From: Diva Las Vegas organizers (dlvorg@geekbabe.com)
Date: Thu May 27 2010 - 07:05:18 CDT
In this mailing:
Org List
Working toward a wrap-up
Overall timeslot participation
Successes and issues
Updating our electorate
Voluntario
Thoughts on no-host activities
Administrivia
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Org List:
This is the DLV 2010 Organizational Mailing List (dlvorg@geekbabe.com)
Replies to this message will be forwarded to the DLVORG list and not
the DLV-Announce or DLV-Discuss list.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Working toward a wrap-up:
We are now entering our annual "slow season", so to speak.
Over the next month or so, we need to finish any backward-
looking follow-up items.
Around July 1 we'll be adding the new ORG volunteers to
the list and turning the primary "voice" of the list over
to JoAnn.
If anyone has any feedback, comments, etc., regarding last
month's event, now is the time to bring it up. I would like
to invite comments on any of my talking points below, or on
anything else you would like to bring up.
. . . . .
Here are our tasks for the next month or so ...
1. Final summarizing. Lessons learned, obvious trouble
spots, known and reported issues, etc.
2. Initial analysis of the survey. The survey will close
next week and the initial machine-generated report will be
posted around June 1.
3. Adjusting the ORG mailing list and electorate list. See
item below. Everyone who will be of voting status should
now be on this mailing list. We'll also be purging the list
of stale addresses and inactive members in a couple weeks.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Overall timeslot participation:
One follow-up item I would like to do this year is summarize
and analyze our multi-track strategy. Although we've used
multi-tracking for several years, we've never really looked
at how effective it is (or is not) in serving our attendees.
There have been many reasons we've gone to multi-tracking
for some of our evening activities.
One, it breaks up the group. It makes the group less obvious
in any setting, and it allows options. Not everybody wants
to do the same thing, nor do they want to eat the same
things. It allows more specific targeting of interests.
It allows options based on such things as depth of the
pocketbook and mainstream/comfort desire.
The amount of effort required to put on a well-implemented
multi-track evening is a good-news/bad-news item. On the
good news side, smaller activities require less effort and
less formality to implement. They usually do not require
any hoop-jumps such as negotiation with vendors, concerns
about menus, seating, etc. Often times they are one step
above trivial. On the bad news side is that multiple
activities in a timeslot will require multiple coordinators.
This, of course, takes a larger hit to our volunteer pool.
Historically, over our forming and midlife years, we usually
would capture between 70 and 80 percent of our estimated
in-town crowd at our largest single-track gatherings. Our
other (smaller) activities would consistenly capture far
less.
That figure (70-80%) is really the target we should be
shooting for WRT the combined overall participation for
any evening's aggregate activities.
I don't think any suboptimal "capture percentage" noted
below in any way indicates failure of activities, either
individually or collectively, but some kind of opportunity
to examine the circumstances to see if there would have
been ways where DLV could have served more of our attendee
base.
Let's review this year's main multi-track timeslots and do
some summarizations of the parallel track headcounts to see
how they stack up in encouraging and allowing overall total
participation.
The numbers I'm quoting for the "Total Projection" figures
are those from the final pre-DLV daily turnout projection,
which take into account the number of "cold" newcomers,
"warm" newcomers, and returnees who will likely be in town,
who will eventually show up to something, and will available
to participate.
. . . . . . . . . .
Sunday dinner:
We had four dinner options, all very different.
7:00pm: Flamingo Buffet dinner (Flamingo) - 12
7:00pm: Mortons HH and Dinner (Morton's) - 1
7:00pm: Irish Pub HH and Dinner (McMullan's) - 38
7:00pm: Hard Rock HH and Dinner (Hard Rock Cafe STRIP) - 24
Total for Sunday dinner timeslot: 75
+Total projection for 2010-04-18: 107
Capture percentage for Sunday dinner: 70%
For Sunday dinner we were right on target as far as overall
participation and "capture" was concerned.
The numbers for the Sunday evening after-dinner timeslot
were virtually identical to those for Sunday dinner, so
I think we can say we were on target for this one too. :)
I don't think we had any capacity issues with any of the
Sunday evening activities, and I don't think we failed to
cover any comfort needs, mainstream-ness needs, interest
needs, etc.
. . . . .
I'm including our two large single-track gatherings in this
discussion for comparison purposes.
