Subject: dlvorg Summaries, comments, etc. ...
From: Annie (annie )
Date: Sun Jun 17 2001 - 00:06:14 CDT
In this mailing:
Welcome
Major system problems
Dates
Annie's comments
Annie's concerns
Activity planning
Tina's notes
Administrivia
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Welcome:
Welcome to those who just joined this list. Please feel free to speak
up and join the conversations.
We've had a few comments start to come in, as you will see. I've also
written my own notes and comments as you can see.
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Major system problems:
TSIA! If you care what is going on, read the long version, if not, read
the short version and skip to the next item.
Readers Digest version: We had system problems. If you sent in something and
never got a response and don't see it here, please resend.
War And Peace version: On Monday at about 1615, a SID (Sanitary Improvement
District) maintenance worker snagged the high speed data line that connects
this system (and others) with a lawn mower, uprooting about 100' of it.
geekbabe.com and about 30 other domains were totally dark for about 21
hours. Several others, including some you know and love, such as tggalaxy,
girlmode, and pinkmyst, were partly affected.
Then on Tuesday about 1800 the hardware that normally runs this system
(ivgate) failed hard. We do have a much slower and older system as a
backup, which is what is running now. Most current backup tape was the
previous Friday. I was able to manually copy files from the /usr3 drive
and synchronize some of the important directories, so it looks like this
list is in the exact state it was at the time of the crash. (Since this
is a Solaris/Sunos system, it's a tad more complicated than simply
finding a spare peecee and plugging in a disk.)
Anyway, we are kinda limping along here on older equipment and an older
version of the mailing list processor.
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Dates:
>Annie, have you set the date for Diva 2002 yet?
Nope. That's one of the items on our do-it list below. :)
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Annie's comments:
>1. Any final summarizing of DLV 2001.
All I can say is wow, what a party! :)
One thing I cannot get over is the enthusiasm and exuberance this year.
The intensity was high. Things seemed always upbeat. Very few low spots
and seldom a break in the action between Wednesday and Monday.
>2. Discussion of the length of DLV. Did we have the length about right,
>do we need it longer, was it too long?
Personally, I thought it was about right this year. We didn't have a slow
start on the first few days, and we didn't see a huge dropoff on the last
couple days. Some came early, as is always an option, likewise, some left
late, even those who were not attending N+I.
>3. Days of the week and timing. Did the Wednesday-Monday timeframe seem
>to work, or should it be tweaked.
Again, I thought it worked out well. N+I is expanding, creeping back
into the weekend, and one person had some conflicts. This year I stopped
into the Show Sales booth at N+I and asked a few questions about the
schedule of N+I 2002. Yes, they are starting it on Sunday, May 5, but
the main concentration will be Tuesday thru Friday of the next week.
I thought we had a strong start and a strong finish this year. It didn't
kinda dribble out like it did in 2000 when we ended on Tuesday.
>4. General timeframe of DLV. (IMAO, again, the venue, Las Vegas, and the
[snip]
I would think Wednesday, May 1, thru Monday, May 6 would work. If we
want a longer session, I think going a day earlier would be better than
a day later.
Unless there's a compelling reason to do otherwise, I'm suggesting we
keep our next-door-to-N+I schedule.
Avoiding Mothers Day is probably a Good Thing<tm>. Having DLV the first
week in May avoids this.
I see two possible tweaks which are easy, if needed.
1. If we want a longer DLV, extend it earlier one day, thus having the
pre-DLV things on Tuesday evening. I do think it's important, however,
to be sure we fill this extra day with well-organized quality activities
and have some planned before we make the commitment to extend.
2. If N+I results in a conflict for more of our people, we could slide
the entire schedule back one day, beginning Tuesday evening and ending
with a big bang on Sunday evening.
>5. General activity comments, suggestions, etc. We want to paint in
>broad strokes at this time. We want to discuss what worked, what did
[bobbitt]
Here are a few comments along this line ...
^X^I ../dlv01/dlv.sched :)
+Wednesday: 5:00pm Pre-pre-dlv dinner Milano's
Yes, this one worked. Well received and well liked. We just about filled
the place to capacity. Again, raves about the food!
