But my baby's so vain she is almost a mirror.

[reddragdiva]

• God Bless America (courtesy jwz). Just wait till they get on reality TV, it'll be wall-to-wall this sort of thing.

• You are obviously not SUPPORTING THE SCENE and are PERSONALLY ATTACKING THE WGW ORGANISERS if you show unwillingness to gobble their holy gothic faeces with a big enough smile. Jesus fucking wept. Is there any reason to let these people near your money ever again?

arkady is back! Happy, relaxed and utterly buggered. We came home from Paddington last night to pizza and collapse. She went straight to work this morning (only five days of her eleven off were paid). Silly girl.

Today appears to be hay fever day. It's FUCKING NOVEMBER.

Tonight we go to see Neil Gaiman being interviewed by Lenny Henry, who apparently did the audiobook version of Anansi Boys. I really hope the signing queue isn't as awful as Pratchett's. (Some hope.)

Saturday night I went to Slimes, showing off the waist clincher, which got nice reactions from sxxy deth chyx I didn't know with fabulous breasts. Spent ages talking about relationships with ali_anarres. She and daneel_olivaw were being cute again. Also long geek babble with melston and a chat with crystalfayre. I left around four. Sunday I was half-trashed all day, but did manage to get at least a bit of stuff done.

Who is going to B-Movie on Friday?

Comments

[cookwitch.livejournal.com]

I was actually slightly tempted to go to Whitby in April - now I think it's safe to say that I'm not.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Lenny Henry's a good mate of Neil - he's checked in the acknowledgements to Neverwhere. Enjoy! Try to get his phone number for me!

[sweh.livejournal.com]

If you watch the DVD for Neverwhere you'll see that Lenny Henry is credited in the opening title sequence in the "series devised by" section (if my memory is correct).

There's a nice interview "extra" with Neil on the DVD which is fun :-)

[arkady.livejournal.com]

See, it's precisely Jo's attitude that disinclines me from ever attending Whitby again - that and the incresingly rip-off prices for tickets and the whole debacle at the Spa in April. Now she's fucked up over dates, but woe betide anyone who points out she's slipping up. We're all supposed to fall down and worship at her feet for the fact she deigns to continue with WGW, when the truth is that the evidence is overwhelmingly pointing to the fact that she couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery right now. It's a major event, and she's running it as a little back-bedroom concern - and it just isn't working.

[reddragdiva]

I would actually quite like to attend the October one (and would have liked to attend the April one), but not buying a Spa ticket.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

October's always going to be Wales for my daughter's birthday anyway. But to be honest, I did Whitby twice and enjoyed it - but after the way things have gone downhill in the past 18 months, to be honest it's tainted how I perceive Whitby. And it seems increasingly more and more people - previously "Whitby regulars" - are opting to give it a miss. In the past, the Hallowe'en weekend was a wilderness on LJ and IRC as there was a massive decampment to Whitby - but this year you'd have been hard pressed to tell the difference.

There are other events I'd rather attend, where the organisers don't feel the need to bad-mouth every customer who has a legitimate complaint over the way they've mishandled things.

At the end of the day, if you're not going to the Spa then how precisely is Whitby any different than going on a holiday to the seaside with a bunch of your mates for the weekend?

[jasontheknight.livejournal.com]

How has she "fucked up over dates"? Do you reckon she phoned up the Moor and Coast people and asked them to move their festival back a week for a laugh?

[reddragdiva]

I don't think Jo did. My issue is with her attitude to people that she laughingly wants to have as paying customers. Look at her own words and attitude in the links. I mean, what the fuck.

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's time to get Clear Channel to run it?

"Clear Channel presents: Gothapalooza!"

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

*nods* She's missing out on a lot of ways of making additional money which would make Whitby a world-class event, imho.

For example:
The Whitby tickets used to arrive with a gatefold brochure with details of the events. This was usually well-written, and very useful as it meant everyone knew what time things were starting without having to check constantly. Why not relaunch this, and make it bigger, and get advertising in it? I can think of plenty of bands, promoters and dressmakers who would be happy to pay for their ad to be seen by every single Whitby attendee.

Apropos of nothing

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

This is the first time I've actually recognised the lyric fragment in your subject quote in a long time.

Re: Apropos of nothing

[reddragdiva]

It's been wall-to-wall Birthday Party and Nick Cave for nearly a year now! This is not difficult!

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

You are obviously not SUPPORTING THE SCENE and are PERSONALLY ATTACKING THE WGW ORGANISERS if you show unwillingness to gobble their holy gothic faeces with a big enough smile

i love you. that's me done with buying spa tickets for the forseeable future, BTW. i can get drunk at the Elsi for free, and without getting abuse from anyone i've paid for the privilege.

[vampwillow]

well all I will say is that I went to the recent WGW not planning/expecting to to the spa ('cos of no ticket) but then got one cheap on the Friday afternoon so went to Jo's events.

I am *very* happy that I did. It was my first time at the spa evening events (last April I did daytimes only) and if I had known it was going to be such fun I would have spent the cash to buy a ticket at full price.

So far as next April is concerned, there were no previous *confirmed* dates for WGW and the 'error' (if one can call it that) is over the existence or not of MayDay being allowed to be on May 1st - which for some years it wasn't (it had to be the first Monday on or after May 2nd) - and a minor misunderstanding happened by some people *six months ahead* of the anticipated event. Attacking Jo over this is definitely not on imho.

