GRRM and the Hugo Losers' Party.

[mme_hardy]

George R.R. Martin has issued a statement on File 770.

For those of you out of the convention fandom loop (and I listen but do not congo), for a decade or so GRRM has thrown the "Hugo Losers Party", at which winners are welcome to attend but have to wear funny hats and be mocked. For a couple of years those parties became the responsibility of the Worldcon where they were held; GRRM took them back. This year's party was a logistics disaster. People who couldn't get into the Hugo Awards (another logistics problem) went directly to the Hugo Losers Party. That meant that when the actual losers had finished with the awards, the party was full up. People were dropped off by minibus in front of the venue and left to wait until space was freed up by people leaving. There were tweets. There was anger.

I linked to GRRM's statement of what happened. The mood of the piece is that the Hugo Losers Party is a gift he gives congoers, not an entitlement. That's completely reasonable and appropriate. Renting out a floor of a brewery for a party is an extravagant thing to do.

However, wow, were there bad logistics choices made. GRRM rented a venue with a capacity of 450; there were worries that the venue might be too small. The contingency plan was the expectation that the venue would violate the fire code (if there were still a marquee tag, I'd be using it) or allow the party to overflow into space they hadn't rented. Even if he'd offered cash to expand it on the night, it would have been much too late to staff that space.

GRRM was at least annoyed by the discovery that there would be 280 spots reserved for the Hugo losers and their plus-ones. "280 spots of out 450 were already gone, before I had even invited a single guest of my own. " Here's the core problem. GRRM doesn't see the losers as guests of his own. This isn't actually the Hugo Losers' party, and that's just fine; GRRM can throw any party he likes. But being annoyed that the Hugo losers expect to go is dooming yourself to disappointment. This realization would also have been a great moment to reevaluate the amount of space being rented. However, as he amply documents, even GRRM couldn't have afforded to rent another floor, with liquor and the food required by Irish law.

GRRM arranged for a single minibus seating twenty to bring people from the convention center to the party. He appears to have thought of this as a way to slowly integrate new partygoers. Instead, it meant long lines at the buses. He is annoyed that ConZealand decided that there wouldn't be enough taxi space to accommodate all the partygoers, and rented two bus-sized buses to transport partygoers to the party. There went GRRM's only attempt at crowd control.

> They were obeying what we were told was the law.

"What we were told"? I mean, come on, this is basic basic big-party planning that GRRM's team should have figured out months in advance. Fire codes are a thing in every venue everywhere, and when they aren't, people die.

> But much of the outrage about what happened seems to have its root in a mistaken belief that this was their party, intended to “honor” or “celebrate” them, that it was being staged “for” them, that they should have been given preference over everyone else, an assertion that just reeks of entitlement.

GRRM doesn't want to throw the Hugo Losers party. That's fine. But everybody should stop calling GRMM's party by its original name.

Comments

[sara]

IDK, I don't think being asked to wait outside until a venue is under capacity, whether I have a ticket or not, is really that big a deal. It's just a party. If you can't get into the party because the building's full, you either wait or you do something else. You don't complain about it in public. Particularly if you haven't paid for the ticket to the party.

[mme_hardy]

In this case, though, part of the problem was that people were deposited by shuttle bus into the rain, and told to wait in the rain until the party had room. I suspect without the Dublin rain people wouldn't have been angry enough to tweet. However, I do agree with the people elsewhere in this thread about host culture. When you invite people to a party, are extremely sloppy about sizing the venue, and then blame it on the venue's not accommodating the overflow, that's on you.

[sara]

Well, our read on his statement is quite different: I didn't see him blaming the venue, I saw him saying he made incorrect assumptions about the venue and apologizing.

I can't honestly see how, even if it were raining, it was remotely appropriate for anyone to stand outside and tweet complaints about a party (or not to dress for the weather, because Dublin, for chrissake, it'd be like complaining about getting rained on here). Like, that is so far beyond anything I can ever imagine doing in a social situation. There are valid ways to deal with minor physical discomfort and the inconvenience of not being able to go to a party. Public callouts aren't among them.

[ankaret]

I think this must be a cultural difference, because if I had attended an awards ceremony and then trustingly got on the minibus that had been laid on to take award ceremony attendees to a party they'd been specifically invited to, only to discover that the venue was filled to maximum, the minibus had gone, and I had to find a taxi home at night in an unfamiliar city, I'd tweet about it so that other people didn't find themselves in the same position.

If I then found that the host had been joking about 'they should have got here earlier' (ie, while the ceremony was still going on) I would definitely find myself thinking 'this person's sense of humour and mine aren't a match, I should probably not try to attend any of their parties'.

[mme_hardy]

That's fair. I may well be distributing out the overall huffiness incorrectly. I do think "They were obeying what we were told was the law." is a bit of a tell. It implies that there's some doubt about whether it's actually the law to limit occupancy.

[nineveh_uk]

I read that line not as there being doubt about the law, but as implying the law was being used as an inadequate excuse. Ireland definitely has laws on occupancy for fire safety, and really I'm amazed that there seems to have ben an expectation the limits could be breached. The Code of Practice for Management of Fire Safety in Places of Assembly linked here seems to cover it, with info on how it is calculated. http://www.dublincity.ie/main-menu-services-dublin-fire-rescue-and-emergency-ambulance-service/fire-safety-legislation

[mme_hardy]

I was flabbergasted. Somebody over at File700 suggests Martin may not have realized that it's specifically the fire code involved, but I'll bet you the venue said it.

[vom_marlowe]

I bet you're right. I've been in similar situations, and we always point to such authorities whenever possible, especially in situations where safety is a factor. Why make a customer unhappy at you when you can politely explain that the Fire Department is to blame.

[nineveh_uk]

Absolutely! We even do it with our internal spaces at work, let alone when talking to the public. No, we can't put 80 people in that room, the official capacity is 60 for a reason.

[mme_hardy]

I think this adds context on why the invitees were upset in this particular case.

[ankaret]

Yeah. Finding a taxi while disabled adds a whole extra level of difficulty. :(

[perennialanna]

Parties don't have tickets though. Parties have invitations, and invitations are what people got here. They were invited guests. If it had been a ticketed event, they would probably not have been tweeting angrily, but rather checking the terms and conditions and considering their course of action. The terms and conditions of an invitation are moral rather than contractual, but I do not think that "my host will welcome me to the party to which I am invited because it is for Hugo Losers and I am as of tonight a Hugo loser..." is a particularly extraordinary expectation.