So Susan Morris, the Conference Manager for A Voice for Men’s allegedly upcoming “Men’s Issues” conference this year. has posted a rather puzzling statement attempting to answer questions she’s been getting from AVFM readers “concerning there being fewer speakers on the programme this year and the ticket price being higher.”
Morris — described on the site as “a British woman, an experienced general and event manager in public service” — assures potential conference goers that, “contrary to the headline which I saw somewhere, the ticket price has not been set at $649!”
And that’s true. If you go to the conference’s website, you can see that, in fact, full price tickets to the event are only $645.
That is FOUR WHOLE DOLLARS LESS than the amount reported by the scurrilous press. And … by Morris herself, later in her post.Â
But hey, she suggests, only suckers will be paying the full $649.
The Early Bird Discount ensures that if you purchase your ticket by the 30th of April, you will only pay $399. Buy it between 1 May and 30 June and you’ll still get it at a good discount, at the price of $449. The price will increase in $50 steps until it gets to the buy-at-the-door price of $649 and we expect very few, if any, to do so. In fact, that price has been set to deter people from doing so, so that they don’t hold up those people who have been entered into the pre-registration system and only need to book in.
Morris also insists that
Contrary to the efforts made by our detractors to blacken our name, the ticket price is not aimed at making a profit but breaking even would be nice.
Yeah, it’s not like AVFM founder and chief donation-receiver Paul Elam ever said that he hoped to make some actual profit from the conference. You know, except for that time he said he “hope[d] to make some actual profit” from the conference.
So what’s to blame for the higher price? Apparently, it’s largely due to, er, time-traveling protesters from Detroit?
Last year, you may recall, a group of Detroit-area activists held a protest several weeks before AFVM’s conference was scheduled to happen in that city. There were no protesters at the event itself.
This year, the conference is being held in Elam’s hometown of Houston. But evidently — at least in the fevered imaginations of AVFM’s brain trust — that won’t stop last year’s protesters from driving 1300 miles from Detroit to Houston to protest this year’s event. At least that’s what Morris seems to be suggesting:
The protesters from last year have already vowed to shut us down this year and though we know they will not achieve their aim, they will still be protesting (as is their right, of course). Security and safety of our attendees, speakers and volunteer staff will always be of prime importance and so, to avoid a repeat of last year’s emergency appeal for funding, we have built into the costs additional but reasonable security cover.
Aside from “security cover” from time-travelling protesters, what will attendees get for their $649 — sorry, $645 — that no one is really expected to pay?
Fewer speakers!
“Last year,” Morris writes
in our naivety and enthusiasm, we overbooked the number of speakers for the two day event. During the conference it became clear that the programme was too full and did not allow sufficient time for decent length talks followed by full question and answer sessions. This year we have arranged ten speakers.
Greater punctuality!Â
And this year we will ensure that we start each session on time.
Longer lunch breaks! And afternoon breaks!Â
We have extended the afternoon break and the lunch time and we will be opening the doors each day at 8am. So, provided you arrive early, you will have over eight hours across the two days to mingle with other attendees and to network. And that’s not including the time spent at the evening events, socialising and networking with other like-minded people over dinner or pizza.
Dinner is an additional $20; Pizza is $15. But the time you spend eating is ABSOLUTELY FREE.
A larger number of unpaid staffers than you would think would be even remotely necessary for an event of its size!
Another factor which people tend to forget is the cost of flying in the speakers and volunteer staff and accommodating them all. Between speakers, panel discussion members and staff, we’ll have some forty five people there.
Free taxi service!
We’re arranging an optional taxi service to collect you from your hotel and take you to the venue and then to return you afterwards.
Wait, scratch that, the Taxi service will cost you an additional $15!
But talking to the cabbie is INCLUDED IN YOUR TICKET PRICE.
And finally, FREE ACCESS to an actual BRITISH WOMAN — namely conference manager Susan Morris herself.
I shall be flying in to Houston from the UK. It will be my first flight, a long one around ten hours and I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. But the end result will be worth it. I am looking forward to meeting as many of you as I can.
Because why not fly your conference manager all the way from the UKÂ at the conference-goers’ expense? Sure, makes perfect sense!
I wonder if a single person has bought a ticket for the conference yet.
boy, it sure breaks my heart that MRAs are going to waste a lot of money.
So they have to pay more for a longer lunch and more breaks? M’kay.
If I had a spare US$649.00 lying about*, there are a number of things that would give me better ROI than this conference. It is a large number.
*So to speak.
I’m sure this is very classicist of me, but I find it odd when a woman trying to convince us that she is a modern women with experience as an event manager has never flown before.
It just makes it feel very “hick-ish” for want of a better word.
I can’t imagine why people aren’t snapping up these tickets. Didn’t the pictures from the last conference, of people sitting in a half-empty room looking at a guy at a podium who was talking at them, sufficiently convey the scintillating dialogue taking place?
