Six Days from the Big Game!

I had planned to discuss more mistakes writers make today, but I’m too distracted. We are less than a week away from the Creatures, Crimes &Creativity Con and we are hip deep in last minute details.
It all starts with making sure we have registration set up. We’re making sure we have name tags for all the attendees and tent cards for everyone who will sit on a panel. That means checking and re-checking the list of attendees.  We’ve got to make sure the right people are on each panel, and that the writers know which panels they’re on. And we’ve got to be sure our head count is 100% accurate, so there are enough meals for everybody.
We are verifying all the gifts our sponsors have given us, starting with the goody-bags donated by Intrigue Publishing author Jeff Markowitz. We have to fill those bags with the different books, magazines, pens, hand sanitizers, water bottles, etc, that our generous supporters have donated.  Of course each bag has to have a copy of our exclusive C3 anthology.
We have to set up the C3 website so that during the Con attendees can register for next year’s Con at a big discount. We need to total all the tweets that have used our hashtag (#MdC3Con) to determine who will win the Kindle Fire. And we have to finalize the details of the scavenger hunt so we can fairly judge who will win the $50 Amazon gift card.
We need to verify that each of our volunteers knows their schedule and understands their duties, in order for panel shifts and other scheduled events go smoothly.
We’re setting up schedules and sign-up sheets for our literary agents, so they will know who they are meeting with when. We’re also creating a sign-up sheet for the “Buzz Your Book” session, so every participant will know when to step up and share their elevator pitch with the group.
And we’re verifying that our on-site bookstore, run by Novel Books, has copies of novels by each of our attending authors. We want them all to be able to participate in the big book signings Friday and Saturday night.

Running the Creatures, Crimes & Creativity Con is a great joy for all of us involved, but it’s also a huge responsibility and we are determined to get it right. If you’re going to be there, make sure you let us know if we did.