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

[pooxs.livejournal.com]

how are you going to tell if someone's been before if they say they haven't but have really? it's not really feasable to be carrying around attendance lists for whomever is selling tickets

[tommmo.livejournal.com]

I figure a previous membership list, covering the last 5 or 6 cons. I don't think it'd be particularly hard to get access to one.

[prk.livejournal.com]

Or you just take people on face value - if someone says they've never been to a Swancon, you give them the cheap membership.

The community will police itself if people start rorting it.

prk.