- the size of the room [already solved for next year,]
I agree about the size of the room but, as Lev said, it was the biggest conference room in the hostel and the layout was the best we could fit in there. Next year the room will be much bigger.
- the heat of the room [I hear there will be more fans next time?]
There were a few factors which led to the room getting as warm as it did - The number of people in there, the fact that the room next door was the boiler room and the general heat all added to it. I did have two tower fans running full blast in there and all the windows were open and a couple of times managed to get an air conditioner unit in there (though this often soon became needed for other events). At next year's venue, all the rooms have built in air conditioning, but I will also look into getting more fans in there.
- and the queuing to get in [the increase in room size should help to move things faster but there is still the issue of being stood in a very hot and sweaty corridor while you wait (hope that's solved) also it's hard to get out when you only have a single door. Would it be possible to arrange things so you que to enter one door and you exit another which leads back into the con so you don't have to push past?]
We had to put a queueing system in place on the saturday for health and safety reasons. There may still be a problem with queueing next year since the Dealers' den will always have a maximum number of people that we can safely allow in at any one time. The last thing we want at the con is some sort of crush. However, the room that we plan on having the den in next year is 4 times the size of this years and is right next to the main lobby which is huge and very airy so there shouldn't be such a heat problem. Also, while we probably won't be able to have separate doors being used, all of the conference rooms in the hotel have double width doors, so I may look at having one side of the door used as the entrance and the other as the exit so you won't have to push through any queue.
If it's possible [though I doubt any con does this for security reasons] could the den be more a part of the con itself, what I mean is that I feel it's unfair that the dealers are unable to take part in anything else that is going on because of being in there for so long.
As I said earlier, next year the room will be right next to the lobby, but it's also right next door to the main stage area so it'll be much more central to the con than it was this year.
My thoughts on that are:
1) Shifts? [So dealers can pick times to be there (doubt this is possible at all.)]
We wouldn't be able to have tables changing dealers in the middle of the day since it would cause far too much disruption. However, one thing I plan on looking at later this month is the system which is run at AC. There, if you want a place in the Dealers' Den, you *must* also nominate someone to cover your table for you if, for some reason, you can't be there yourself. While I have no plans to make it compulsory at the moment I may very well make it a guideline for next years dealers so that they don't have to be there all day if there's something else they'd like to do.
2) Monitors streaming the events [with so many camera's going around the con, would it be possible to set up some for of transmission so that people in the den can watch the events while not busy? If not live then as uncut video starting right after the event ends.]
This would be more Lev's area since he knows more about these things
. As far as I know, there are no TVs in the conference rooms and I don't know whether the hotel is able to provide them or whether it has the facilities to do this sort of link-up. Also, I'm not sure whether some of the dealers would want it. A lot of them tend to be artists and they may find it a bit disrupting.
3) Perhaps place it more central or in a less formal fashion [possibly a second semi-den in the new sites version of the Lobby?]
It is already going to be in a more central position than it was this year, so you can rest assured there
. We wouldn't be able to extend it in to the lobby however because:
a) As Lev says, it would be impossible to secure it and would be very difficult to keep an eye on and
b) We don't have exclusive use of the lobby next year, as far as I know. While we have the conference rooms to ourselves, the lobby will probably be classed as a public area and so I doubt the hotel or other non-con guests would appreciate us trying to take over the public areas.
