‘We Are ALL SF’ Convention Cutting Costs, Dropping Guests

The convention We Are ALL SF has been off to a rough start in their inaugural event’s planning. After only raising $490 of their $9000 goal on Indiegogo, the organizers decided to still press forward with their Ocean Shores, WA based event — with a fairly lengthy guest list to boot.

Well, it seems like reality is starting to set in for “We Are ALL SF” though, as the convention is now trying to cut costs wherever it can.

Organizer Lou Berger posted to Facebook that the event was having to withdraw promised benefits from some of their invited Guests of Honor. Apparently the event had been expecting a sizable percentage of their guests to say no to their invitation — but everyone said yes.

No formal announcements have been made about which guests have dropped out, but according to the two posts on File 770 the current count is at least five.

Honestly this sounds like the classic trap many experienced con runners fall into when trying to operate a start up event. The fact that the organizers were inviting guests before funding had been secured tells me they were thinking like an established event and not like people building an event from nothing. When you’re starting from scratch, you always want to make sure you have something in the bank before you start budgeting how many “names” you want on your ticket (Full Disclosure: I helping start a new convention myself).

We’ll see whether or not “We Are ALL SF” weathers the storm.

Via File 770