We will start the review process and begin approvals at the end of February 2012.

Description: Webcomics and flash fiction/microfiction often involve stringing out one long story over dozens or hundreds of updates, with gaps of days in between. Not every page of a graphic novel can pack a punch to tide the reader over. Or can it? Should it? And what happens to surprise when fans have days to speculate about the upcoming plot? How does it affect a writer’s approach when the story must be told in such tiny increments?

Panelist: Pete Abrams, Elaine Corvidae, Eric Menge

Most likely we’ll just be meeting people for the first time or catching up after a long time. Let us know if you have any ideas for the meeting.

We are going to bring either cookies or donuts and coffee and stuff like that. :)

Click here for more info.

Here is another installment in the sporadic series of posts I will make to help other people start their own events and pursue their dreams. How do I decide what to post about? I answer your emails and questions that you send to me. When the answer is good enough, I re-purpose it as a blog post for everyone.

For a full list of every tutorial I have done, click over to the tutorials section of my personal blog.

A recent question I got was – what are some things one should think about when starting a new con. Here goes:

1. What don’t you know? Find people who know those things and recruit them. In my case it was hotel negotiations. My first recruit was our Hotel Liaison.

2. Define what events you might want to have at your con as best as you can, then decide what key positions you need. By “key positions” I mean managerial. These people need to have professional experience in these fields and be able to recruit people they trust for their staff. I also made sure my staff knew other staff so I could get people I previously didn’t have access to.

For our first year we had:

- Hotel Liaison
- Treasurer (Since we had no money he functioned as a Financial Advisor in the meantime.)
- Operations Manager
- Dept. Head of Security
- Dept Head of Guest Relations
- Dept Head of Registration

Harknell and I both did Web, Finance (we were funding it), Programming, Artist’s Alley, assigning guests to panels, approving guests, Marketing, sponsorship, staff training, and everything else. We had to do so much because it was a new thing that we had to shape.

I think there were only about 20 staff including runners for our first year. Most did work at con. We did almost all pre-con work. I did all the marketing and sponsorship.

3. Know your limits. We didn’t have things like Art Show and Cosplay in our first 2 years because we knew we didn’t have enough staff to handle it yet. Don’t do stuff you can’t handle. Remember, this year’s con is your best advertising for next year’s con. Do what you have RIGHT and people will notice.

4. Understand that you might do most of the work the first year (and subsequent years…). Your staff is still getting used to their jobs and likely won’t be familiar with what you expect from them yet.

5. Make sure you get legal advice and start the proper type of business to handle your event. Don’t sign a contract that will bankrupt you in the worst case scenario. If for some reason Intervention got sued (god forbid), I’d still retain the rights to my comics and t-shirt shop. It’s 2 separate businesses. Also, make sure you put an “act of god” clause in there. If a storm happens or a war breaks out or a volcano erupts out flying smurfs, you shouldn’t have to pay for your event that never happened.

6. Plan for the worst case scenario. Don’t agree to pay anything you can’t afford to lose. A lot of things could happen that might affect your attendance. This is not a “get rich quick” scheme. Most events operate in the red for the first 5 years.

7. Get event insurance for fraks sake. It’s only a few hundred bucks and can save your butt.

8. Make sure you have a grasp of Project Management techniques or know someone who does. (I am a digital media PM during the day. It helped.)

9. Decide how your staff should be structured. Some cons use a board of directors. I don’t, because I wanted to retain full control over my vision. More pressure is put on me, but it was the right choice for us.

10. Interview well. Realize that your friends may be nice, but not every friend is a good fit for every job. I either interviewed or observed quietly while my staff was working at other events to vet each person. How people respond to stress and their problem solving capabilities dictated where I assigned them or if I accepted them at all. I also took note of things like who had industry contacts, police experience, legal experience, customer service experience…you get the idea. Assign them to stuff they enjoy.

11. Try to plan some redundancy. If you can, every key position should have an understudy. Stuff happens.

12. Realize that it takes a couple of years before people will start to really notice you unless you have the budget of a large corporation. Most people are skeptical of a new, unproven event. It sucks. but most people will choose what their friends have already told them about over something new. I’m also guilty of this. It’s human.

13. Realize that I make this look easier than it is. Prepare for the worst and (in my case) best year of your life.

14. Actively reach out to bloggers, press, and guests. If they can’t attend, politely ask if they can post about you. If they can attend, keep in contact with them to make sure they keep telling their fans to come. Many guests don’t realize that cons aren’t magically going to fill with people unless they help you help them.

15. Don’t pay a lot of money for a big name just because. Research how well they communicate with their fans. Fame doesn’t necessarily mean anyone will come to an event for them. I’ve seen people with small fan bases attract more people than the famous guy. (In 2005, I was the newcomer who did just that.) I find that the ability of a guest to attract people is directly related to how much they seem to care and converse with their fans.