+May 2 7:30pm Pre-DLV get-together LV Lounge
Worked. Reservations about the venue, but overall, quite well. Much of
the crowd migrated to Goodtimes.
+Thursday: 3:00pm Shopping, dinner, more shopping
Worked with some concerns. I had hoped for a better turnout, but daytime
activities were not as well attended as evening ones, for the most part.
No problems reported. We skipped two of the planned stops (Attic -- the
person who wanted to go to the Attic did not go on this, and Boulevard
Mall) due to time getting tight.
Several of our people ate in either of the two food courts (at Belz
Mall) with no reported difficulty. For the most part, our people blended
in well with the crowd.
+May 3 8:00pm Keys (piano bar) Keys Lounge
Worked. Excellent. (Under the circumstances, formal dress is to be
optional! :) Very good turnout!
+Friday: 10:00am Air tours Henderson Airport
Worked. Again, not a huge turnout, but quite worthwhile. Great reports.
For something like this, the turnout was about right. Any more and we would
have to schedule more flights.
+May 4 1:00pm Matinee movie Location TBA
Didn't happen. Volunteer coordinator did not show, did not write until
after DLV. "Family emergency." Heard only one comment and no complaints.
+ 5:00pm Dinner Sahara Buffet
Definitely worked. Very good turnout for a daylight activity. Some
complaints about the food. Comments about dress and comportment of
some of our people.
+ 7:30pm Welcome gathering Goodtimes
Again, worked quite well. Great turnout. Good reports.
+ (Official group photo taken about 9:00pm)
Only problem here, other than getting everbody assembled in one place,
was that one person cheerfully posed dead center and then asked to be
removed from pics posted on the internet. I will not do a black-out or
a face blur! Those are worse than no photo at all. (Yeah I know, bitch
bitch bitch! :)
For the version of this I posted, I did a deep Gaussian blur of the
center face (subordinates detail) and asked some friends and cow-orkers
to pick out the sister, given a clear photo of the brother (on the dam
tour). They were unable to do so, so I am considering what I posted to
be other than a recognizable likeness.
+ 11:00pm Dance Night Gipsy, et. al.
Worked out well, from what I heard. (I played a while, then crashed.)
+ 2:00am Sat Late Night Gaming Imperial Palace
Low turnout, but from what I heard it worked. Losses were reported.
+Saturday: 12:00n Shopping and Hopping Start at Paris
I was a bit disappointed in the turnout. Again, daylight activities
had comparatively low headcounts. Lower turnout (by far) than on two
previous almost identical activities the two prior years. Is this just
a lack of interest, would they rather do other things during this
timeframe, or does this type of thing scare the hell out of them?
Comments would be appreciated.
+May 5 8:30pm Kenny Kerr And Friends Frontier
Worked. Great turnout. Show was good, not outstanding. A few comments
about the jitters walking thru the casino to get to the showroom. Two
people missed this due to a time crunch.
Update: We all heard that Kenny closed the show at the Frontier the
week after we saw it. News has come in that Kenny and gang will be
opening at the Regency in Summerlin (NW suburb) Real Soon Now.
+ (Official group photo taken immediately after)
Worked, but it seemed to be like pulling teeth to get everybody to
follow me to the atrium to do the photo. People seemed impatient, like
they wanted the photos to be over with NOW, so they could get on to
{whatever}. A few people did not follow to the atrium, but immediately
went {wherever}. The person requesting no exposure was posed to the far
side, so she could be cropped out with only a couple others sacrificed.
The version I posted had her and a couple others cropped out, but I am
thinking of redoing it using the same methods as above.
+ Midnite Rocky Horror Picture Show Paradise 6
Good turnout for this. Local cast performance sucked. One of our people
is in contact with them, and will inform them of our schedule next year
so their regular Frank will do the show (just for us). :)
+ After Barhopping
I haven't heard much about this, except a couple comments that there
was no real socializing, so to speak, Saturday evening.
