"Why do they have all those rules?" Kan Stories

[Aabh]

Hi there! I saw the rules posting and thought "Oh... yeah... I remember the year when we made THAT rule... That sucked..." to almost all of them...  And I thought maybe we could share some of the stories that came behind some of these rules... because, of course, this was a learning experience for all of us on the staff, at first we were pretty loose on the rules... that didn't last long... but we didn't do it because of an abundance of rules-happiness...  So here's where I thought folks who've been here for a while can explain the stories behind the rules (No names, please )...

For those who don't know me; I'm Guy Davis, I was the doorstop for dealers for NDK1 (We only had one real place that needed a doorstop), head of Security for NDK2 (before we had radios, really) and the guy in charge of Operations from NDK3 (Which was the first year we had an Ops) until NDK 2005, when I went off to be a teacher in Japan. I came back this last year and now I'm the head of Volunteers.

In the beginning, a lot of our rules were inherited from Mile High Con (A lovely, small, primarily Star Trek fanbase convention), because we went to those folks to learn how to run a Kon... (They were the folks we knew...).  But by NDK4 we were too big for MHC's rule sets...  Peace bonding a phaser is easy, Batleths led to some interesting problems, but there were only a handful...  NDK had whole armies of Clouds and Narutos and Alitas and characters which I had never even seen before...

Which leads me to the first story I'll share:

"No Guns" or "The Denver Police have no sense of humor"

Over the years I have gotten to know the Denver Police pretty well... they are a nice lot, but they have little or no sense of humor toward guns... I can't blame them...(I've been to Aurora)

Our policy had been that guns were allowed as long as they were peace bonded (see? Inherited from MHC!), then one year we had this fellow whom was going around the Kan playing some character part which involved him grabbing people from behind and shoving his pistol into their temple (!)...  This was fine in his friend group, but at some point he does this to a complete stranger...

And that was when I met the Denver Police.  And they were not impressed...

So we appended the "Spiel" that we give when peace-bonding; "You agree not to point it at ANYONE you don't know..."

That lasted until two years later, when a Kon-goer freaked out when they saw someone pointing a gun at their friend (Presumably with permission from said friend)... and... you guessed it... I got to meet the Denver Police again...

The problem is; the police want to DO something, and I can't tell them anything about which Kon-goer, who... I wasn't even really aware that someone was doing that... and so, the police are frustrated at me... I'm a little intimidated and frankly concerned that the police are going to go searching for the kid in question and haul him off...  but they didn't.

So we appended the "Spiel" again: "You agree not to point this at ANYONE... not even in jest..."

This lasted a few years, then an incident at another convention really gave us a wakeup call...

Some kid at a Star Trek convention (I think... I'm not sure anymore, this was a while ago), drew his phaser/blaster/Klingon disrupter and ran around that convention "shooting" people... this lasted for a while, and the police were called... when the police arrived, this kid whipped around the corner, and "blasted" a police officer...

The police officer's guns were real, however.

I don't think the kid survived.

It wasn't our Kon, thank goodness... but we appended the rules anyway... "You agree to only draw the weapon only for photo shoots, and leave them holstered at all other times..."  It's easy to say that kid was an idiot... but in real life, we don't know what he was thinking, perhaps there were other con goers dressed as policemen (Heck WE have people dressed as policemen)... I don't think he even knew he was dealing with real police.

Then 9/11 happened. And the police lost any remaining sense of humor.  Guns had to be banned except in the CosPlay... The police were here all the time because of weapons calls... Ironically, it wasn't the police who were freaked out; it was our own folks! The police simply had no sense of humor about it.

And while I will bend over backwards for the Kon goers... having to be lectured by a very unhappy and frustrated Denver Police officer because of some fella who was being a little too careless with his weapon...well.

And that's the "Why" of it. 99.9% of our people are awesome! 0.1% gets the police called...

[toadstoolssecretluvchild]

GEZ 

[Rumor]

There's an officer who lives on my street and his daughter cosplays, and he told her that very same story the first year she did a cosplay with a gun (don't remember what the costume was)

[The irresponsible captain Jack Harkness]

  Ok, that terrified me, just ban the guns completely. Thanks for posting this though, maybe con attendees will now have better understanding of the gun policy.

[bekka_alice]

Guy, I appreciate your starting this thread, it's always great to communicate *why* as well as what the rules are.  Another thing that influenced our worries about guns was Columbine - I was seriously concerned that year that the police would just go off on a hair trigger if they saw anything that looked like a gun.   I'm not remembering many specific rule stories right now but I'm sure if anyone asks about a rule I created back in the day I'll recall the context.  