Monday evening (Firefly): 108
+Total projection for 2010-04-19: 124
Capture percentage for Monday evening: 87
Obviously above target here, and as we know, a great turnout
and great level of participation. Several reasons for this,
outlined and discussed elsewhere. This is the second straight
year where our Welcome Celebration turnout has exceeded our
historical capture percentage!
. . . . . . . . . . .
Tuesday EON:
7:00pm: Joe's option (Joe's Crab and Steak) - 18
7:00pm: PTs option (PTs Pub 6th and Sahara) - 32
7:00pm: Hard Rock Cafe STRIP option (Hard Rock Cafe STRIP) - 12
7:00pm: Milano's option (Milano's) - 14
Total for Tuesday EON: 76
+Total projection for 2010-04-20: 131
Capture percentage for Tuesday EON: 58
I have to say that the capture rate for this dinner timeslot
was somewhat below target. I know that there were no capacity
issues. I think that the variety of EON selections was such
that anyone but the absolute most picky eaters had something
to choose from that they would enjoy.
However, we still did not capture as many as I think we
should have.
I was hoping for one or two more EON options for this evening,
but we did have a volunteer bandwith limit in play. Whether
or not having more options would have increased our capture
percentage would be pure water-under-the-bridge speculation.
Things look better as the evening progresses, however.
Tuesday evening Mainstream/Alternative Night:
8:00pm: Jam Session (Escape Lounge) - 35
8:30pm: Alternative Bar Crawl (Goodtimes) - 10
9:00pm: Viva Elvis show (Aria - City Center) - ca 8
9:30pm: Divas - Frank Marino Show (Imperial Palace) - 35
Total for Tuesday evening: 88
+Total projection for 2010-04-20: 131
Capture percentage for Tuesday evening: 67
Close to target here. Participation in the after-dinner
activities was clearly greater than for dinner. Very good
variety of activities! No capacity issues that I am aware
of.
. . . . . . . . . .
Wednesday was not originally intended to be a multi-track
evening, but it turned out that way, with two feature
tracks (Trevi/Limo and MM), one second-track HH/dinner and
two second-track after-dinner activities.
Wednesday dinner:
6:00pm: Quiet Evening At Home HH and Dinner (See notes) - 8
7:00pm: Murder Mystery Interactive Dinner-Theater - 20
7:00pm: HH and Dinner (Trevi) - 37
Total for Wednesday dinner: 65
+Total projection for 2010-04-21: 145
Capture percentage for Wednesday dinner: 45
Wednesday evening:
7:00pm: Murder Mystery Interactive Dinner-Theater - 20
7:30pm: M Resort Get-together (M Resort) - 4
8:00pm: Pajama Party (See notes) - 12
9:30pm: Limousine Tour (Caesars) - 32
Total for Wednesday evening: 68
+Total projection for 2010-04-21: 145
Capture percentage for Wednesday evening: 46
Although Wednesday had highly-successful activities, the
total number of attendees we captured at our combined
activities was less than on other evenings, and I do think
one factor was a capacity shortage, particularly with the
featured activities.
The two primary feature activities were at capacity, and
between them had a combined limit of 52, or just over 1/3
of our in-town attendees. I have to say that the combined
capacity limit was a contributing factor to the lower
capture percentage on Wednesday.
. . . . . . . . . .
Thursday, like Wednesday, did not capture as many of our
attendees as did other evenings. However, hard limits on
the feature activities did not exist, and we did show a
somewhat higher percentage of capture than Wednesday.
Thursday evening:
8:00pm: Level 107 Lounge (Stratosphere) - 36
8:30pm: Pity Party (Escape Lounge) - 45
Total for Thursday evening: 81
+Total projection for 2010-04-22: 138
Capture percentage for Thursday evening: 58
Thursday was better, "approaching target" if we want to put
an optimistic spin on it, but I would have to say it's still
showing capture numbers lower than we would like to see.
. . . . . . . . . .
For our second max-attendance bash ...
Friday evening (BB): 98
+Total projection for 2010-04-23: 129
Capture percentage for Friday evening: 75
Friday was right on target, with a 75% capture in a single
track activity for the prime evening hours.
. . . . . . . . . .
My conclusion is that for four of our six evenings, we did
a good job in serving the Teeming Millions who were in town
for the event.
