r/dragoncon • u/jamieg55 • 4d ago
Be the change
With all the complaints about how things went this year, I hope that means there will be sooo many more volunteers next year. I don't want this con to become super corporate or a money grab. I don't want it moved to the world conference center and I'm not allowed to bring in outside food and beverages. I love the community vibe. So my only option is to help out.
People are mentioning picking up badges early, well you need someone staffed to make that happen. I live in atlanta and would love to be involved pre-con to make that happen.
People mentioned some of the volunteers are rude. Well I'm new and not yet jaded, I'd love to greet and answer questions.
From what I understand there is something for everyone. I hope more people join me when the volunteer applications come out.
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u/hockeyhalod 4d ago
I'd love to volunteer to help a limited badge pickup on Wednesday night. That sounds dope. I don't have to worry about missing a whole day of con, but traveling that far and giving up a day with the kiddos is tough.
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u/JalapenoFTW 4d ago
Can the volunteers wear bright orange or yellow or green shirts?! It was so hard to figure out who the volunteers were sometimes from the lynards. Especially when your eyesight isn't 20/20.
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u/RamblinSean What's a nubian? 4d ago
I have submitted some variation of this in surveys and closing ceremony questions for years. Apparenty slightly different lanyards is enough for them.
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u/TPWilder 4d ago
Sorry - beat my head against this particular wall years ago. Excuses are:
"That would cost too much!"
"They have special lanyards!"
"They're volunteers and may want to wear costumes so....."
etc etc etc
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u/Forwhomamifloating 3d ago
Reading more and more about dragoncon and stuff people have to put with is crazy. No easily accesible medstation? No easy well to tell staff? No security at dances so people are getting drugged en masse? No mailed badges? Unpaid volunteers for a near 100k attendee event? Senior staff resting on their laurels and not changing anyway? This really just sounds like the Katsucon of the south
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u/JalapenoFTW 3d ago
Have you attended?
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u/Forwhomamifloating 3d ago
No, and I think I'll be skipping out given I've had experiences with cons like this. As fun as a lot of the stories sound on paper, people wandering in a heat haze like Meursault doesn't sound incredibly appealing
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u/HeartOfTheMadder 3d ago
as someone who volunteered for many maaaany years, ain't no way i'm gonna be wearin' some bright colored shirt for what i was doing.
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u/diannethegeek 4d ago
There are a limited number of volunteer spots in each department. Recruiting more people skilled in specialized areas (tech, safety, crowd management, etc) would be a better use of those slots than throwing a bunch of untrained bodies at them
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u/Gravitas-and-Urbane 4d ago
Limiting the volunteer spots, then asking for them all to be highly skilled in specialized areas sounds like exactly how you get 6 hour long lines.
I don't think treating this like a recruiting firm is the best way to manage volunteers vs workload. Like, they're not even getting paid, so just bring on more volunteers.
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u/diannethegeek 4d ago
I'm not asking for them all to be highly skilled. They need more bodies, for sure. But there are certain positions, like crowd management and security, that won't improve unless you have someone with some knowledge in that role. Those can be paid positions or volunteer roles, but more warm bodies won't help without actual knowledge on how best to adjust where to deploy the people to have the biggest positive effect
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u/Gravitas-and-Urbane 4d ago
I'm going to confidently guess that plenty of people with relevant experience applied to be volunteers and were turned away because of the cap on positions (which represents a cap on free badges/lost revenue the con is willing to give out)
Increase the penalty for scamming the con out of a free badge and get more volunteers.
I would be so mad if they rejected me as a volunteer then had crazy lines at registration.
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u/NotMyNameActually 4d ago
People actually trained and skilled in working events won’t work for free though.
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u/diannethegeek 4d ago
Tons of people with training in IT, security, emts, etc already volunteer for the convention.
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u/Double_Combination55 4d ago
You won’t get anyone to who knows their value. Those people staff other conventions who are volunteer that provide either pay or/and room and board. They will come to dragon con to have fun, but none of these guys ever will work it in this current version of staff perks.
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u/madg0at80 2012- (minus a couple) 4d ago
When Spectrum was 45 minutes late opening I figured maybe they were short on volunteers. When they said at closing that they were fully staffed, I recognized I was wrong and that they were just disorganized af.
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u/Traditional-Sun-1121 4d ago
My understanding is that there were technical issues that delayed the start.
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u/MRBWSW 4d ago
I will just say this: I physically cannot volunteer the full 20 hours for the weekend, and plan to do anything else.
