Why run a Con?

The general reason for running, organising, having or attending a convention is to have fun and meet people, with the possible corollaries of getting networked, laid, published, noticed or all of the above. The endless philosophical discussions and post-con soul-searching do nothing to achieve this simple end.

• Cons are great places to meet people, so provide places and opportunities to do so.
• Cons are great places to let down one's hair and do silly things, so encourage a tolerant attitude to these things.
• The worst possible thing which can happen at any convention is for there to be too much organisation and too little opportunity.

Occam's Razor is a good principle to employ: will it make it more complex if we adopt that solution?

Why should you run a con?

By running a convention (or participating in the running of one), you can gain fannish credibility points.

If you are young, and your résumé is a bit sparse, holding a named position on a committee that runs a convention of 300 or so attendees and with a non-trivial budget can look good on the résumé. (If your position doesn't have a name, you can make one up.)

You can learn new skills - organising, collaborating, chairing, treasuring, secretaring, publishing, wrangling.

You can do things your way -- if there is an element of fandom that you feel has been underrepresented at Swancons, or a part of Swancon that you feel can be done better, or a new thing that you think would be good, you can do it.

But most people who run a con do so because they want the challenge.