The opportunity for improvement lies, for 2010, anyway, in
the two "feature activity" evenings. For one of these I do
believe there was a capacity issue (Wednesday), but for
the other (Thursday) I did not see any capacity issues.
I'm sure that we had quite a few individual and group "do
your own thing" activities those evenings, which is a Good
Thing<tm>. However, I'm also sure that we had some who did
get left out as well. :(
Comments?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Successes and issues:
I would like to begin some discussion on our high and low
points from last month's event.
I would like this to be both backward and forward looking,
examining what went right/wrong, and how these observations
can be carried forward toward more effective events in the
future.
. . . . . . . . . .
Let's discuss ...
We had two very strong large gatherings. Both of them worked
quite well and I do suspect that they will be very highly
rated.
I think that two is the right number for maximum-attendance
functions. To be successful, these need to be generalized,
appeal to a wide audience, and have a mainstream/safe
balance. Quality Social Time needs to be the primary theme
of the maximum-attendance gatherings.
The clear winner is the Welcome Celebration at Firefly. We
paid special attention to newcomer hospitality and getting
beginners there. I heard of no major comfort issues, nor did
I observe any cases where an attendee gave vibes that he/she
was uncomfortable or not included. We had three volunteers
who were keeping and eye out for this, and this approach
appeared to help, greatly! Ditto with bringing the group
from the Beginner Open House en masse.
Believe it or not I heard some concerns prior to the activity
regarding such things as the venue being less conducive to
comfort for the newcomers, concerns about access and parking,
etc.
I think the particular venue (Firefly Plaza) hit that "Sweet
Spot" regarding mainstream/comfort balance, in that it was
unquestionably mainstream, yet comfortable for beginners,
once they were in and settled, that is. :) IMAO, the Blue Ox
last year also hit that sweet spot, but Firefly was a bit
more upscale and classy than the neighborhood bar atmosphere
of the Blue Ox.
Other factors helped, as have been noted, such as the full
menu, reasonable drink prices, and no cover charge. I'm very
sure that they sold far more food than if they would have
imposed a limited menu upon us.
One issue. :(
Despite our outstanding success, apparently one of our
volunteers put on a competing off-schedule option in the
same timeslot and encouraged some others to forego the
Firefly affair and to instead attend her other option.
This, ladies, is expressly un-cool! It's contrary to the
spirit of DLV! :(
If for any reason you don't want to attend our special
maximum-attendance activities, then don't! However, please
don't encourage others to skip what are perpetually-requested
opportunities to socialize with the majority of the
attendees. :( There are plenty of OTHER timeslots in which to
gather a group of your buds and go off and do your own thing!
Our one or two maximum-attendance gatherings need to be
"sacred", in that we do not, collectively or individually,
plan, promote, or even acknowledge any other activities in
those timeslots!
I don't think it's too much to ask for volunteers to spend
1-2 hours at least "making an appearance" at our major
maximum-attendance activities. Who knows? You may just meet
some really great people to include in your DYOT sessions!
. . . . .
The second clear winner this year was Bahama Breeze, and I
admit that I had concerns about this one. It almost seemed
like we were planning Bahama Breeze for our ending bash for
lack of other options, and I admit that up until midpoint in
our activity sign-up, I was concerned about getting a critical
mass for the BB.
For a bottom line on this one:
This was the strong ending we've waited many years for!
Why did it work? Several reasons. One was the size of and
the attitude of the crowd. The crowd was "up"!
We ended on an uptick this year. We did not have that
fizzle-out which we've dreaded for many years. Likewise,
we did not have that abrupt end right after dinner. The
crowd lingered, socialized, danced, etc. Very good dose
of the Quality Social Time.
As we had on Monday, we had a good 1/3 of the gang follow
along to the featured after-activity (Paris) for the later
evening.
One thing I sure noticed is that some who typically make
an appearance at things like this and then take off to
dine and socialize elsewhere stuck around and appeared
to sincerely enjoy it. Yes, I do think that the presence
of our more gregarious attendees at the major activities
does indeed make a difference!
Yes, we had some complaining that we ended on a Friday
the year, and I think that ending on a Friday was one of
the reasons we had a strong ending. We had less of a
last-day exodus than we see when we end on a Saturday,
and we had the BB activity while DLV was still on the
peak of an upper, as opposed to on the brink of a downer!
IMAO, the Sunday-Friday timespan worked well!