I mean, a ticket to TED 2016 runs $8,500. AVFM is practically giving theirs away!
Last night, Doad had to talk me out of spending $125 on Russian book about air navigation. But compared to this conference, I’m a model of fiscal propriety.
I do, however, still have every intention of buying Doad the LEGO SHIELD helicarrier for his birthday.
I paid $35 bucks for my graphics card. It was new. It can play Skyrim well. I also spent maybe $60 on over 12 video games this past year.
I saw the price of that Lego set and I began to cry.
Tanya – I think you mean ‘classist’, unless you are referring to studying the ‘classics’ – ie Greek and Roman mythology.
I expect that she is very young. I am from the UK and did not fly until I was 20 – you can be well travelled in Europe and not have flown.
@Tanya, I also found it odd that this supposed professional woman has never flown before…
I never know whether to think it’s depressing or funny that AVFM always has a bunch of women do all their work for them. Seriously, how am I expected to buy into the notion that men are superior civilization builders if none of them can get by without the (usually unpaid) labor of women to prop them up.
They completely prove feminist’s point. That women have always worked and contributed to society. We just got denied credit for it.
@katz I saw the helicarrier in all its Lego glory a week or so ago. I was sorely tempted to spend a bit of my tax return on it
It sounds rather terrifying to me, flying for the first time, then having to spend several hours around MRAs (while being female), having to act as manager, with jetlag. That’s a holiday from hell I wouldn’t wish on any but the most evil of people.
I’m a big scaredy-cat though, I won’t even fly alone.
WWT: Maybe they’re actually being cagey. Perhaps they keep placing utterly inept women in the heavy-lifting roles in order to prove that women can’t do the job. Of course, this would only work on the sort of lackwit that would be attracted to the MRM in the first place, but there ya go.
“FREE ACCESS to an actual BRITISH WOMAN”
LMAO!
Well, that’s gotta be worth at least 500 bucks.
I’m surprised, though, that they couldn’t find any American woman conference organizing person. Especially since Honey Badgers have experience with conferences ‘n stuff and would likely do it for free, dedicated to the cause as they are.
WWT, it is getting awfully conspicuous. Let’s see, we have Tieman on the sob stories, Stacey collecting the money, Davison was editing and adminning as “Mike Hunt”, Straughan is the public face, Judgybitch is the doxxing apologist, Morris is the conference organizer, Tara Palmatier is the counselor, and Suzanne McCarley is the enforcer. What is there left to do, other than bash feminists, the fun stuff?
@weirwoodtreehugger:
Oh, but this — auxillary roles — is what women are good for. They are created as helpmeets for men, remember?
Of course those roles are what makes the civilization and men’s righters’ events going, but never mind such details.
Next year tickets will cost $1000 for a single speaker with a slide of a feminist captioned BAD, followed by an 8 hour break for lunch.
If you act now, you will also receive ample time for sleeping!
I’d like to volunteer for the job of Chief of Security.
Sincerely;
Paul Blart
What kind of a professional event manager bellyaches about the flight to the event to the actual client and potential ticket buyers? I know there’s a lot ore wrong but this really struck me as “eeek! How’s your foot taste?”
ROFL! I literally fell over I was laughing so hard. This is definitely the funniest article I’ve read to date on here.
Yeh! But if NY first ever flight out if the UK was to Houston, I’d really be thinking is this the best use if my holiday money? 2k GBP gets me and my family of four to Toulouse for a fortnight flat & flights. I’d really be evaluating my lifestyle choices if this was my first big trip other than the ferry to Calais or the Eurostar
I’m astonished that a British person who’s an experienced professional has never been on a plane before… plane flights around Europe are cheaper than taking the ferry or train in a lot of cases, I mean even just for your hols you should be able to scrounge up 29 quid for a weekend trip to Marballa. Even my old mum got on a plane once, and she thought modern technology was at constant risk of explosion and wouldn’t even let us have a telly in the house.
I mean to be fair, there’s a lot about this convention fiasco that’s astonishing me… but this is what I can wrap my head around. I do think it’s interesting that conventions are now being looked at as the most likely and easy scams around now, with few laws governing them and it being so easy to just say anything online and no one find out the truth till they show up at the hotel to find just a deflating ballpit.
greyskye: I’m willing to give the Dashcon folks a slightly higher benefit of the doubt–they were at least willing to cop to bad money-management, and to demonstrate that they actually spent the money on the con itself (they posted the bills showing the funds paid to the venue, for instance). Admitted ineptitude is nowhere near as bad as concealed avarice, which is all that Elam and Co are about.
Greyskye “deflating ball Pit” lol.
Autocorrect didn’t accept “pit”, wanted me to capitalize it and add a t, making it “Pitt” as a nod to Brad Pitt which I think is some proof of misandry, cock carousels, and 80/20 laws of SCIENCE.