+May 6 1:00pm Dam tour
Great turnout. Due to Bob's retirement, this will not be repeated as it
has been. One option might be to do one of the public tours.
Thanks and a big round of applause {clap-clap-clap -- whistle -- clap-clap}
to De^H^HBob for doing this for the past several years. It is truly
appreciated!
+ 10:00pm Folies Bergere Tropicana
Great show, but only fair turnout. I suppose the hoop-jumping requirement
contributed to this. Those who didn't make that jump REALLY missed a good
show and a very good time in a very classy showroom.
+ 11:30pm Limo Tour of Strip Tropicana entrance
This was a very fun ride. Again, this required a hoop-jump, so the
headcount was low for an after-dark activity. As I look back, this was
one of my fondest memories of DLV 2001. :)
+Monday: 10:00am Side trip - Rhyolite
Didn't happen. Low turnout, low demand.
Maybe a shorter sidetrip (Valley of Fire, Red Rock) as we have done in
the past few years.
+May 7 8:00pm Farewell get-together LV Lounge
Great turnout. Lots of people stayed thru Monday. Complaints that the
crowd broke up (loud music, higher drink prices) soon after the dancers
went on stage.
We've already had one suggestion for something new and different for next
year, boating and water skiing. That will be a real challenge, but might
be interesting. :)
>6. Publicity and promotion. Do the existing methods (web site, T*
>event listings, support group newsletters, etc.) work, should we be
>expanding promotion, maybe?
Do we want more exposure? Do we want to submit maybe a release to
such things as _Girl_Talk_, _Tapestry_, _Ladylike_, etc.?
>Ideas for new and different (yes, "out of the box") methods of
>promotion.
Well, we don't have a budget for paid advertisements, so that may not
be an option, and I don't really think we need it.
I was queried by one of the t* publications about doing a feature. I've
been holding off on following up until things got cleaned up. I should
put that on my do-it-now list.
>7. Registration. Did you think the web form worked (better than e-mail)?
>From my perspective, this was a MAJOR improvement over the e-mail
registration we used in the past. 2-3 people did have problems with the
screens and registered by mail. I was unable to duplicate any of the
reported problems.
>8. Yes, I guess we will, like it or not, have one more iteration of our
>yearly endless-loop topics such as ...
>
>a. Meeting room.
IMAO, we don't need this. If somebody can come up with a valid need for
a room like this ("safer environment" is not a valid reason, again,
IMAO, if they need that, they should go to Be-All, not DLV) then it
may be something we should look at.
>b. Special Group Rates<tm> at an official hotel.
Personally, I thought the duopoly of the Sahara and Imperial Palace
worked well. They had a definite choice, and reasonably good rates were
available both places. A few complaints about the condition of the IP
rooms. I heard none about the Sahara. Most people reported rates that
were equal to or less than what I estimate would be available for small
to medium groups with no gaming history.
Many of our people stayed elsewhere.
If somebody wants to take the initiative to look into group rates, be my
guest, or rather I'll be your guest. :) (Yes, this is another replay of
a perennial discussion.) However, I don't expect any offers of anything
cheaper than casino rate (players club, etc.), promotional rates (LA
Times, etc.) or even cold-call rates at the right phase of the moon.
My preference would be to recommend a couple places which are known to
be t-friendly, and at which a significant number of our people will be,
and to let the people make the final decision where to stay.
>c. GLBT bars vs. "straight" bars.
>From my observation, our people had a total blast at both Keys and at
Goodtimes. These are <quote>safe</quote> enough for the newly-out
people, and open and mainline enough for those who have been out for a
while.
My thought on this is as long as our people continue to enjoy such
places as Keys and Goodtimes, we should continue to use them. Any other
places (straight or GLBT) should be in addition to, not in place of
Goodtimes, Keys, and the like.
Now for the Las Vegas Lounge. IMAO, it just wasn't what we wanted for
gatherings such as the Pre-DLV and the Post-DLV. The crowd scattered to
the winds both times, when the music got too loud for conversation.
Yes, there are a few people who love it in its current less-refined
state, but comparing them to the number who voted with their feet ...