. . . . .
We also had some very strong feature activities.
The Trevi/Limo track was particularly strong this year.
Trevi was great as usual. I still have a feeling, however,
that we could capture more of our newer attendees for this
if we could do something to help them out with the comfort
issue of walking through the busy casino and mall areas.
. . . . .
I think one reason for the Limo Tour success this year was
sticking to proven principles and not trying to make a good
thing better. Best example was JoAnn's observation that last
year's omission of the "walk of the cats" downtown was only
a validation that it needed to occur.
Another lesson learned in recent years is to limit the
number of limos. Let the demand exceed the supply somewhat
and keep the tour more manageable. We were a total sell-
out plus we had enough come-forward fill-ins that we did
not need to go through the motions of contacting those on
the phone standby list in order to back-fill for no-shows.
. . . . .
The Pity Party was almost a third major social gathering.
I'm really glad we kept this one as a low-cost stand-alone
activity. We need to keep it that way!
. . . . .
We had a number of very strong smaller activities.
Irish Pub Dinner, Beauty Bar Karaoke, PTs Dinner, Jam
Session, Charles Bar, just to name a few.
The Divas Las Vegas Frank Marino Show was another clear
winner this year!
Late Evening Dancing was another!
. . . . .
Something new and very different for 2010 was the daily
hotel get-togethers. I think it's far too early to assess
any kind of a definitive success or failure. I think we
need to let this one run 1-2 more years at least, tweak
the program where adjustments need to be made, and then
make a decision as to its overall permanence.
One factor which plays an important role in the Hotel
Hostess Program is the availability and willingness of
volunteers to perform the Hotel Hostess role. At two of
our four hotels, those which had smaller DLV contingencies,
we had zero volunteers for the role. For the second most
utilized hotel we had a shortage, in particular, nobody
for the first day.
There is most definitely a "critical mass" factor in play
here.
. . .
Volunteer resource exhaustion is a topic in itself, and I
think we saw it this year. In particular, it was like pulling
teeth to get those last few volunteers to do some very badly
needed smaller dining activities. These were EASY ones. All
that had to be done was the absolute minimum of naming a
place and agreeing to be there. That's it! No cold calling,
no negotiating with vendors, no busy work, low maintenance.
What happened was that those who stepped forward to do this
were not those doing little or nothing, but those already
doing multiple other things. Our overall volunteer commitment
was met not by sharing the load equitibly, but by increasing
the load on a few who were already well-loaded! :(
Yes, last summer there was pressure to increase the length of
DLV to 7 days. I don't see how that would have been possible
with the total volunteer resources available! Don't get me
wrong on this. Our volunteer force did a dynamite job this
year, but the load could have been shared more fairly!
. . . . .
Restroom:
We did, unfortunately, have a handful of restroom issues and
incidents this year. :( Here are the ones I'm aware of.
1. Trevi. Twice I was in the stall and I clearly heard loud
male voices in the ladies room. Gina made a similar report.
2. Mermaids downtown, during the Limo Tour. One particular
employee did not like what one of our people did.
3. Sahara. Late evening gaming. Discussed to death on the
Discussion Forum.
4. Las Palmas and Bahama Breeze. Very similar reports.
Uneasiness with mom and kids in ladies room.
5. Bahama Breeze. Unisex locked at first.
One observation I've made this year is that it appears that
the same mistakes which were being made the better part of
a decade ago, those mistakes which formed the basis of our
restroom guidelines, are once again being repeated.
There's an obvious failure to learn, collectively, from the
lessons hard-learned in years past!
Two items, both from conversations in the Discussion Forum,
particularly bother me, and do explain to me why incidents
are on the rise.
1. Those who speak in support of poor practice, such as that
of fraternizing with curious GGs in restrooms and such.
2. Those whose experience in real-world mainstream general
public is minimal, who are purporting to speak with some
degree of expertise on the topic. Those individuals should
be listening and learning, taking it all in, and not doling
out advice!
One thing I'm becoming aware of is that the experience with
public restrooms which many of our attendees have is under
very controlled conditions, such as at TG conventions, gay
bars, facilities used for support groups, etc. Not true
real-world general-public mainstream experience.
. . . . .
A few minor miscellaneous issues:
Joe's: Several reports of staff being non-accommodating. I
don't know what to say here, but I hope the tip (or lack of
same) reflected the level of satisfaction.
