MAGFest 2020

Conventions
61

The Mag hangover is real.

1 Like
62

TvHQ will definitely be back next year. Mom is already trying to book a hotel.

3 Likes
63

You guys seemed super charged in a way I really haven’t seen you guys at other cons.

64

Except Constantine.

65

Actually, during the few minutes I saw him, he seemed pretty excited.

66

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably say it again: MAGFest (The Music and Gaming Festival) is the best gaming convention I go to all year. The gathering of thousands of video gamers, tabletop gamers, cosplayers, chiptune music fans, and all other manner of nerds creates an electric atmosphere that lasts through four whole days, both day and night.”

2 Likes
67

If you went to the event please feel out the survey,

Also if you all can do me a favor. It appears they are tieing the budget of recording panels to the amount of social media attention the videos are getting on Youtube. (This is stupid, I know) Please do me a favor and share the good ones out on social media and to drum up the eyeballs to them that would be great. Thank you.

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68

The problem is that the videos are low quality, don’t receive any sort of editing, etc. That makes them less share-worthy even if the content is good. Also, they come out so far after the event, people have lost interest and forgotten.

69

You are absolutely correct the issue here is that we have a group of people that see this as an issue and wants to make it better versus people who see numbers to drive effort to make things better there is a few solutions to this:

  1. Get more video editors to volunteer during the year starting after the event to crank out the content and make them the best it can be, have some of them at the event to make sure that the master recording is as best as possible potentially bringing their own equipment to do so

  2. Do my approach and find people who will film and record their own panel, edit everything that they like it to be, and then have them give a copy over to the organization so that it can be made into an “official” video

  3. Be like me and make a business case that in order to show people who have the power to give you grant money that these talks need to be of the highest quality, cherry pick to the grant, and then get the funding after seeding an initial investment

  4. Pay people to edit the video, WELL below average since MAGFest is cheap and make it better by allowing them slightly creative license to make the talk as compelling as possible and recommend them for future jobs

  5. Share with people on social media, make sure people are upset that this talk is really good but X can be better, make sure there is a real reaction to it so that when I go yell at them they will listen

  6. I move to Baltimore hang out in the office and play politics to make sure my ideas are more favorable to the paid staff so that it has a better chance of happening

  7. Have no idea what else because me yelling and telling them how we could make the channel better is on deaf ears because “no one goes to it”

All else I got nothing.

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70

You’re doing god’s work trying to make this all work :wink:

1 Like
71

Some nasty shit seems to be going down at MAGfest.

Much more at the link in the tweet, but the list of grievances regarding the Board of Directors is as follows:

  • Harassed and threatened multiple office employees
  • Harassed and threatened multiple volunteers, including the staff-elected board nominees
  • Asked employees to compromise their personal and professional ethics in the course of their normal job duties
  • Not responded in a timely manner to formal HR complaints made about the Executive Director by all 6 full-time employees
  • Not taken appropriate steps to resolve formal HR complaints made about the Executive Director by all 6 full-time employees
  • Not communicated any resolution to formal HR complaints made about the Executive Director by all 6 full-time employees
  • Subverted existing HR procedures in order to retaliate against and discipline employees inappropriately
  • Subverted existing internal procedures in order to retaliate against and discipline volunteers, including the staff-elected board nominees, inappropriately
  • Created a culture of fear and secrecy around all dealings with them
  • Removed employees from key situations, including those in the employees’ written and signed job descriptions, with no warning or explanation
  • Delayed and subsequently refused to add staff-elected board nominees to the board
  • Refused to act on any attempts at feedback, honesty, and collaboration from employees, staff, and volunteers
  • Took attempts at feedback, honesty, and collaboration as material for retaliation against employees, staff, and volunteers
  • Acted in bad faith, repeatedly and unquestionably, to the detriment of the organization and everyone in it
72

This must be happening near the top. MAGFest is one of those cons where the departments are each run very independently. One can be great, while another can be a trash fire. I can tell you this:

  1. 2 Mello kicks ass and I trust them a lot.
  2. I have seen no such thing with the parts of MAGFest that I have personally interacted with, mostly MAGEs, panels dept., and a little bit of the online streaming video dept. I can say nothing about other parts of MAGFest.
  3. I know people involved with the treasury aspects of MAGFest, and have heard nothing from them.
73

Yeah, basically everything I’ve read so far in the linked google drive seems to indicate, as you suspect, that it’s big problems at the top, coming from folks who are in the departments.

74

is this where this goes (aka, why is there a magfest thread for every year)

https://twitter.com/itstheshadsy/status/1344148292305887233?s=20