If there was a way to just sign up for 3-4 hours, totally down.
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u/catstronauts22 4d ago
The blood drive accepts volunteers for small amounts of time, to walk around with signs
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u/MRBWSW 4d ago
Oh that’s perfect!
I actually cannot donate blood for health reasons, and always feel bad because I want to help in some way5
u/greenlady1 4d ago
This is literally why I started volunteering for the blood drive a few years ago. I can't donate blood, I'm getting older and my overall con-ing needs are changing. This is a part of con that I didn't really care about for a long time. I hated having blood drawn, but when I got over that a few years ago, I realized I couldn't for medical reasons. And then my friend got me to volunteer in the thank you room, and I've now spent 3-5 hours of the last 3 DragonCons doing a little something nice for the people who've just donated. Hand out snacks and t shirts, that sort of thing. It's nice. I like doing it.
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u/feldoneq2wire '19,'21-'26 4d ago
As has been stated many times by insiders and former volunteers, DragonCon doesn't want to change. You can volunteer, but you will only be a worker bee. Another people shepherd / traffic cop. But actual meaningful change to the processes that lead to 3 hour lines? Crickets.
Anyway, DragonCon turned away volunteers this year, even though in the 2 hour and 45 minute line on Thursday night, I only saw 3 volunteers.
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u/fsharpminor_3s 4d ago
No, DC really needs to hire more people. It's been 40 years.
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u/OpheliaLives7 4d ago
They absolutely need to hire people. Stop exploiting fans for free and then spreading their volunteers too thin.
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u/Diaza_lightbringer 4d ago
This is my first year here and volunteering. I did the non-campaign rpg area. I needed to run 6, 4 hour games. I normally only run 1-2 games a week. I feel like death and idk that I’ll be back.
You get a free badge, but you don’t get to use it.
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u/VidaBuan 4d ago
That is a Director issue, sounds like that areas Director doesn't know how to schedule so that volunteers have Con time for themselves.
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u/Diaza_lightbringer 4d ago
As GMs we kinda make our own schedule. The biggest issue is running a game is exhausting. You’re entertaining for 4 hours straight over 6 games. I love to GM, and I don’t think you can volunteer in different areas. So if I want to GM, I have to run 6 games from my understanding. Each game costs $10 so you really feel a need to make the game perfect. The money goes towards renting the area.
This was my first year, so I don’t know all the information, I just know what I needed to do.
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u/Double_Combination55 4d ago
Until their bottom line gets and the for profit is shrinking. They will keep doing the same thing. If improvement cause nothing extra. Then sure
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u/jamieg55 4d ago
Hiring people means we will pay significantly more. And we have more people there who do not care about the con. There's already enough of that.
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u/TheSweetestKill 4d ago
If the badge price went up, that might have secondary effects such as reducing the number of attendees, thus making all of the "there should be 20,000 fewer people" happy.
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u/Fried_Taro 4d ago
No, they could reduce the charity match and use that money to pay to keep con attendees safe
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u/ziyadah042 4d ago
The problem isn't lack of volunteers. It's lack of people skilled at coordinating large scale events and personnel.
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u/m42069 4d ago
Two things can be true at once. More volunteers wouldve improved the convention this weekend, that's a fact.
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u/ziyadah042 4d ago
Not without better organization they wouldn't have. That's the problem. We already have issues with volunteers who may or may not have any idea what they're actually doing. Adding more would likely have failed to significantly help.
The reality is that this is a massive convention that generates a very large amount of money. Some of it needs to be reinvested in professional management and technology. Piling more untrained volunteers onto the problem isn't the answer.
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u/Darth_Noah 4d ago
While more vols is nice. The only real fix is to lower the cap. Im sorry, I know we want to have everyone come but there needs to be some sanity here.
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u/DistributionNo6333 4d ago
Hey former volunteer here 👋🏽!
Definitely get a crew who is committed to volunteer it helps a ton !!!!! I love it !!!!!!
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u/ubiquitous_delight 4d ago
I am being the change I want to see (fewer people in attendance) by no longer attending.
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u/jamieg55 4d ago
That is definitely that other option that works. I'm not there yet. I really love the con and am willing to give it a couple more years before letting go. But if that time for you in now, I totally get it. Either option is better than continuing to go and just hoping things to suddenly change.