Las Palmas - Reports of rowdy patrons. Apparently I left
before any of this happened, but things like this can scare
the heck out of newbees, or even those with experience.
. . . . .
One particular dress issue:
Although there was quite a bit of discussion regarding this,
there were few reports, if any, made to the appropriate
persons in real time, and I'm unaware of any explicit requests
for action to be taken.
I know the primary coordinator of record at the Trevi activity
was aware of the situation, and that a brief discussion did
occur, but no decision to take action was made.
I also admitted that I may have been partly responsible for
the dress issue at Trevi. The individual in question did
approach me and asked if a Victorian ballgown was appropriate
for the Limo Tour. My response was that it was close to
impossible to overdress for the Limo Tour, but no mention
of Trevi nor any other activities was made. Lesson learned.
Preceding activities need to be considered in cases like this.
I did hear a number of third-person reports concerning
various other dress issues, reports of age/size inappropriate
dress, etc.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Updating our electorate:
One housekeeping item we need to take care of prior to the
convening of the 2011 ORG group is adjusting the list of
those who will have voting status regarding the 2011 event.
Our standing rules state that those of voting status are
those who are on record for coordinating or assisting with
at least one DLV activity within the past TWO annual events.
I would like all of you, particularly those who have
coordinated activities in 2009 or 2010 to look over this
list and check for omissions. The primary source for
this were the "Thanks" listings from the 2009 and 2010
Large Final Mailings.
Aiko
Alanna
Amy
Annie R.
Bob
Britney
Cynthia
Danielle
Diane
Edy
Eileen
Gina
Ginger
Holly
Jamie Renae
JoAnn
Katie
Kim Komplin
Kimberly Kael
Kumiko
Lisa
Marcia
Mardi
Marilyn
Marisa
Mary Beth
Michelle (NZ)
Mindy
Nora
Norma
Randi
Rosada
Sarah
Sarona
Susan R.
Suzane
Tracy
Vanessa
Vivian C.
Please report any omissions. Thanks, gang! :)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Voluntario:
Rosada writes:
>I'd like to volunteer next year to host a dinner at a local
>Mexican restaurant. Maybe a restaurant that has atmosphere
>and mariachi music.
Let's see, a restaurant with Mariachi music?
I wonder where we might find one? :) :) :)
Seriously, hold that thought. I'm sure this would work for
a mid-size or even possibly a large-scale thing next year.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Thoughts on no-host activities:
I would like to circle back to this once-covered item as I
have some further thoughts and the more I think of it, I do
think we did the right thing here.
Edy writes:
>I did not see any girls for the lunch at the Dillards end
>of the Mall and I went to the show area for the one o'clock
>show and saw nobody again. I decided not to wait for the two
>o'clock show to see if someone may come. Lets ask for feedback
>from anyone who may have come.Hope I did not let anyone down.
>We did have some confusion beforehand where we were going to eat.
>I think this is a worthwhile listed event on an impromptu
>basis, ie not needing a volunteer.
The premise here is that there are some things which should
be announced or scheduled, but have no official DLV presence
in the form of a designated DLV representative on site.
I've been thinking more about this principle, and in
particular how it involves a repetitious complaint we've
received over the years. That is that somebody takes the
effort to go to a venue, in anticipation of having a good
time and meeting others, finds nobody there, and ends up
leaving in disappointment.
I don't think we had any cases of this in 2010, and I do
think it was our attention to the risk of this happening
that prevented it. Yes, we had a few cases where a volunteer
was present, but encountered few or no DLVers.
I think it's much better to have a volunteer show up and
find no attendees, than it is to have attendees show up
and find no others.
If it's important enough to announce, and to recommend for
our people, it's important enough to provide welcoming and
at least semi-official hospitality.
If it's of interest to one person to the degree that she (or
he) thinks that it should be announced or scheduled, it should
be enough of an interest to that person that she (or he) will
be willing to act as a DLV representative and show up, even if
only to provide a friendly face and welcome the others.
I think we should continue to provide a high degree of such
things as welcoming, hospitality, and an atmosphere of
inclusion. If something appears on our schedule, it should
mean that attendees are welcome, can reasonably expect there
to be some kind of visible DLV presence, and will be welcomed
if they should make the effort to attend.
Comments?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Administrivia:
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Diva Las Vegas 2010
(concluded)
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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