OK that’s some stuff… :) New events are a totally different animal than established ones…there is so much…

Description: After over fourteen years of daily webcomic content, people must wonder just how crazy Pete Abrams actually is. You can ask Pete questions, and watch him skillfully (?) dodge the point. Pete is notorious for drawing and sketching his way through panels, but at this one, he’ll have to actually say something!

Panelist: Pete Abrams

The biggest complaint we received about our event was that it happened only once a year. We have a solution for that. The InterventionCon.com Geek Networking Meetup is here all year to Intervene and Inspire the whole family to embrace Technology, Digital Media, and the potential of the Internet in order to make a better world. Geeks, Webcomics, Podcasters, Bloggers, Filmmakers, and the fans who love them are all welcome.

Everyone from the casual fan to the experienced creator is welcome. Please RSVP, so we can buy enough donuts and coffee!

Meetups will take place in New Jersey (where we live), Maryland, and Virginia.

Click here to read more and to sign up to the mailing list.

Our first meetup is taking place Saturday, January 28th from 3-7PM on the 4th floor of Rutgers University’s Alexander Library. At 7 we’ll all leave to find a diner or something and eat food.

We’ll be doing this approximately every 3rd week of the month, but it will vary depending on if we are out on tour or not.

Please share this with as many people as you can!

Just a quick note to let you know that we are in the final stages of the website rewrite to make things easier to read through. We also will be updating the site with the form from where artists and vendors can register to exhibit.

If you are curious about all of that, you can get a general idea of how we did it by looking through “Archive” on our top bar.

We are back from Magfest this weekend and wanted to thank you all for purchasing all of our squeaky owls. Many of you registered as well. Meeting you and talking with you really inspires us to make this con even better every year. Thank you!

If you’d like to see pictures from this weekend, you can see them on our Facebook as well.

We Intervened and Inspired this weekend at Magfest in Maryland:

We sold our squeaky owls – when you purchase one of these you also are donating to support the event. We SOLD OUT of all of them:

I was drawing some comic goodness at the table. This will be a comic over at Onezumi.com in the next few days:

I found an awesome flower for my hair yay:

Janice, our new Exhibition Hall coordinator made this for me! SQUEE:

We love our friends over at Squishable.com. If you attended a last Intervention, you had a really great chance of winning one of these guys:

For once, I remembered to wear my Intervention T- Shirt. PROOF:

I played SO MANY games in the arcade room at Magfest. This was less than half of the room – more like 1/8th of the room. It was huge in reality:

Ghostbusters car:

I hope you all had a great weekend! I now have a flat tire from my trip home. Nothing goes perfectly in life, but if you keep thinking positively things will be great! :D

Hi guys! :D Happy New Year! I hope none of you had a fire at your NYE party that involved a fire extinguisher extinguishing all of your food. Heh…. ;D

Our marketing and advertising stuff is almost all written up. We are taking a lot of care in this process because we believe that it’s not just about us – it’s about the community and the people we work with. If we don’t feel that we can add value to a business we won’t take their money. Also, if we don’t like the business, we won’t take their money.

It may take more work to get things done, but this isn’t a game to us. We aren’t about throwing buzzwords at you or any of that stuff. I’m not that type of person, and my event isn’t that type of event. Subtlety has never been my strong suit. I learned early in life that honesty and straightforward talk saves a lot of time and creates better results.

This month we will be venturing around Maryland and the internet to see which businesses can buy ads in our con book and on our website. These ads and sponsorships help us pay for the guests, programming, and events at the con. Working closely with local and internet businesses this early allows us to create events that help them and our attendees better. Sections of this site are also being rewritten and redesigned to improve upon what we already have. I am also looking for new ways to make things better in every vector of it.

Newcomers to our event may not realize that we are all-volunteer and most of the pre-event work is done by me and Harknell. I am relieved that we have added 2 staff members to help with the Artist’s Alley and Programming this year. For the past 2 years we were doing it all our self. It’s just not possible. :) Delegation can be awesome!

So far, what I have in store for you for 2012 is so cool I might explode with anticipation. Intervention 2012 will be even more amazing than 2011. I can’t thank you all enough for supporting us in our early years. Whether you attended, told someone about us, posted a click-able link to us, donated, or simply gave great feedback – you are appreciated in every way.

Intervention is the most important thing to me. I founded it because I want to put something out there that is positive, fun, educational, and helpful to people. This means that you all are that important to me, because you are who I am doing this for. :)

Thank you guys, I hope to see you all at the con in 2012. I’ll be posting updates here as we progress. You can also:

- Follow @InterventionCon on Twitter.

- “Like” the Intervention Facebook.

- Follow me on Twitter. (Note: I swear a lot. The Intervention-specific social networking outlets are all family friendly, though. : ) )

Description: Who wouldn’t want to get paid for their thoughts? Come listen to and ask questions of our panelists who have made that into their reality.

Panelists: Carrie Gouldin, Matt Blum, Becky Harks, Dave Chalker, Sara Mitchell