I won't be at boomeevie (went off it somewhat) but should be at synthetic culture and April WGW.

dates

[sheridanwilde.livejournal.com]

there were dates posted in the spa for next year at last april. i didn't go to the spa this time so couldn't say what was or wasn't on the wall last week.

[sinibar.livejournal.com]

I believe the April 2006 dates had been officially released, someone please correct me if I'm talking twaddle.

It was always a risk that Moor and Coast would interfere with WGW. Risk management is in lesson 1 for organising anything, ever. IMO there should have been dialogue between the two to prevent problems.

That said, however, there is a well understood formula for when Moor and Coast is. Jo certainly should have known it. Similarly she should have known that May Bank Holiday is not a fixed date and can move. This, IMO, should have been identified as a risk and monitored.

It seems that it wasn't, or it wasn't done sufficiently well IMO.

Now, I suspect that Jo has never had any training in managing a project like this so may not be aware of the techniques that can be used to prevent this kind of cock-up. So I don't really blame her and I don't think many people at all are actually angry with her about this apparent mistake. It would seem that it was an honest oversight and people tend to forgive honest oversights.

I suspect most people are just frustrated that they've been inconvenienced. When this happens though that anger tends to be directed at the first perceived source of the problem. This is why being the messenger is a bad idea. Jo is the promoter and organiser of WGW and so is going to be on the recieving end of a tirade of abuse. That is what's going to happen. Again, this is well understood and she should have expected it. She should also know not to take any of it personally and not to get upset by it as most of it is just people letting off steam.

Unfortunately it appears that she did take it personally and that she did get very upset and posted some things that, well, they weren't good PR. That I believe is the main reason why people are being so snarky. If she'd just apologised for (allegedly) making a cock-up and said that she was doing everything she could to resolve the problems and ensure that it never happened again I don't think there would be half of the trouble that there now is.

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

what utterly fascinating drama. (And what a seriously awful business manner. I mean, fair dues to be upset about people whinging, but there's this whole concept of a business persona... Even if you think your customer is the most annoying twat on the planet you don't TELL him so when you're hoping to get his money, and you NEVER tell him so if you want repeat business. I'd think that should be fairly obvious.)

If you get a chance, ask if there's any way I could get my copy of Neverwhere signed- if I posted it somewhere or something. (There's Neph-history, y'see. When Neverwhere was on over here he recorded it and didn't watch it so we could watch it together the first time I ever came over. and then I got the book when it came out and it's the last proper book (as opposed to ebook or pdf) that I remember him reading. So it'd be cool to have it signed or something.)

[reddragdiva]

Meh! I'm now wishing I'd mentioned it earlier so I could have grabbed it off you!

[tephramancy.livejournal.com]

Goodness me, Jo's a very angry woman.

What a farce. I'm spending my Easter holidays in a converted cave in Southern Spain.

[reddragdiva]

It's not her fault, it's all those terribly abusive customers of hers who should stop questioning things so rudely just because they spend a fucking fortune on them and have to plan six to nine months ahead to be there.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

1) Yes, my garden is flowering again, I tried to persuade it not to and told it that it would die when the frost came, but it isn't listening.

2) Now that I'm reading what current Whitby-goers have to say when they're not in a noisy room, I will be less surprised when everybody seems to be less nice than they were in previous years at Whitby. What happened to us?

3) I can't help feeling a little bit of schachenfreunde at the people who were sure enough of their income and the stable state of their life that they booked a room six months in advance and are now complaining.

4) I also think Jo's going about this slightly the wrong way, but having said that I'm being equally disorganised about my PhD.

[daneel-olivaw.livejournal.com]

Ability to plan 6 months ahead is not the same as being rich - some people simply have to work that way in order to meet the expectations of their employers. And let's be clear on this - we are paying a company (Topmum) to organise an event, and that company pays Jo - we are paying professional ticket prices (approaching 50% of Reading Festival), and have the right to expect professional conduct, not flames on personal journals for expressing a negative opinion. 6 months before issue of compensation for overselling a venue is disgusting. Shifting the date after it's been confirmed for a similar period is foolish. People have a right to be angry about this.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

I'm coming to B-Movie if I can crash at yours! :)
Seeya later in the Gaiman queue.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Is there any reason to let these people near your money ever again?

I'm sure there is, but my UK festival money for this year is going on Beyond the Veil in Leeds. It's not the same, but we had a fabulous time last year so are definitely going again.

Which is over Easter weekend. Does that mean it clashes with Whitby? I'd be really upset if it did and that created a problem for BTV.

[kest]

I dunno, I find it kind of interesting that Convergence always has a committee that its very very clear are volunteers, and we're expected to support and mostly respect the enormous amount of hard work they put in that largely goes unseen. And if they fuck up there Will be Conversations in public places, and *they* know that, know that they're accountable, but they also know they'll be personal conversations.

Whitby seems to me to be like that from Jo's perspective, and like a music event with a company behind it from a lot of other people's perspective. Which is an odd dynamic. With a company, you have an impersonal approach. It is like a machine you put money in and get product out. Perhaps Jo *doesn't* have quite the experience or ability or maybe motivation to run an event of the size Whitby has become in this professional way. She's running it out of love, not necesarily like business that's oriented around the bottom line, which gets her the worst of both worlds.

If it is, in fact, a business...many businesses stumble and fail. I would hate for Whitby to be one of those.