It happens at least once a year. We get the question of “Why aren’t we back at the DLLCC?”

Every year I give the exact, or close to, same answer. This year I am going to go into both the why we aren’t and what it will take to go back.

Why we are not:

1. We do not have the Westin Hotel
   1. The Westin Hotel is the hotel attached to the DLLCC. Without that hotel we have a difficult time filling a room block and a hotel room block is necessary for the convention to operate
   2. We need the meeting space in the Westin to cut operating costs to make a 4500-5000 person show operate affordably with the level of musical acts we have been booking. (See Labor in the DLLCC section).
   3. We are unable to prove to them that we can fill their new requirement of hotel rooms booked Friday and Saturday night. The MINIMUM we must book for Friday night is 250 rooms, and Saturday night is 250 rooms.
2. The DLLCC
   1. The DLLCC’s a union shop. This means you have requirements on what you can and cannot do.
      1. Example: We need to move a chair in main events. We cannot move that chair ourselves. We have to pay $2 to move that chair. If you look at moving 1400 chairs that we have to move for the dance, that is $2400.
      2. The labor bill for Tekkoshocon VIII was ~$40000, or ~890 attendees. We need to get that cost down. (Thus see 1.b)

What do we need to do to go back to the Westin & DLLCC:

1. We need to PROVE to the Westin that we can fill 250 hotel rooms Friday and 250 rooms Saturday the year before they will consider taking us back. They would prefer 300 rooms each of those nights. This means we need to fill 250 rooms each night at the Wyndham.
2. We need attendance to break 4500 the year before we go back.

The DLLCC is doable at 3600-4000 people, but we would have to sacrifice 5 years’ worth of work building relationships with the music industry. As we have been booking higher profile bands that require more complicated tech. This costs more money to rent, and at the DLLCC costs a lot more to set up because of the costs of the union labor.

Please do not read into this that Tekkoshocon, I, or anyone in the organization is anti-union. We are just explaining that because the location requires high cost union labor it is cost prohibitive for the type of event we operate to be there without the attached Westin Hotel.

It is a new year, and I have not talked about what is going on within the organization for a while now.   We always try to be innovative and build ourself into our community.  The “Full Metal Alchemist” movie showing at the Hollywood Theater in Dormont went over very well.

So, here is what we are working on at the moment.

Hollywood Theater:

• Showing the Hetalia movie at the end of February.

Tekkoshocon:

• Wrapping up our guest line up.  Yes, there are more guests to be announced.
• Deciding on the last Industry VA guest to bring in.
• Getting rights for videos to show at the show
• Advertising the show!

Sangawa Project:

• We have dates announced! (13-15 July 2012)
• We have space! (Best Western Green Tree)
• We are in negotiations with our guest of honor.
• Registration is up.
• Dealer’s packets will be ready to go in the next week or two.

KuroKiiro Festival:

• Planning is about to begin.  Right now, we are hunting a new venue.

Kennywood Day:

• Tekkoshocon Kennywood Day is booked and we will begin selling tickets for both the park and buffet in the next 2 weeks!

New Events:

• Geek Flea Market – The idea is to provide the Geek/Otaku a place to sell the stuff they no longer want/need to Geeks/Otaku who want it.

Tekkoshocast:

• Soon to be out of hiatus, returning with Jim, Jason, Jeanie, and Dan “the French.”  The first episode back will be the return of the “Fandom 411 with John Prager and Vocoloids.”

I wonder if people actually look at this blog?