Assuming that Las Vegas Lounge does not change over the next year (I
have a sneaky feeling it will, one way or another) we maybe offer it
as a late-nite after hours option, but not for one of our featured
gatherings. Hey, I'm far from a prude, but it was obvious that our
people did not like it well enough to stick around.
Comments?
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Annie's concerns:
These are some semi random notes about the areas of concern I have. I've
attempted to put some order in here, but ...
(Yeah I know, bitch-bitch-bitch! :)
Seriously, I don't want to at all give the impression I'm disappointed with
DLV here. There are so many things that went right, they totally eclipse
those where I think there's room for some change. I'm trying to think
of how and where we can tweak DLV so it maximally serves all who choose
to attend.
...
The one thing that (still) bothers me is the amount of no-shows we get.
It seems like we get more than the mainline t* conventions, and this
year it was at an all-time high. I know we had a few people who had to
cancel at short notice, but this no-write no-phone no-show no-nothing
still bugs me. These are even some of the people who were active in
the discussion just prior to DLV. I'm at a loss as to what to do with
this.
...
For a while last winter, just after I opened the registration page and
started testing the headcount projection routine, I began to get a bit
concerned since the projection skyrocketed into the 120-some range just
a few days after I opened the registration page. (Thanks to those who
calmed me down back then. :) Turns out it was a surge of registrations
right after the registration screen opened, and it quickly stabilized.
However, it got me thinking about how many the current model of DLV
would support.
I don't know the answer. One of the other volunteers speculated it would
handle at least 100 using the current types of facilities. Although our
headcount has increased over the history of DLV, the rate of increase is
starting to level off, so I would estimate we have several years before
we have to worry about attendance being a limiting factor.
...
Daytime dress. Something isn't working here. Since the second year, we
have never been able to get a good percentage of our people together
for hardly anything during the day. I seriously doubt if everybody's
schedule is soooooo busy that they just don't have time to join us.
My gut feeling is most of them are either sitting around, playing in the
casino in boymode, doing various touristy things in boymode, even doing
many of the things we're doing, but alone and/or in boymode.
Some of our people are quite comfortable in daytime dress, and some have
taken steps to become more comfortable, but ...
We still have people who, and I hate to use this word, refuse to dress
down. These are some of those who write to DLV saying "Yes, I want some
real-world exposure" and I would think they would want to learn to dress
as others do, in a manner appropriate to each occasion, whether it's
casual or dressy.
I don't know for sure -- not many have commented on this, but I get the
sneaky feeling the low turnout on these daytime events is correlated to
the requests to dress down for them.
What do we do, gang? Do we make DLV an evening-only thing, letting people
totally do their own thing during the day? Do we tweak our activities
toward those that are either less public or those where casual is not the
required-by-default dress? Do we (continue to) encourage our people to
when-in-Las-Vegas-do-like-the-touristas? Do we offer a (gasp) seminar in
how to dress in public for various occasions?
I'd really like some feedback on this one, gang. :)
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Activity planning:
>First of all, let me say thank you for doing all of this, you are an
>endless fountain of energy.
You're very welcome. {blush}
>I always look forward to receiving this
>newsletter, it was almost sad to think they would not be coming for
>six months more. I want to get more active, and hopefully I can do
>something. I do find these newsletters interesting and entertaining.
Thank you. As a clarification, we will be doing a monthly summary from
this list to the main DLV list up until the first of the year.
>Forgive me if I'm kind of clueless here, but what is the exact protocol
>if I would want to put together and manage some kind of thing to do
>at Diva next year? What proposal and approval process do you have to
>go through?
No formal protocol. So far the procedure has been something like this:
1. Tell us about your idea(s) here on this list. Ask for comments. Run
it up the flagpole and see if more people salute it than flip it the
bird. :)
2. Think about where on the (yet to be determined) schedule it might fit.
Daytime? Night time? What day(s) would it work?
3. If it looks like it's something we want to do, by consensus here on
this list by this group, then go ahead and make any plans that have to
be made, come up with signup procedures (if necessary) and such, ask for
help if you need it, etc.
