Connecticon Rewards System for Webcomics

UPDATE: Email exchange with Connecticut Staffer at Journey Into History Blog provides further information regarding Connecticut guest policy.

I guess this is one way to take the subjectivity out of deciding who to invite as a guest of a convention. Connecticon has announced a “webcomic tiers” plan that provides greater perks for webcomic creators attending Connecticon depending on the number of daily unique IP addresses the webcomic receives:

1,000+ UIP/Day – free 3-Day membership to ConnectiCon 2005.

5,000+ UIP/Day – free Artist’s Colony Space (includes a 3-Day membership).

10,000+ UIP/Day – free Artist’s Colony Table (includes two 3-Day memberships)

25,000+ UIP/Day – free Artist’s Colony Table, Green Room access and some help with travel expenses (gas, tolls) and depending on available space a place to sleep and shower.

50,000+ UIP/Day – free Dealer’s Room Booth, four 3-Day memberships, Green Room access, all travel expenses and 4-Nights hotel accommodations (Thursday – Sunday).

Xaviar Xerexes

Wandering webcomic ronin. Created Comixpedia (2002-2005) and ComixTalk (2006-2012; 2016-?). Made a lot of unfinished comics and novels.

11 Comments

  1. 75,000+ UIP/Day – free Dealer’s Room Booth, four 3-Day memberships, Green Room access, all travel expenses and 4-Nights hotel accommodations (Thursday – Sunday), two nights all expenses paid prostitute (Dogpile ++ rated).

    100,000+ UIP/Day – free Dealer’s Room Booth, four 3-Day memberships, Green Room access, all travel expenses and 4-Nights hotel accommodations (Thursday – Sunday), four nights all expenses paid prostitute (Dogpile +++ rated, GFE assured). Choice of Cosplayers.

    200,000+ UIP/Day – free Dealer’s Room Booth, four 3-Day memberships, Green Room access, all travel expenses and 4-Nights hotel accommodations (Thursday – Sunday), four nights all expenses paid prostitute (Dogpile +++ rated, GFE assured). Choice of Cosplayers. Fruit platter.

  2. Note to self – don’t read Eric’s comments while drinking coffee (coffee doesn’t feel good going thru one’s nose).

  3. Huh. Looks like they’re going head-to-head with San Diego.

  4. Yeah, well. I’m sure the artists who get fifty thousand daily unique IPs would rather go to Connecticon than San Diego. I mean, duh. What’s in San Diego?

  5. San Diego is probably way overrated. Connecticut is where it’s at.

  6. And some of us with higher numbers will be in… er… New Jersey.

    *cough*

    Hate the state – but at least Dexcon’s a lot of fun.

  7. Yup, we’ll miss you this year Randy… maybe in 2006 you’ll be able to come down to ConnectiCon it is also a pretty fun convention. Unfortunately with the other summer conventions out there the one that will affect ConnectiCon the least is SDCC as far as general attendance goes. Otakon, GenCon and Origins would create a MUCH larger dent in our general membership than SDCC will.

    I spoke to you about attending at UberCon IV but you’d already committed to attend DexCon and I’m not about to take a guest away from another convention… that just makes life more difficult for everyone involved.

    Last time I spoke with Vinny we were on a different weekend in 2006.

    We’ll be July 21-23, 2006.

    Hopefully there won’t be as much scheduling conflict in 2006 as there is this year… ComicCon, DexCon, and IkasuCon are all on the same weekend… there are a few others as well that weekend but they’re all pretty far away and have a different focus than ConnectiCon.

    Have a lovely afternoon everyone,

    Mathew Daigle
    Convention Chairman
    ConnectiCon 2005
    http://www.ConnectiCon.org

  8. Actually, Matt, when we spoke, I remember it very clearly. You told me you’d like to have me as a guest at Connecticon. I told you I was already involved in Dexcon that weekend but maybe I could come by Saturday afternoon and Sunday. It was then you informed me about your tier program, and how my uniques per day would determine how much reimbursement was available. Considering I’d just completed the worst con experience ever (Ubercon edged out Genericon for that title), I parted.

