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.
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!
And this year we will ensure that we start each session on time.
Longer lunch breaks! And afternoon breaks!
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 UK at the conference-goers’ expense? Sure, makes perfect sense!
I wonder if a single person has bought a ticket for the conference yet.
All of this. All of it. For some men who hate feminists, they sure do prove to be a damn good reason why we’re around.
Also, holy crap. At those prices, I could go to my local anime convention for the entire weekend, get a (completely unneeded) hotel room for three nights, and still have money to spend on overpriced con merchandise (also completely unneeded)! AND I’d have money to make a bangin’ cosplay beforehand (maybe)!
I wish I had that much money to just toss into a metaphorical dumpster. Sheeeet.
http://img.pandawhale.com/83411-I-understood-that-reference-gi-6jlf.gif
SO MANY DASHCON REFERENCES.
“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.”
Buttercup, that only happens if they can find a woman (excuse me, “feeeemale”) volunteer to set up the slide projector!
Wow, four whole dollars! You could buy 16 whole gumballs with that type of money.
Fewer speakers with longer sessions is at least a real consideration for a conference. It shouldn’t increase the cost, however, but decrease it. If I had even $399 lying around I’d buy some extra, high end cigars with it. Burning tobacco is a much more beneficial use of that cash.
Why do they need to pay speakers anyway? I go to conferences all the time and I have to pay to present at them lol
It could have something to do with the fact that even in the manosphere, AVfM is generally looked down upon.
If there really is a majority of women (or all women) helping set up the conference, maybe it should brought to the attention of the internet? I mean, that’s an interesting fact, right? That the MRA conference is being put together mostly by women. It’s at least a funny ironic fact.
After donning my deerstalker hat, I deduced that this year’s “Conference Manager” didn’t actually attend last year’s conference in Detroit. Admittedly, she could have traveled by some combination of boat, car, train and/or bus, but that seems unlikely.
Update: Did some googling and found out Morris helped last year’s clusterfuck long distance.
http://www.donotlink.com/eu76
My deerstalker hat hasn’t helped me figure out how someone could have gained “considerable conference management experience” without ever using air travel. Perhaps she worked for British Railways and was very brand loyal.
AVfM is fortunate to have fans who will believe this claim without demanding one iota of proof.
Well, it’s possible that she has traveled around Europe by rail. The Chunnel would make it practical, if unusual.
Tangent – my trip across the Channel was so long ago, there was no tunnel. I took the hovercraft ferry. Most unpleasant travel experience I have ever had.
@Tara
We hunted the Powerpoint for you!
Ummm… I will admit I have never run a con but I am good friends with people who have. When I told them about this clusterf*ck they weren’t sure to laugh or cry.
A short list of their questions (and mine) –
1. Are most of their attendees trust fund babies or hedge fund managers?
2. How big is the conference center vs how many people are they expecting?
3. Why are they providing catering?!? Apparently, most conference centers charge an arm and a leg for it and it is never very good.
4. Why does the conference staff have to set up? Most centers charge to set up for the con but it is often cheaper than providing extra hotel nights for the staff.
5. Why in the world are they paying for airfare and accommodations for VOLUNTEERS?? Normally at cons I have attended and helped out on the most I get is free entrance to the con.
6. How many program tracks are they running? My friends seemed to think maybe 5 rooms running over sixteen hours total panel time might explain the cost if each presenter only presented once.
7. Speaking of presenters, since they have already had their airfare and room paid by the con, couldn’t AVfM have reused some of them as panelists in the discussion panel instead of paying for even more people to fill those slots. I am sure some of their presenters could discuss TWO different topics without repeating themselves.
8. Why would allowing people to register on the day of the con slow down the line? Every con I have ever been to has had a line for preregistration and a separate line for everyone else.
And those are just the questions we could come up with off the top of our heads.
If it’s anything like the last conference, there is 1 track. Everything is presented in the same room in sequence.
I’ve attended conferences with the same format, but they cost $5 for entry, in order to provide a box lunch, and took place inside a community college lecture hall. All costs other than the lunch, whatever those might have been, were covered by some means other than soaking the attendees.