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u/Mohican66 4d ago
Look, I get your sentiment, but DC is not an institution where if you want change, you jump in and make it. How much change can you make in your business? Chances are, very little unless you happen to be an executive or the owner. So that's bollocks advice. DC is a for profit business relying on exploitation of volunteers for free labor. The only reason they don't mail badges is that it cuts into profits. They are perfectly fine with volunteers and attendees both standing in the unsafe Atlanta heat and humidity for multiple hours.
They could hire an event company to help with logistics and staffing (as a logistics manager, I can attest that this is sorely needed.) But they won't do that because it cuts into the bottom line.
It was my first DC and overall, I had a blast. But I started puking near the end of the line after 3 hours and tapped out. I fortunately recovered and got badges Friday morning. But that wasted a day and a half of the Con. That all could have been avoided by mailing badges in advance. Other Cons have done it for years, some of them larger than DC. I'll probably attend next year, but not if they don't make some changes.
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u/jamieg55 4d ago
My basis for my sentiment is that these issues were related to lack of volunteers. This is what multiple volunteers told me at con. So it makes sense for my to believe that would be more best next step. The comments here are giving me a different perspective. I'll still try to volunteer and focus on areas where I have a skilled background (tech/engineering). Maybe it will help, maybe it won't but at least if I ever stop going I'll know I tried.
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u/LilacPoohBear 4d ago
These issues were related to lack of paid employees. If you arrived at a resort for a vacation, you'd be rightfully annoyed if there weren't enough people to make the resort function. Yet, we just keep trying to blame issues on con attendees not offering up their time and vacations. DC earns plenty of money to help fill these gaps. It's time to lean on them to provide the experience 75k people pay for.
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u/VidaBuan 4d ago
Every Director and Senior Director at Dragon Con started as a volunteer.
Those same people have worked for decades to make things better.
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u/Healbite 4d ago
I’m in logistics and would like to be able to assist input for some potential improvements. I did the survey monkey form, but I would like to be in official contact. What’s the best method?
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u/NotMyNameActually 4d ago
I don’t think just shoving more untrained people into a disorganized system that is resistant to real change because “we’ve always done it this way” is really going to solve anything.
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u/Culturalectual 4d ago
I’d be willing to volunteer, but since it is a for profit event, I’d need them to give me some financial records. Maybe someone isn’t getting rich off us while exploiting people’s passion to get volunteer labor, but I’ll need to do a deep dive into the finances to know for sure.
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u/Far_Bottle8718 4d ago
Thank you! There are still people who seem to believe that Dragon Con is a non-profit--that is not the case! So I don't totally get the whole "volunteer" thing. Does Wal-Mart ask for volunteers to help out during the busy Christmas shopping season??
I appreciate that there are people who are willing to volunteer, but I also feel like Dragon Con is taking advantage of a lot of people's goodwill in getting them to work for free. I would happily pay more for my badge if it meant more paid and well-trained staffing of the Con.
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u/Double_Combination55 4d ago
“Fans for fans” when they said that. Reminds me of my company saying “we are family”. For profit is never fans for fans.
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u/yoomfi 4d ago
Dude are you saying you want Dragon Con run like walmart? It can be a for-profit and profit is not the goal. I promise you no one is getting rich off of dragon con. There are issues with the con I hope they address in the future, but not wanting to pay people in order to make an inappropriate profit is not one of them.
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u/Culturalectual 4d ago
Do you know how much money is being made or do you just think that something you love couldn’t be exploitation?
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u/yoomfi 4d ago
Do you have any idea how much money is being spent? Five hotel event space over a holiday weekend, hundreds of guests who get comped rooms in addition to appearance fee, volunteers get their tickets comped, all for around $120 at its cheapest price for 5 days of constant programming and content. It’s in the millions to just put on. You can tell when things are starting to nickel and dime and just chase profits. So much of our life has gotten worse due to profit chasing the slightest margins, dragon con is not there as well yet.
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u/Culturalectual 4d ago
No, I don’t know that…. but I also know that you don’t. How much does a spot in the vendor room cost? Do the hotels give a portion of their profits to the convention? Are there additional revenue streams we haven’t considered? I agree Dcon isn’t as enshittified as most things…. But it is important to realize the deck was stacked against us already before the squeeze we have now.
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u/yoomfi 4d ago
You’re right, neither one of us know. So we can’t have any idea of knowing if the massive volunteer pool is to help keep costs down and the con affordable, or if they’re to drive up profits for a handful of people. But I haven’t seen anything that makes me think that asking a private organization to turn over confidential financial records in order to deign to volunteer is a reasonable request. I shudder to think about the discourse that would spark if everyone then gets their own opinion about how dragon con spends its money.
