There was a event scheduled at one of the local colleges, not far from we live that was said to be a speaking event with the writer Max Brooks from The Zombie Survival Guide fame. Mar really liked his book and we thought cool but for a week or more no one could get answers from the student event organizers about if you had to pay, was he going to sign books, or anything until the day of the event when they said it was going to be free but first come seating to students. Then they said it was free to students but $20 dollars to everyone else. Then it was free to all and they couldn't understand why all this same day confusion was causing issues with people.
Only a school with this much entitlement and this much money would go back and worth on money issues like this like it doesn't mean anything. I know many people who wanted to come but didn't want to drive a long way not knowing firmly if they could get in. The official website of the student organization running the event, on the college website, hadn't been updated in months.
Come on. If you don't know anything about putting on an event study the press releases and materials and procedures others have used in putting on their event to learn how to do things yourself. Hey, sorta what you are there for.
You know, in a college.
Being a self-publisher I have to do a lot of things writers normally don't do like creating covers and publicity and the like, but the one way I can tell you how no one will take you serious, its not NOT making mistakes, mistakes are understanding when you are not a trained professional in something, it's acting like they don't matter.
We decided to go since it wasn't that far from where we live and when we got there we got more confusion and people acting like not having answers wasn't that big a deal. I ranted about this last night during the event on my Twitter if you want to check it out but it went short of like this "Do students get in first? "Doesn't matter, it's not going to be full up." "Will he be signing?" "Probably" "Will there be a limitations on what he will sign?" ".....vacant look..."
The event wasn't advertised much even though they were bragging about all the places they put ads. Hell the night before a local theater was sold out with probably double the sale wanting to get in to a showing of the season premiere of the Walking Dead but nothing was said there as far as I know.
We wouldn't have even known about it if our local comic book store hadn't reposted something about it on Facebook {these people should study our local comic shop, they know how to do events.}
That being said none of use were surprised when in a community that loves zombies- we have zombie walks, zombie proms, and all sorts of zombie fun this event wasn't even close to half full, in a small venue, and the people we talked to when we got there weren't expecting it to be?
We actually overheard some of them talking about how much it cost to get him and laughing. Goes back to that entitlement word I used. And we deal with these people all the time living near the college campus.
I've helped run events, I really hope these people don't go into this sort of things as a career because as I said on my Twitter, when your student event looks clearly to be a student event you failed.
But lets get to Max Brooks. He was very funny throughout. Very entertaining. I'm really glade we got to see him and he handled the trolls that were only there to get get noticed or for credit with a blade sharp tongue. I had heard before that he was cool to hear speak but this was way better than I was thinking going in.
See, not many people at all. A shame.
Couldn't get good stage pics. They had the lights turned up too high for a already well lighted venue.
Mar and her sister Trill got copies of The Zombie Survival Guide signed and photos with him. I wish this event wasn't such a clusterfuck or I would have picked up a copy of the G.I. Joe book he wrote and gotten that signed also.
*If you like the blood splatter effect on those photos I learned how to do it watching this You Tube video. Might be of good use for people doing Halloween stuff this month.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment