, and sold well at both conventions.) Obviously they need not have the Phoenix Gate as a unifying topic; anything from setting parallel themes of the Eye of Odin to the Dark Ages era, to “Missing Episodes set during the time of the World Tour”, to having the entries be about anything but solely from the point of view of a single character could work. Polling the fandom for what presently interests them is a good idea to divine an idea that will bring in many entries, just make sure you get responses form a good cross-section of the fandom populace. Because, let’s face it, if you were to ask solely at Mooncat’s forum you’d likely wind up with a Femslash Anthology.

Not that an Othercon Anthology is a bad idea per se…but the fandom only has so much money to spend…

…

hmmm…

Moving right along, among other items sold have been baseball caps for 2001, mini-poster print sets for 2003 (as an alternative to having an Othercon Calendar), pins for 2004, and the winter mail-out puzzle for 2005. Have samples of the final result available for viewing on the convention website.

If you can think of any other means to make money- selling candles, chocolate, other t-shirts- go for it. Especially if you can find a contact or a way of getting your fundraising product for lower than its average sale price. Fundraising does NOT have to necessarily have a direct connection to the concept of gargoyles, the TV show, or the Gathering. Having something for the Gathering that IS NOT DATED, ie, simply promotes the Convention as an idea and not for a specific year/location, is another idea that has been tossed into the pot.

Auction and Raffle:

Ebay:
Your friend. You can pick up nifty items here for the con auction, or hold an auction on a date before (or after) the convention weekend to raise funds. And you can auction anything your audience might be interested in buying; it doesn't have to be related to gargoyles or to your convention's focus.

Raffle:
Do I really need to explain this? Find an item of niftiness- or an offer from an artist / writer / costumer to take on a comission from the winner- and sell tickets for a couple dollars a piece. You can find wheels of actual raffle tickets at party stores for pretty cheap.

Audio/Video Equipment Rental:
While you can just use a big-screen TV and VCR (Things that should be easily acquired from the house of a local staff member) it has become something of a Con tradition to have a video projector and screen, especially for Opening Ceremonies. Cost for said equipment will vary, and can run you $300 a day for both projector and screen, although usually the hotels themselves will have a screen available for rent at a lower cost than equipment rental places. However, hotels do not always have projectors. If you can borrow one from a friend, fellow staff member, generous fan, or college media center, do so. If you can’t, you might consider just buying one, since it may wind up running you the same price anyway, and then you have one for next year. Look around a lot first; you may find a really good deal that will save you a pretty penny. A pretty, 20-pound, solid silver penny.

One projector rental site, company services all 50 states, and was used in Las Vegas... http://www.meetingtomorrow.com/rentals.htm

Con Packet Costs:

We've already covered the cost of any merchandise your attendees may have bought...so what about the rest of the thing that goes into a "con packet"?

The packet iteself - unless you want to get fancy, stick with the 12" x 9" envelopes. Then get a packet of printable mailing labels so you can print out the names and put them on the packets instead of having to write them all out by hand.

Con Badges - For each one you'll need an insert, a laminated pouch, a lanyard, and if they are staff/vendors/security/special guests you'll probably want a ribbon to stick onto the badge that defines them as such.

How it goes: print your stock image out on a sheet of tear-off paper (this can be purchased at your local Office Max, Office Depot, or an equivalent...while you are at it, you may want to pick up some sticky label-blanks for your con packets. You will misplace all those just before they are needed and have to do all the packets by hand anyway, but you’ll feel more professional while you are making them up). Make sure to have your badge image sized slightly smaller than the space you will be printing on. Having the image a few millimeters over and onto your tear-off lines will result in a) bad-looking badges, or b) a waste of time and paper and ink when you do a re-print.

Type the name of your attendee into the label-maker. Electronic ones make life a lot easier- you really don’t want to have to make up @ 300 name-labels on the older-style hand labelers. Electronic ones typically also make other marks, like a symbol showing that a banquet has been purchased. (This is much easier than having separate banquet tickets printed up, which can be easily misplaced, or stolen. Have a stamp available to mark those who wish to purchase a Banquet on site.)

Take your label from the machine. Stick on the printed badge. Tear off the badge and place in the sheath. This way you can easily make up badges for walk-ins, or remove and replace any badges that happen to have the badge name misspelled. There will be a few. This is not a priority, and if you happen to be running a huge con, it is a minor issue. But one your individual attendees will appreciate having taken care of.

ALTERNATELY: Since all pre-fabricated badges you can imput the name as part of the printing process alongside the badge imagery, you can just make your walk-ins write their own name in on the badge, which is quicker and doesn't require the purchasing of a labelmaker.

Add the cord, and any necessary ribbons (staff, volunteer, security, guest, etc.) Put in con packet or hand to registrant.

Incidentals Cost List

Con Booklets and Schedules:

If you are doing full con booklets, check out the below info. If you are printing schedules only, skip down two florets.

Typically Con Booklets seem to include 1) a table of contents page, 2) a message from Greg Weisman and/or the Con Staff, 3) the Con Schedule and Hours of Operation for the consuite, Dealer's and Art Rooms, Registration Desk, etc 4) more detailed descriptions of the Panels and Events, sometimes 5) bios for the fan panelists, 6) bios for the Special Guests, 7) a list of all the pre-registered and supporting members of the convention, 8) a listing of the staff who made the con possible, as well as thank-you's and credits to all the *non-staff* people who made the con possible, including winners of any contests, 9) sometimes a listing of your Dealers and Art Show participants, 10) any advertising you solicited, and 11) a promotion for the following year's convention. 12) Maps of your convention city and hotel layout are also a good idea.

