This is a good question. It’s because Penguicon, by its hybrid nature, attempts to be all things to all geeks. Our audience is so diverse in their interests, that most attendees are only interested in a fraction of our offerings. It will be a different fraction for each attendee. Most of them have never heard of half the guests of honor– they tend to become fans of them because of going to Penguicon rather than vice-versa.

The reason we try to fill out almost a dozen stand-alone conventions under one roof, is that everyone can mix-and-match a very full weekend to their tastes. Best of all, they are likely to try a taste of an unfamiliar interest and see if they like it.

With only 100 events, we could make each of them rate a “10″ from the point of view of a small constituency, but a “10″ to a tech geek is a “1″ to her significant other who came along for something else and has nothing to do that hour. Instead we fill it out so that most hours will have something worth doing for anybody.

Finally, it’s because it’s a participation-oriented event with a low barrier to entry.

We’re still working out the bugs in the hybrid model. The approach presented here might be flawed. Some years we do it much better than others. None of this excuses what you went through, for which I apologize and take personal responsibility. But this is just providing a hopefully interesting answer to a worthy question.

The short version of the story is that we had two Heads of Programming quit due to health reasons this year. It was a variety of sub-conventions on science fiction, gaming, tech, and so forth, each reasonably large if they had stood alone, with less than optimal coordination between them. Now that I’m Convention Chair, I’m setting the house in order for next year.

I totally understand about you not returning. It was great to hear your talk and get to speak with you briefly. I look forward to attending other conventions that feature you.

(What I saw of their room reservation system online was pretty screwed up, and the one person I got ahold of didn’t seem interested in helping.)

That said, I did enjoy myself as an attendee. I attended two of your talks, the one on interactive fiction as well as the one on video games, and enjoyed them both.

‘mute