Good example of this would be Tina's show and limo thing on Sunday of
DLV 2001. It followed the procedure above, more or less.
I would suggest strongly that if what you have in mind is an evening
activity, and you are leaning toward one of the Fri-Sat-Sun evenings as
the featured activity of the evening, that you plan far in advance.
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Tina's notes:
>> Anyway, let's go to it, gang! :)
>OOOOO, I just love a call to arms!
>> 1. Any final summarizing of DLV 2001.
>The challenge, as always, is to find new and interesting things to do,
>so that it isn't just the same old thing each night of sitting around
>bars getting drunk. I like bars, and I like drinking, and they are
>great places to meet to start the evening. They just need something
>(entertainment, dancing, etc.) besides just liquor. DLV 2001 did the
>best job yet of breaking up that same old routine.
>> 2. Discussion of the length of DLV. Did we have the length about right,
>> do we need it longer, was it too long?
>I always want it longer, and I'm always sad when it ends, but I do
>think that the length is just right. That was, after all, 6 nights
>which makes for a pretty good vacation.
>> 3. Days of the week and timing. Did the Wednesday-Monday timeframe seem
> to work, or should it be tweaked.
>I thought that Wednesday through Monday worked pretty well. Because
>more people are coming each year, we even had pretty nice turnouts in
>2001 on opening night (Wednesday) and closing night (Monday).
>> 4. General timeframe of DLV. (IMAO, again, the venue, Las Vegas, and the
>> approximate time, late spring, should be considered in stone.) Looking at
>> the calendar, Sunday, May 12, 2002 is Mothers Day, which comments say we
>> should avoid, and Networld+Interop (several people like to do both on one
>> plane ticket) is scheduled for Sunday, May 5, thru Friday, May 10, 2000.
>So: Wednesday May 1 through Monday May 6. Did the DLV girls at N+I do
>much partying as a group later that week of N+I, or were they good
>girls who buckled down to serious work?
Personally, I kinda took it easy following DLV. I did see a couple of
the others, but I didn't see any major partying.
>Any headcount of how many DLV girls in 2001 stayed for N+I?
Several, but I don't have a count.
>> 5. General activity comments, suggestions, etc. We want to paint in
>> broad strokes at this time. We want to discuss what worked, what did
>> not work, which activities should be repeated, which activities should
>> be ash-canned, what new and exciting activities we can plan,
><snip>
>Did anyone besides me have a sense that the most experienced girls
>seemed to drop out as the week progressed?
No, not at all. I assume you mean what I think you do by "experienced". :)
My impression of those who dissappeared was that they were mostly on the
inexperienced end of the scale.
>Dancing worked, shows worked, piano bar worked.
>Why didn't casino gambling work?
I think casino gambling was what everybody did, but nobody really did in
groups.
As far as the planned late gambling, I'm sure many skipped it due to the
late hour.
Some, of course, were a bit shy of the exposure.
>> 7. Registration. Did you think the web form worked (better than e-mail)?
>Seemed to work fine.
.....
>New shows in LV:
>Bill Here's Viva Las Vegas Newsletter reports:
>THE FOLLOWING ARE SCHEDULED TO OPEN:
=======================================
>Jun.14= La Femme show direct from the Crazy Horse in Paris. In the
>Cabaret Theater directly across from the Main Cashiers Cage on the
>Casino Floor -MGM Grand.
>I've been to the Crazy Horse in Paris (NEVER to be confused with the
>Crazy Horse strip bar in LV) a couple of times and it is a very good,
>somewhat erotic cabaret show. Hope it is still there next year. Think
>of it as an upscale "Crazy Girls" without the low-brow humor.
>Blondes Rule:
>Meanwhile, be sure to clebrate National Blonde Day on July 9. See
>http://www.nationalblondeday.com/
>Yes, it's just a movie promotion, but being blonde is a movement that
>is so much bigger than that. It will blossom and take over the world!
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Administrivia:
This is the Diva Las Vegas 2002 organizational list.
Diva Las Vegas 2002
May, 2002, dates to be announced
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
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