The 2001 LA con booklet also featured a group compiled timeline of the show and fandom history to date; the 2004 Montreal con booklet had a history of the previous eight Gatherings as summarized by Greg Weisman; and the 2005 booklet contained it's winning filksong contest entry.

There are a couple other points to bring up - first, no one says your booklet has to have *any* printed color in it, and two, nobody says it has to have full-sized (8.5 x 11) pages. You can do a half-sized booklet; instead of printing on 11 x 17 paper folded in two so each page is 8.5 x 11, you can print on 8.5 x 11 paper folded over to make a 5.5 x 8.5 booklet to save on costs. Another saver is to have your cover be a black design and writing, but print it on paper that is itself colored. (Both of the above were done for the 2001 con booklet, btw.) Also, half-sized con booklets allow you to print at home with a standard printer and supplies. Once again, lowering the size of your booklet lowers the size of the ads you can take in, and the prices they bring with them.

All things to keep in mind as you're planning your budget, as well as your strategy for landing ad space. Another thing LA did was have notecard-and-business-card-sized advertisments separate from the con booklet but included in the con packet.

No matter what size you print your con booklet- if you have them- remember what you want to have included in it by way of written material and how many pages they are likely to take up. If you bring in enough advertisements, you may have to up your con booklet a page or so- and that will affect the production costs.

There's nothing that states you have to do full con booklets...they're just nice to have. But at the very least, you need to include a print-out of the full con schedule for inclusion of the con packets. That was all 2003 had. 2002 had a step more, with the schedule stapled to a greeting from Greg Weisman and the staff on the front, and details about the panels and events on the back.

Remember when you are printing you schedule to make the physical copy include the breaks between panels in an obvious fashion, else people will assume their aren't any.

Awards and Nifty Things

Ribbons for the art show and masquerade, various award-show awards/ trophies if you like, certificates of appreciation for volunteers and art show participants and such. You can dress up your banquet with Door Prizes, too.>

Ribbons for badges:
Get the appropriate number of ribbons for staff, guests, security, and volunteers. Ribbons for panel hosts are optional, although after my experience helping to host a certain crossover fic panel, I’m tempted to say that only those with ribbons should be allowed on the panelist’s table. But really, our fandom isn’t usually that anal. Panels should be planned well enough in advance that those who are hosting all know eachother, and know who does not belong up front with them.

Ribbons, for winners of the art show: Usually 1rst, 2nd, and 3rd place for each category you have to vote on. Throw in a couple extras of each, in case of a tie.

Trophies: Including but not limited to The Thom Adcox Memorial Award, the Gorebash/Gorelisa award, Fan Guest of the Year, Which attendee has traveled farthest, Judge's Choice in the masquerade, Cutest Couple, Best In Show for the Art Show... The physical objects can be just about anything, from the inexpensive gold-leafed plastic figures you can get from your average award shop to comissioned cast-resin figures (if you have a staff member or a friend willing to do them for dirt cheap). 2005 had actual (generic) gargoyle statues, picked up off of Ebay for a reasonable cost.

Certificates of recognition/appreciation/participation/etc: These often go to your volunteers and other non-staff people who did things of note for the con. They are useful for other things, as well. Winners of writing contests or things like The Gargoyle Olympics and the Clan Wars. 2005 gave Carol Wagner a "certificate of appreciation for Putting Up With The Fandom", since she is the only person who has staffed 5 consecutive conventions in a row. That still makes my brain melt to think about.

Consuite:

General, Food, Medical (first-aid kit): Throw in an extra bottle of ibuprofen. Actually, stick the bottle on the counter in the bathroom. Staff aren’t the only ones to headaches during the con. It’s useful for someone with a Costco or similar bulk-wholesale store card to do the buying. See the section on the job of Consuite Host/Hostess for some suggestions in what to purchase.

Various:

Sharpie Pens for the Guest signing, paper and pens for the consuite and for events and the registration table, message boards (dry erase) and things to write on them, any other Event supplies like large rolls of paper and art supplies for any large group art projects...floor mat rental for anything martial arts-y or athletic...con olympics supplies... (See Incidentals cost list.)

Lock-boxes for money for the reg desk and the con table in the dealer's room, and carbon-paper receipts for each as well. and pens and staplers.

Extension cords and duct tape: You will use these. You may not expect to, but you will.

Power tools, with accessories: Someone on your staff can likely supply these for free. These will most likely be required to put your art boards together, as well as god knows what else. Cordless ones are not your friends; they tend to die and refuse to charge up again at the worst time. Remember, your convention operates directly under Murphy’s laws. Your cords may not be long enough, hence one reason for having extension cords on hand.

Remember, a large percent of your take is going to come at the actual con itself (The door, merchandise sales, the auction, the art show) but the guests need to be paid for in advance, and the hotel is going to want a reserve payment at the very least.

At the con itself, you need a slush fund. No matter how carefully you work out your budget, there's always some stupid expense that pops up at an extremely inconvenient time. If you can, try to have at least a thousand dollars floating free at any given moment. And make sure that thousand dollars is some place you can access it quickly but it won’t be stolen or lost. Keep the knowledge of where that safe place is carefully restricted.