    In the future, if you tell someone you’d like to have them as a guest, you should know it stops being a flattering honor when you inform them they’ll have to justify any possible reimbursement, which there may be none of. Being asked as a guest to a con that I’d had no intent of going to from the start and then told, “By the way, we’ll need to see how many people hit your site a day so we can decide how much of the cost you’ll have to shoulder,” is a bit insulting.

    Don’t expect me there in 2006, either.

  9. I apologize for my previous ignorance of your work at UberCon.. the only thing I had seen of your work prior to speaking with you was your flyer about gamers needing to clean themselves… it IS a really funny flyer/strip.

    Anywho, I’m sorry to have offended you in any way. I have since UberCon read a good chunk of your archive and enjoyed it quite a bit. You’ve got a good comic.

    We really would like to have you attend ConnectiCon at some point. You’re so close to Tier 5 if you’re not already in it we likely would have bumped you up and covered all your expenses had you bothered to give me the time to actually talk to you about the convention. But hey you had a bad weekend and were in a bad mood and still want to hold a grudge against us (I’ll still read your strip anyway). If you really aren’t interested in ever attending ConnectiCon also let me know so I can let future staff members know to leave you alone.

    Also, I do remember that conversation that you said you might come up Saturday or Sunday but I really wasn’t all that interested in having you leave DexCon to attend ConnectiCon. If you’ve already made a commitment to another event we’d rather you spend the time at the event and that maybe the next year you’ll be free to attend our event.

    “Borrowing” guests midway through the weekend from other conventions is not something I’ll ever be interested in doing. Even if MegaTokyo decided to bow out of attending SDCC to attend ConnectiCon (which isn’t likely to happen) we’d have to politely refuse them in 2005 because of their previous intent to attend SDCC. Our tier system wasn’t implemented to have everyone ditch SDCC to attend ConnectiCon. It was designed for those who can’t afford the trip to SDCC to have an alternative event to attend because we’ll do our best to help web comics get to ConnectiCon and get their name out there and meet their fans.

    Finally, with all the negative responses we’re receiving this year vs. the positive responses we received last year I’m thinking that maybe we’ll just scrap the whole tier system and the idea of trying to create a convention that web comics can call their own. Obviously none of you are interested in the idea and feel that our gesture to make everyone welcome is a slap in the face to those of you who are more popular than others or feel that your comic is better than other comics with the same amount of readers. Maybe we’ll decide to be just like EVERY OTHER convention and only care about the web comics that will be the biggest draw for us and forget about all those comics that aren’t in the top 10 or 20.

    I’m not sure what will happen… next year is after all next year… maybe you’ll all decide that the tier system is a good idea again and wonder why we’re not using it anymore.

    Part of this is my fault in the way that the tier was presented this year I suppose…

    Mathew Daigle
    Convention Chairman
    ConnectiCon 2005
    http://www.ConnectiCon.org

  10. Being asked as a guest to a con that I’d had no intent of going to from the start and then told, “By the way, we’ll need to see how many people hit your site a day so we can decide how much of the cost you’ll have to shoulder,” is a bit insulting.

    You think that’s bad. Wait until someone invites you to be a guest at a convention who wasn’t even authorized to be inviting guests in the first place. Then after you accept they e-mail you back saying “Well actually, I just checked with the people who are actually in charge of booking the guests and they yelled at me and said ‘NO PORN COMICS!’.” That’s like a double insult.

    It’s bad enough I get dozens of e-mails from people who work with cons saying “I wanted to have you invited as a guest to the con but as soon as I mentioned your comic at the meeting two of the girls on the staff threw a hissy-fit about sullying the integrity of the convention with smut comics” but then to be all excited about getting an invitation to be a guest from someone not authorized to invite guests only to find out soon after accepting that I’m not welcomed… now there’s an insult for you.

    And remember gang, if you’re not at least covering the artist’s travel and lodging then you’re not really inviting the artist to be a guest. You’re just trying to sell them a table at your con with the hope to cash in on their celebrity to boost attendance to boot.

    Damn hissy-fit girls. Sure, they’ll sell tables to teenage girls who draw pictures of dewey-eyed cat-boys with wings stroking each other’s cocks and dealers selling live action Sailor-Moon hentai. But somehow my comic will sully the good name of anime/comics conventions. Feh!

    *grumblegrumblegrumble*

  11. You’ll come for the hookers, but you’ll stay for the fruit platter.

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