This was a thing since the beginning at Confurence (alluded to here )-- I have a long private message on file from a direct source who talks about a self-named "Team Evil" of trolls doing nazi-like RP and undermining, like booking the con's Executive Suite reserved for con space ahead of the event to deprive the goers of the space. There was other deliberate interference to interrupt business in the dealer room; and then there was the so-called "embezzling" issue that shows how operating on a shoestring can tie you in a tangle.
The way people in-the-know tell it, in the 90's they didn't have Paypal, and a year-round account to process credit payments was prohibitively costly for one weekend. The workaround was having a comic shop process credit payments -- but then after the con, the shop fell into unbearable debt/tax issues (or bad dealing by the owner) and the money wasn't there to share out. Resulting in the con founders taking on debt to cover it out of duty to make things right for the dealers, while being bashed online at the same time as if they'd stolen from anyone.
That's part of structural weakness these cons have always had, that's deliberately leveraged by the current-day "Team Evil" of hate groups in fandom who want to wedge their nasty asses in where they're not wanted. So cons have a dilemma about hiring professional security instead of relying on volunteers, and potentially jacking up costs or scaling down the cons, because we can't have nice things.
How this ties to attendance could be interesting. I don't know exactly how running shows at nightclubs works in every place, but it's generally very regulated, with terms like a certain amount of security for every 50 or 100 people. When Frolic furry dance in San Francisco was facing the loss of its long time venue, one of the issues was attendance regularly overflowing and certain activities on the street bringing... risks. (I take the fifth about what went on in that alley.) A really good reason they'd stayed in that (awesome) space was because it was a historic venue (one of the oldest operating gay bars), so it was grandfathered in past newer regulation. They didn't have to hire as much security as other more expensive places would. They always want to keep the door cost low.
With con attendance on a steep upward curve, there may be a rise of structural issues such as increasing risks and liability and scrutiny (Boozy Badger got into a different issue about legality here, which may put certain cons in a very grey area.)
If you don't know the exact size of the con, neither may regulators or others who'd use the transparency against them. If you like what cons do, maybe let them run their own show like they feel is the best way to run it, or be one of the volunteering and higher paying stakeholders who can help them get a better budget and urge them to use it.
A decentralized, volunteer-based fandom has upsides and downsides. An upside is open access and low costs. A downside is being run on a shoestring with little contingency budget for things like malicious vandals/trolls deliberately causing security costs to cripple or cancel the con.
This was a thing since the beginning at Confurence (alluded to here )-- I have a long private message on file from a direct source who talks about a self-named "Team Evil" of trolls doing nazi-like RP and undermining, like booking the con's Executive Suite reserved for con space ahead of the event to deprive the goers of the space. There was other deliberate interference to interrupt business in the dealer room; and then there was the so-called "embezzling" issue that shows how operating on a shoestring can tie you in a tangle.
The way people in-the-know tell it, in the 90's they didn't have Paypal, and a year-round account to process credit payments was prohibitively costly for one weekend. The workaround was having a comic shop process credit payments -- but then after the con, the shop fell into unbearable debt/tax issues (or bad dealing by the owner) and the money wasn't there to share out. Resulting in the con founders taking on debt to cover it out of duty to make things right for the dealers, while being bashed online at the same time as if they'd stolen from anyone.
That's part of structural weakness these cons have always had, that's deliberately leveraged by the current-day "Team Evil" of hate groups in fandom who want to wedge their nasty asses in where they're not wanted. So cons have a dilemma about hiring professional security instead of relying on volunteers, and potentially jacking up costs or scaling down the cons, because we can't have nice things.
How this ties to attendance could be interesting. I don't know exactly how running shows at nightclubs works in every place, but it's generally very regulated, with terms like a certain amount of security for every 50 or 100 people. When Frolic furry dance in San Francisco was facing the loss of its long time venue, one of the issues was attendance regularly overflowing and certain activities on the street bringing... risks. (I take the fifth about what went on in that alley.) A really good reason they'd stayed in that (awesome) space was because it was a historic venue (one of the oldest operating gay bars), so it was grandfathered in past newer regulation. They didn't have to hire as much security as other more expensive places would. They always want to keep the door cost low.
With con attendance on a steep upward curve, there may be a rise of structural issues such as increasing risks and liability and scrutiny (Boozy Badger got into a different issue about legality here, which may put certain cons in a very grey area.)
If you don't know the exact size of the con, neither may regulators or others who'd use the transparency against them. If you like what cons do, maybe let them run their own show like they feel is the best way to run it, or be one of the volunteering and higher paying stakeholders who can help them get a better budget and urge them to use it.