(Edit - oh whoops, I remember one, the no going barefoot rule.  That got created the year the hotel we were in decided to remodel *while* we were in the hotel - and to leave *thousands* of broken off xacto blades all over the floor.  We made them vacuum the blades up but we kept finding just one stuck in an odd corner here and there all weekend.  Even with the safety team scanning for them and disposing of them we figured it was a lot better safe than sorry.  )

Con staff really do try to make rules only with the best good of the entire community in mind, just like we try to figure out things like having autographs for multiple people at once to save the attendees from having to do three lines for the same autographs instead of one.  But a lot of times people only see the end result and think rules are made for the fun of power tripping instead of because we saw major consequences when we didn't have them.  A lot of thought goes into the rules - new rule or old rule modification discussions take into account things that happen all over the country, focus tightly on how to make the con a safer place and one that's more fun for everyone, and discussions can go on for months on just one rule to try to make sure that it's firm enough to avoid the trouble without restricting things more than they absolutely have to be tied down.  

Making rules isn't fun, and enforcing them is even less fun, so I always appreciate everyone who works to try to live up to any that have had to be put in over the years.  We have a great crowd.  

Bekka the Alice
-Aliciously

[gidastra]

I think that if anyone has other stories as to how other rules came about, it might help people understand that we really aren't nazis.  For example, a lot of people complain about the size of the Mariott and say we should move, but once they found out that we are in a contract, they realized that our hands are tied on the subject for a while.  I love this thread and I'll keep up with it.  I have no personal stories, but I think that people understanding some of the reasonings for rules is a helpful idea.

[Daft Punk]

...freaky stories...I just hope the rules stay where they are...soon at the rate things are going,there will be a rule where you cant cover your face...

[bekka_alice]

...freaky stories...I just hope the rules stay where they are...soon at the rate things are going,there will be a rule where you cant cover your face...

Just don't create any reason where they have to make one.  And don't let anyone else either if you get wind of something really epic fail in the works. 

[Mahou Shoujo Michi]

The only rule that I get bothered with is the "No signs" rule.

Now, I'm imagining that perhaps this rule was started because of the "Will yaoi for food" signs, which I guess may be a form of convention-prostitution. ( Cause you know, there probably are some people who would sell their body for that limited edition figurine..) The only reason the rule bothers me a slight bit is because, one of my earliest and best memories of NDK involved a cosplayer with a sign.

The story?

There was a Genma ( Ranma 1/2 ) cosplayer, what's more he was cosplaying PANDA Genma, whom we all know communicates by holding up signs at times.  At anyrate, this cosplayer taps me on the shoulder to get my attention.  Upon turning around he's holding up a sign saying "Nice costume!".  When I thanked him, he flipped the sign around to reveal "You're Welcome ^_^".

Now I realize incidents such as that are probably one in a million compared to the "Will Yaoi for ____" "Hug Me!" "Looking for an NDK boy/girlfriend" signs.  But still.. part of me is sad that nothing like that can happen again.

[Rumor]

Soliciting is against NDK and Hotel policy. And unfortunately, no amount of cuteness is worth breaking both sets of rules

[Mahou Shoujo Michi]

Soliciting is against NDK and Hotel policy. And unfortunately, no amount of cuteness is worth breaking both sets of rules

Just to clarify...It wasn't meant to be an "OMG! NDK is so unfair!! Let's revolt!" post.

[gidastra]

Oh wait, panda gemma can't hold a sign either. I guess I need to pay more close attention to those rules. Haha. That's cute though

[Rumor]

Just to clarify...It wasn't meant to be an "OMG! NDK is so unfair!! Let's revolt!" post.

I know. My post was more like a "I know it sucks :[" post

[rini]

i believe that if the sign is part of the character, like genma and his signs, then it's OK. at least, that's the way i've heard.

ppl do stupid things with signs. "will yaoi for pocky," "will yuri for pocky," "will glomp for pocky," etc. this invites a lot of stupid behaviour from both the sign holder, and the person reacting to the sign. at ACEN about 3 or 4 years ago, this led to sexual assault issues for a 14 year old girl and the con.

[Rumor]

NDK 06 I got in trouble for having a sign that said "It's my birthday!"

[gidastra]

Oh wow. I saw some pretty sketchy signs last year. It'd be good to find out if someone like gemma can have their signs. and the birthday sign, although an awesome thing, could get people jumping on you or other things that might become awkward. I was at a con in Portland and someone did that only to get glomped and leave with an injury. Not saying they all would get that response, but I can see a reasoning at least.

[lanceb]

I think they should allow signs as long as they are viewed by the staff before and allowed. All they would have to do is have them peace-bonded like weapons of any kind. Not allowing a "OBJECTION!" sign because  of the stupid things people have done with their signs sucks.

[GimmeAnime]

I seem to remember there being something in the rules a while back along the lines of "Several of these rules are because someone did something stupid. Don't make us have to make more rules."

I remember the year with the razor blades on the floor. A few people managed to get them stuck in their shoes and  I seem to remember even 6 months later at Starfest, you could still find blades on the floor.

No photography in the dealer's room: Too many people stopping the flow of traffic in order to get pictures.

No jumping or "riding" the elevators: Anyone who's been to the convention more than 2 years should know why this one was in place.

[gidastra]

Oh man the elevators lol. Those stupid jumping people on the elevators

[starstreaker]

2008 was a bad year for that. I was on the 10th floor in the tower and took the stairs most of the time. Especially when there was only one working elevator in the Tower. The staff did a great job with that this year.