Something to consider...

[tommo]

The $20 day pass for Friday was intended to make it more affordable for new people to have a "taste" of SwanCon. However, it also meant that SwanCon might have lost some revenue from the non-first-timers that bought Friday day passes.

Perhaps a better option is to have day passes at their normal rates for all renewing attendees, but give first-timers a day where they can just attend for free? For a student/teenager, even $20 can be a fair bit of money, and if it's the difference between them attending a day for free or not attending at all, you're really not making any sort of a loss by letting them in. And if you make it free people will almost certainly be interested, and I think it'd result in a very impressive first-timer turnout. Keep in mind that you can get into Supanova for a day for about $20, so from the new attendee's perspective it's not like we're offering anything particularly out of the ordinary.

Hell, I'm starting to wonder if we should just let first-timers attend the whole damn con for free. I think, in the long term, it'd probably be a wise investment.

Comments

[miss-kittylix.livejournal.com]

I really think a free con or a greatly reduced con for new people is really the way to go. And yeah, also keep the OT panels out of the main venues at prime times. I think there are loads of people in perth (and I know as I work in a library) who read SF&F and would like to come to a convention to discuss it. They just don't know about it. Perhaps putting posters up in local libraries could work or around universities. We need better marketing methinks!

[tommmo.livejournal.com]

SwanCons have been advertising in libraries (with varying degrees of effectiveness) for a few years now, and there's always advertising in UniSFA.

There's probably more aggressive ways we could advertise, but frankly if we get the word out to as many people as possible that there's a Science Fiction event happening for 5 days and it's FREE TO NEWCOMERS, a lot of geeks will get out there and see it.