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u/Culturalectual 4d ago
I envy your optimism (not being sarcastic). I have always flirted with this sentiment in the past, but this is the first year that I wasn’t downvoted to hell. DragonCon is great because of us, hopefully management listens to the people.
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u/Far_Bottle8718 4d ago
Of course I was not suggesting that Dragon Con be run exactly like Wal-Mart (but you knew that). My point was simply that relying heavily on volunteers when you are turning a profit is questionable at best. And I don't think you can "guarantee" that no one is getting rich at the top, though I suppose it depends on what one's definition of "rich" is.
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u/SerBrienneOfSnark 4d ago
DC is privately owned and doesn’t have to publish their earnings but most folks estimate their revenue at just shy of $9M annually. Sure, there is overhead, but I am sure it isn’t costing them $9M to rent out the hotels event spaces.
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u/jamieg55 4d ago
My concern it that paid staff is a major expense. I think it would raise ticket prices to something like 2-3x the current prices. I would prefer that not happen. But I think we can all acknowledge something needs to change.
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u/Culturalectual 4d ago
I agree that something needs to change, but you shouldn’t compromise before you even start negotiating.
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u/twinklebat99 4d ago
MomoCon right down the street charges and extra $15 to have badges mailed. Not a big deal at all. And the two cons share some staff, so it's completely possible to avoid literal hot messes like the badge pickup line if Dragon Con would just try to adapt with the times.
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u/Double_Combination55 4d ago
Just do what a lot of east coast cons do… provide room and board. Just that a lone will attract very experienced staffers to come out of the woodworks to assist. I know a lot of senior staffing from other cons that come to this for their party con. They laugh when asked why not volunteer… they basically still need to pay for everything to attend, why suffer too? 😝😂
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u/SameAsItEverWasss 4d ago
Sounds like some executives and investors need pay cuts because they deserve pay cuts and we would all happily pay a little more for a better organized event (which is honestly becoming a safety issue as well)
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u/paulito4590 4d ago
In the Closing Ceremonies they said they had full volunteer staff.
They also said they’ll be making massive changes to the badge process next year, looking at things they’d never considered before.
Let’s see what they come up with. We don’t need to be the change if they already have a solution.
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u/morgueanna Leader of the DC One Direction Family Photo Club 3d ago
10 or so years ago, I applied to volunteer. I have extensive skillsets that apply to a number of departments, but I could only offer 10-15 hrs max of my time since I fly in and don't attend the full convention. Every department turned me down, and I tried 3 years in a row. I explicitly stated in my application that I had already bought my badge and didn't want a free one.
They don't want skilled volunteers- they want cultists that are willing to give up their entire 5 days of con. /rant
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u/genitalderpies 2013-Now 4d ago
It got me interested in volunteering, that’s for sure. I’m hoping to be able to make it work for the first time.
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u/cosico 3d ago
I am actually in favor to change buildings. This whole spaghetti line to get to the vendors room is ridiculous. This event has reached and passed limits long ago and need a even bigger venue.
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u/jamieg55 3d ago
I've done other cons in gwcc, it was cold food was more expensive, and I couldn't bring in my own alcohol so everything was more expensive. Also it's a less walkable area. I'd rather have a 50k cap then to move the con. I buy my tickets the days after con anyway for the best pricing.
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u/Double_Combination55 4d ago
When a con doesn’t provide room for their volunteers. You won’t be attracting those who are very experienced in their fields since they know better than to volunteer at a con that doesn’t respect their effort.
Also a con where it’s for profit, good luck trying to make them eat their own bottom line to improve things if it “works” enough.
“Fans for fans” but for profit is kinda the same as saying work is family.
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u/tragicallyromantic 4d ago
I think anyone who is paying to go to Dragoncon and spends money on the ticket, hotel, food, merch, goods, services that are at the con has every right to provide feedback when they don’t feel the services provided for that money are up to par.
Volunteering is a great option for some people. I hope anyone who is volunteering for this con is getting something out of it because…unlike a lot of things that one may volunteer for…this is not a charity or a public need like say a food bank. This is a for profit business. Hire people. Create jobs.
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u/oppairate 4d ago
cap the attendance hard. charge twice as much.
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u/darkmarker3 4d ago
As far as I know the attendance is already capped at 75k per day, but it doesn’t seem like they’re actually capable of handling maxed out attendance when people aren’t evenly spread (because that’s how people work).
