Epistemic status: memories from five years ago where I was stressed and sleep deprived at the time.
So, the primary thing I thought the Megameetup did was have overnight space for the people who registered for overnight and space during the day for people who registered for the day. I closed registrations when I thought we had as many people as the space could hold, and made most of my calculations and planning based on the number of people who registered. (Mostly food, but I’d also been asked to check that certain people the community had had problems with weren’t attending.) I knew Solstice was going on that weekend and had coordinated a little bit with the Solstice organizer, but mostly just to know the time and location so I knew when to send people over.
During the weekend- if I remember correctly, this was in the early afternoon on Saturday, so about five hours before Solstice and while the Megameetup was in full swing- people start pointing out that with registration closed, people who just planned to go to the afterparty didn’t know if they were supposed to just show up or what. I don’t remember the exact conversation, but basically over the course of about fifteen minutes I realized that lots of people were assuming that the megameetup would host Solstice’s afterparty, and that an unknown number of people were attending Solstice who hadn’t registered at all with Megameetup but expected to go to the afterparty.
I have five hours to prepare for an unknown number of people to converge on us, when we were already at what I thought was capacity for the venue with a little safety margin, while simultaneously trying to keep the event I knew I was planning on course. I could try and tell people not to, but lots of people including my co-organizers have been assuming obviously the afterparty is at the Megameetup and people who went to solstice can come, even if they didn’t tell Megameetup they were coming, and if Megameetup isn’t hosting this then someone else is probably going to have to try and plan the afterparty with a different venue and that’s going to be even more complicated.
We pulled it off, in hindsight I think it was fine, I don’t know if anyone who wasn’t in the room with me when I found this out even realized I didn’t plan on having extra people from Solstice, but I was wound tighter than a drum for the rest of the weekend and that’s still the second worst thing that’s happened when running a megameetup from my perspective.
The moral of the story is, leave margins when planning occupancy and capacity limits for an event, and check explicitly and clearly what the expectations are when inheriting an event someone else has run before you.
2019′s Rationalist Megameetup was. . . special and stressful in many ways, actually.
… Last night I found out the other half to that story, which has been a mystery to me for something like five years now, and somehow the event became even more stressful in retrospect.
Epistemic status: memories from five years ago where I was stressed and sleep deprived at the time.
So, the primary thing I thought the Megameetup did was have overnight space for the people who registered for overnight and space during the day for people who registered for the day. I closed registrations when I thought we had as many people as the space could hold, and made most of my calculations and planning based on the number of people who registered. (Mostly food, but I’d also been asked to check that certain people the community had had problems with weren’t attending.) I knew Solstice was going on that weekend and had coordinated a little bit with the Solstice organizer, but mostly just to know the time and location so I knew when to send people over.
During the weekend- if I remember correctly, this was in the early afternoon on Saturday, so about five hours before Solstice and while the Megameetup was in full swing- people start pointing out that with registration closed, people who just planned to go to the afterparty didn’t know if they were supposed to just show up or what. I don’t remember the exact conversation, but basically over the course of about fifteen minutes I realized that lots of people were assuming that the megameetup would host Solstice’s afterparty, and that an unknown number of people were attending Solstice who hadn’t registered at all with Megameetup but expected to go to the afterparty.
I have five hours to prepare for an unknown number of people to converge on us, when we were already at what I thought was capacity for the venue with a little safety margin, while simultaneously trying to keep the event I knew I was planning on course. I could try and tell people not to, but lots of people including my co-organizers have been assuming obviously the afterparty is at the Megameetup and people who went to solstice can come, even if they didn’t tell Megameetup they were coming, and if Megameetup isn’t hosting this then someone else is probably going to have to try and plan the afterparty with a different venue and that’s going to be even more complicated.
We pulled it off, in hindsight I think it was fine, I don’t know if anyone who wasn’t in the room with me when I found this out even realized I didn’t plan on having extra people from Solstice, but I was wound tighter than a drum for the rest of the weekend and that’s still the second worst thing that’s happened when running a megameetup from my perspective.
The moral of the story is, leave margins when planning occupancy and capacity limits for an event, and check explicitly and clearly what the expectations are when inheriting an event someone else has run before you.
2019′s Rationalist Megameetup was. . . special and stressful in many ways, actually.
You can’t just say that and not elaborate!
Attendee: knock knock Hey, is the organizer in there?
Me: Yeah, what’s up?
Attendee: The fire department is here, and we think an attendee just left in an ambulance but we’re not sure who or why.
Me: . . . I’ll be right out.
And that’s the most stressful thing that’s ever happened to me as an event organizer.
… Last night I found out the other half to that story, which has been a mystery to me for something like five years now, and somehow the event became even more stressful in retrospect.
(No, I do not plan to elaborate on this one.)
A history of the NYC Rationalist Megameetup is in my drafts. Someday I hope to finish it, ideally around when I announce 2024′s iteration.