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Welcome to ConRunner, a Why and How-To reference for Convention organizers.

ConRunner was started in July 2005, and we are currently working on 337 articles. You are invited to join us, and to help make them better.

We hope to document all aspects of running a successful convention. Please browse our pages, and if you have something to add, please do so. Registration is required to edit or add pages, however anyone may browse articles.

Featured Article - Progress_Reports Progress Reports are publications sent out before the convention, telling people what is happening with the convention planning and what they can expect when they arrive at the convention. They can be as small as postcards or one-page flyers and as big as booklets. It is fairly traditional for the last PR (before the convention) to contain travel details on how to find the site, plus a reminder of things like whether the member needs to bring photo ID or the mailing label from the PR to "prove" who they are. It may also remind the member to bring other items (e.g. formal attire for the banquet, a cake for the charity cake stall, a robot for the robot battles, fanzines for the fanzine library etc.) Remember the Seven Things! Many people opt out of paper progress reports, preferring to read them on the convention website as PDFs. Send out an email with a link when they are published. Because that makes them public documents, conventions generally ask members if they wish to opt out of any membership lists they might contain. If the website has a membership list, there is little point repeating it in the PR. It is tempting to abandon PRs entirely, relying on social media, but this is unwise as many people refuse to use Facebook and Twitter, and indexing and search tools are poor. At the very least have an update area of your website containing the vital PR information.

Departments There is no One True Way to organize your committee into departments. Often times a convention will run for a few years one way, and then combine departments that share a lot of the same resources or purpose into a single department. Or a department may split, as the needs of the convention grow. Do what works for you, and recruit reliable department heads. Create, publish, and maintain a clear set of objectives and methods to document continuity of what works, what doesn't, and why. Check on the senior staff regularly to make sure they're getting whatever support they need from you and the rest of the committee, pre-con and at-con. Department heads then recruit what staff and at-con volunteers they need to accomplish the goals of the department. Have your department heads document the procedures of running their department, and train people under them so that you have a pool of people ready to be future department heads, and you are capturing knowledge from one year to the next. A common way to split a science fiction convention into departments is like so: Convention Committee Chair Vice Chair Executive Committee Communications Hotel Liaisons Hotel List of Lists Blocking Rooms Hotel Food (Catering) Parking Resume Resume Wrangler (Meeting Specs) Guest Liaisons Interpreters: see Anime convention. Green Room: as distinct from consuite. Party Maven Access Programming: sometimes divided into Tracks MAIN Panels Receptions and meals Opening, Closing, and Award Ceremonies Business Meetings Dance Masquerade CosPlay Hall Costume Concert Children's Programming Literature Media Video Programming Karaoke Short Films Science Filk Art Art Show Art Auction Artist Alley Gaming Table-Top LARP Video and Computer Gaming Contests: Young writers contest Anime Music Video Original Animation Fan Art Student Art Dealers room Clubs Operations Information Desk Logistics Transportation Route Planning Move Team Program Operations Tech Crew Room setup (see also Hotel Liaison) Security Emergency response Treasury Registration Pre-Registration At the Door Reg Hospitality Green Room ConSuite Staff Lounge Publications Web site Progress Reports Program Book Pocket Program At-con newsletter Advertising Publicity Newspaper Television Special Events Blood Drive Special Displays Workshops Volunteers You can easily see how Volunteers might also go under Operations, Masquerade and Dance under Programming, etc. A small enough convention may not have a person dedicated to publicity separate from their publications head, or an information desk, or whatever. And of course, some conventions don't have Art Shows, or Charity Auctions, or whatever. Try to pick a structure that best supports what you do and how you want to do it.

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