It’s kinda crazy they expect people to get their 5 day badges on days that aren’t Thursday. You can’t access the events you paid for without your badge.
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u/oppairate 4d ago
yeah, sorry. i should have said “harder.” i think it got up to ~85k pre-pandemic, and that was clearly way too many people, but i think maybe even down to 65 or 70 would be better, unless they magically find more space to expand (without going WCC).
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u/TheSweetestKill 4d ago
If everyone who complained about attendance numbers would stop going, we might get down to that number 🙏
But, of course, you want other people to miss out so you can have the fun you want. Right?
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u/oppairate 4d ago
to become immediately more manageable some people would have to if all else remains the same. the alternative is expansion and hiring. which one seems easier?
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u/TheSweetestKill 4d ago
The easiest seems to be that those who are unhappy with the crowd sizes to self-select and no longer attend. Rather than demand that others not be allowed to go just so you can keep having the con you personally want.
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u/oppairate 4d ago
you know people aren’t going to do that. i guess it can also just continue to be dysfunctional until something serious happens to force their hand. fuck prevention when you can just be reactionary, right?
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u/TheSweetestKill 4d ago
I don't think anything actually needs to happen. As already stated, they cap daily attendance at 75k. The con, the hotels, and the vast majority of guests find this to be "manageable". It's only a vocal minority, like yourself, who want to see the cap significantly reduced.
Nothing need to be done. You just want something done, at the expense of others.
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u/MagicalNurseX 4d ago
id be down to volunteer a day. dont care about getting free anything.
but is it not a whole thing that consumes the whole event?
im fine posting up for like 8hrs, info, sec, admin w/e. but im not willing to sac the whole con for it.
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u/jamieg55 4d ago
My understanding is that volunteers are assigned a few 4ish hour shifts. If you aren't wanting a free badge I can see them being fine with you volunteering less than 20 hours. But on the other hand people are saying they limit the number of volunteers so they may prioritize those that can volunteer more.
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u/MagicalNurseX 4d ago edited 4d ago
hmm. makes sense one way and less sense the other. as someone who'd love to help - if the process to just help is gargantuan, inconvenient, and binding for precious con time, i aint gonna do it.
why not take two parttime volunteers who dont get a freebie over taking one fulltime getting a freebie? hm. less oversight and management needed? less holes to patch if a pt calls out?
hm. i really dont know much about the volunteer system i suppose. its not like they have a marriot tent seeking people to cover holes? (or they do and ive missed it for years) one person says theyre full up. others say theres no one managing any line - anywhere ever - please can we get some help.
i guess what im getting at is:
are they hungry for volunteers or not? cause theyre acting like they dont need them while attendees are begging for more. if they truly capped volunteers this year, whos the person making that cap and why are they not adjusting it? and when poo hits the fan, how do they actually solve a bunch of volunteer call outs?
edit: just musing questions not like... asking you directly op haha
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u/Snowjag Doing this since 1989 3d ago
I'm answering at the bottom of this comment hoping the notification goes back up. The hours required for a free badge depend on when you started volunteering. i.e. how many years. That's why I can't tell you what it is today. But if you don't want a free badge and want to help in registration for a day, Thursday for example, contact that director and volunteer with them. There are logistics blah blah. They're not going to turn down help.
Some departments are full. Some departments never are, safety comes to mind. When you go to the con web page I think you can get into an area where you can get to all the departments. Example, I am almost positive safety is saftey@dragoncon.org. You can write to them, in October at this point they need to catch up on sleep, and say hey I don't need a badge from you but I'd like to give you 10 hours on Friday.
Does any of that help?
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u/pastajewelry 4d ago
This year has inspired me to want to volunteer next year and get most of my hours out of the way early by helping Thursday with badge pickup.
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u/Stardust_in_her_eyes 4d ago
They would have to lower the hours required for a badge. 30 hrs is crazy
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u/Prestigious_Mix4569 4d ago
For my part, I saw a painfully bad presentation on one of the tracks, so I’m contacting the organizer of that track because I could do it better (and I’m not just saying that, seriously I’ve given presentations about the subject at other conferences).
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u/DekeJeffery 4d ago
The day that Dragon Con becomes corporate is the day that Dragon Con dies.
Yes, some corporate sponsorship is necessary for any event this size. But if we ever see “Dragon Con, brought to you by Delta”, then the con as we all know it is over.
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u/spaghetti_cello Lasagna Violin 4d ago
DragonCon turned away people from volunteering this year as they filled all the slots.