(no subject)

[sarren]

I'm not really a thinky person, and thus never feel I have anything to contribute to panels. I was persuaded to be on a panel at this year's Swancon because I was under the impression that I just had to get up and talk about The Persuaders. In fact that was not the case, as the panel was about dead fandoms generally. But as it was still just talking about TV shows I had a really fun time anyway. I would have liked to have had more control over keeping the panel on topic, and I really like Cricketk's idea about a specific chair for panels. I know some experienced people take on that role automatically and usually those are the most well organised panels. Where this falls down, is panels made up of newbies, or less extroverted people who are there to talk about their area of experience/interest, or people who don't feel comfortable 'crowd wrangling', as Cricket put it. Or worst case scenario when you get experts who just want to hear themselves talk, or talk about themselves and no one else gets a word in edgewise, which pisses off both the audience and the co-panellists.

So, what I'm thinking is, this is something I'd be good at. I have no problem telling people to shut up, and I'm a pretty good organiser. So I guess what I need to do is watch and learn and also go on some panels, as long as they talk about tv shows, slash or the internet.

Actually, could we please have Naomi Novik over? That would be helpful, I can talk about Temeraire!

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_bigjobbies_/]

One idea for the chairy person would be to take a lead from academic conferences where panels are often grouped in blocks with a theme - and are chaired by the same person.
So between lunch and afternoon tea on Saturday, in room X you might have 3 panels revolving around some common theme, all chaired by F - whose job is to keep the panelists on topic, make sure it wraps up in time, with space for questions etc.
The plus factor here is that you're not having to find and coordinate an extra person for each panel, the chair is committed to a single block of time and is chairing a series of panels where they have at least some knowledge of the subjcet.

[sarren.livejournal.com]

Wow, that sounds logical. Do you reckon we could make it happen?

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

Naomi Novik... don't think for a second I didn't try :p

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Or that we didn't either!

And its still worth asking every year until it happens - her publishers are quite keen for it to happen as well.

[sarren.livejournal.com]

I want to be on those panels omg!

[cricketk.livejournal.com]

Ooh - not my idea - I saw it on someone else's LJ (redbraids? cupidsbow? stephbg?) in reference to a conversation they'd been having while at the con. I just love the idea - and you'd make an awesome crowd wrangler.