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

[jasontheknight.livejournal.com]

Everyone's entitled to be defensive when they are criticised for things that aren't actually their fault. Issues such as communication are being worked on in the wake of the last WGW, and when things are communicated the WGW team get slagged off anyway.

It's all very well trying to look oh-so-clever and tripping people up on their words, but most of the people that actually do this couldn't organise a night Upstairs at the Garage.

[reddragdiva]

Yes, but they're not asking people for actual fucking money. My essential question remains unanswered: why should I let them near them my money?

[elijahtc.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, well they've never done anything wrong be me all these years. And the business of reducing Spa capacity has Local Authority written all over it in big fun-destroying letters. I'm glad its Jo organising Whitby and not me - I'd have gone postal long ago. Dead goth splatter fest on CCTV!

[girfan.livejournal.com]

That is it.

Some people seem to think that Scarborough council want the festival to move to Scarborough so they have been doing things to make it so. No idea if this is true, but you would think they would have been nice enough to let Jo know of any policy changes before a WGW rather than during.

I know if I was in charge, I would have given up ages ago. Everyone complains when it isn't their kind of "perfect" yet never do anything to make it better.

[ladykathryn.livejournal.com]

See, here's the thing. Either it is a personal endeavour, in which case you get to be pissed, orit is a business venture, in which case you get to say "Oh noes! I just made a whole bunch of my customers unhappy! What is to be done?" You do not get to take offense personally at bad business decisions gone wrong. Additionally, an event doesn't get to be both a group effort and one person's life's work. If you get all the glory, you get all the work too.

Not, actually, that I care, as I have no intention of going. English seaside in April, yech.

[jasontheknight.livejournal.com]

Slag off the event, not the person though. It's the same theory that allows me to have friends that hate my band.

[jasontheknight.livejournal.com]

The tendency has been, with the April capacity fiasco and now this (which shouldn't even really be a problem worthy of the name) is that people tend to launch straight into Jo about things that she has no control over.

[reddragdiva]

Actually, they mostly weren't. e.g. edwardscissors said he was pissed off at the £110 increase in accomodation and, oddly enough, felt fairly justified in being pissed off at it. Jo appears not to consider that legitimate cause for complaint. Again, I say: what the fuck.

[jasontheknight.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but there's nothing Jo can do about what people charge for accommodation. Is he going to have a go at her if petrol prices go up that week as well?

[reddragdiva]

He was pointing out it caused real problems.

Basically, if you put on a vastly public event that people spend hundreds of pounds on, and something goes wrong, you'd have to be on crack to expect people not to express their annoyance. Surely you're not endorsing her breathtaking public relations acumen.

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

but he didn't have a go at her about it at all. that's the thing.

[reddragdiva]

I'm actually less concerned about the event than about the person. It's not the event making those ridiculous comments, it's the person representing it and asking for money.

[ladykathryn.livejournal.com]

If it's an event problem and not a person problem, sure.

[reddragdiva]

I mean, if you guys made a habit of posting "let's hear your band then! how dare you!" comments on the journals of anyone who said "That Deathboy, they're a pile of poo alright", people would think of you as dicks as well, for the same reason. As opposed to "Well, damn, guess we'll just have to use our boyish charm instead of our musical genius" or something.

[girfan.livejournal.com]

Thank you for saying this!

99% of those who are complaining the loudest have never (afaik) organised more than a birthday party or a pub meet with mates.

I have empathy with Jo because I organised an event with 700+ people and 10 bands and know how hard it is to please everyone all of the time. It doesn't happen.

Frankly, I wish everyone who is complaining the most not consider going to Whitby (even if they don't get a ticket) during a WGW.

[reddragdiva]

Yes, but these 99% are the customers. It's ridiculous to expect them not to be pissed off.

I'm not annoyed at the date change, I'm just flabbergasted at the way the public faces of the organisation comport themselves when dealing with the people they expect to be giving them money. Are you endorsing Jo's breathtaking public relation skills?

[girfan.livejournal.com]

As far as I see it's maybe 10 of the 1200 customers, and some haven't paid for Spa tickets the last few times anyways, and probably never will.

The fact that so many people have attacked her personally about things she had no control over rather than maybe consider that some of the issues were not of her doing (like the changes the council makes or info not getting to her about other events) and she was angry and defended herself. If I was in her shoes, I may have said it differently, but I still would have been angry about people saying I was "fucking useless" and more.

I was working April WGW and saw the incompetence of the new bouncers firsthand and was part of the team that bent over backwards to make sure that people were taken care of the best way possible at that point in time. Maybe things could have been handled slightly different, but the majority of people badmouthing her weren't there. I was.

For example, one friend who has whinged at length on her LJ about how crap WGW has become was guestlisted by a band at April WGW, so 2 paying people were unable to enter that night thanks to her freebee (all workers, crew, bands and guests were counted, some repeatedly by the bouncers if they had to get stuff from outside the venue).

I'll be the first to admit that it can be hard to delegate when an event is your "baby" and Jo has delegated more this year than ever before, but it seems that a few people in particular are lying in wait to jump on her for every little thing rather than offering to help.

[reddragdiva]

"The fact that so many people have attacked her personally about things she had no control over"

And the fact that so many didn't but she acted as though they had?

I know event organisation is a series of nightmares; shit happens. But is there any way someone could convince Jo not to do her own PR?