These conferences were intended to get out to people an important message about one or more related social problems, to engage the public in the subject of the conference, and to crowdsource possible solutions to the problem(s).
This could describe the vision AVFM has for their conference, except that Paul Elam has already stated that his “vision” is to make money from it. He doesn’t grasp the basics of economics, such as the revenue and profit curves, so he’s just set his entry fee sky-high and assumed people will pay it. The price point certainly doesn’t match the rhetoric – if this really were a legit conference on an important social issue, they’d charge $5 a head per day for box lunches, and get funding from other sources to cover the other costs, in order to maximize their attendance and get the message out to as many people as possible.
Good grief. If Paulie wants to make money, have an online summit. Isn’t anyone from AVFM reading here? Numerous people here have suggested this a thousand times! Charge less, get way more people, keep more as profit bc your overhead is super low. Package the video later and sell as well, if you want.
I suspect if they had a coherent mandate (other than ‘we gripe about feminists’) and/or goal, this would be easier for them to pull off. They’d be able to get reputable speakers on relevant topics (men’s health, fatherhood, divorce, incarceration, sexual abuse etc), have different tracks, get some press, plus be able to have volunteers they didn’t need to fly in bc more people would actually support and want to be involved in an event that had… a purpose.
Anyway, Paulie you are doing ‘make money online!’ wrong.
Hi everyone! Long time, no see. I couldn’t resist jumping back in on this topic.
Kestrel:
Indeed! Morris said:
10 speakers
5 panel members (not including Dr. T. who is included with the speakers)
1 panel moderator
1 event planner
—
17 + 28 volunteers = 45 total
What a slick way to get free hotels and air fare for 28 of the in-crowd.
Gotta love how Morris guarantees there will be protestors even though the name of the venue will not be made public. It will only be emailed to the attendees a week before the conference. All this cloak and dagger stuff is hilarious.
In the unlikely event that this takes place, does anyone think the press is going to show up again? I can’t imagine any of the media that went last year being interested in returning, especially with such a lacklustre program.
Keynote speakers generally get paid an honorarium (sometimes quite a large one), room, and travel expenses for speaking at conferences. Some invited panelists also get some form of recompense. Everyone else at a normal academic conference (assoc. profs, assist. profs, grad students &c.) pay registration costs to present and/or attend. That is, if we’re basing this on typical academic conference types.
Reblogged this on iheariseeilearn.
@Tracy
Because they can’t accept that anything to do with feminism is right. They’re also too stubborn to change it. Maybe next year?
Translation: We’re doing this so we don’t get any more surprise visits from Jeff Sharlet on GQ’s dime. Also, there are only so many fake feminist death threats we can claim before someone accuses us of crying wolf.
May I interrupt this thread for some highly important news?
I just discovered a very delicious variation on the screwdiver. It’s two shots of Absolut Ruby (grapefruit) mixed with a can of Pellegrino blood orange. I shall call it The Fire and Blood since it’s Game of Thrones season.
Okay. Resume.
Mmm, sounds good.
One of my favorite drinks I made up (I think) is Squirt or grapefruit flavored soda, cherry-flavored rum with two or three (or however many you want) cherries squeezed of their juices, not stirred in, and then plopped into the drink.
I think we all know what I call it.
WWTH, that sounds delicious! Although I would have called it the Bloody Pilgrim.
I am looking forward to the postmortem on Man-a-palooza II: Defective Boogaloo. There should be plenty of drama llama back and forth about what went wrong, when it went wrong, and how none of it is THEIR fault.
Two shots rye, one shot sweet red vermouth, dash bitters. Shake, strain, garnish with two blueberries.
The Dr. Manhattan.
I just found a recipe for something called the Sinner’s Sandwich (based off of the game Deadly Premonition, which wears its Twin Peaks inspiration on its sleeve), and I’m not sure if want.
It’s crust-less white bread, turkey breast (not processed, but rather straight from the turkey), strawberry jam, and cereal. Like Chex.
That sounds like a leftover Thanksgiving sandwich! (Which uses cranberry sauce and stuffing.) It should taste really good!