xiphias | A negative comment about a party at Arisia

A negative comment about a party at Arisia

Far as I'm concerned, you can EITHER have an invite-only party OR you can advertise your party.

But it's FUCKING RUDE to advertise your invite-only party.

Don't mind invite-only parties. Don't even mind invite-only parties who, apparently, were going around handing out invites only to women who were dressed slutty. Heck, if someone took that to the extreme, and walked around the con handing out slips of paper which said, "You're sexy. Come to my room at 11 pm," that wouldn't bother me. And if he or she got people to show up, more power to him or her.

DO mind people who do that and also put posters up in the stairwells advertising their party. It's fucking RUDE to do that, then set up a velvet rope outside, and do the "club" thing. Dunno about you, but I go to cons to get away from that kind of dynamic.

Yes, I'm pissed off at not being pretty enough to get into that party.

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I just wanted to add a PS that I am genuinely impressed by your (the host's) taking the time to respond -- respectfully instead of defensively -- to the complaints in this forum. I think that's wonderful. And it does sound like the party was great and (mostly) well thought out -- I hope it was everything you envisioned! and that the feedback helps to get even more people enjoy your efforts next year.

Thank you chanelah, I appreciate your comments. It's hard to see every angle of an idea ahead of time and in retrospect with all the fetish at Arisia (I heard there was an entire fetish floor at the spillover hotel) perhaps the leashes gave the wrong idea for our party theme. My husband just suggested maybe we should have some stupid hats for muggles. :)

It did turn out as well as we hoped (except for seeing how we upset folks with the posters), but we're all exhausted. :) We've gotten requests that we disseminate the theme ahead of time so maybe folks can come up with costumes specifically for our party, and that is really a wonderful compliment and we will seriously consider doing so.

I really do appreciate the feedback and will do my best to make sure that everyone who wants to come can in the future (barring space limitations of course.) This new hotel despite all the problems with its miniature size was *much* better for us - no hotel security, no family with a baby booked below us, no repeated orders to turn down the music, and we got the suite we needed this year. Once we're rested up, we'll see about planning for next year. :)

Yeah. . . stupid hats would go over better than leashes.

Leashes are already a touchy subject for some of us. . . because we take them seriously. You'll find a number of people at Arisia who are really offended by using leashes as fashion statements.

And, like Erica said, I really do appriciate you dropping by to explain what was going on. I hope it is clear that my problem is the disconnect between a closed party and an advertised party -- and the lack of understanding what the party IS.

Had the people at the door turned us away by saying, "We're asking people to come to the party in costume," we would not have been offended. Having the woman at the door turn to my wife, gesture at herself, and say, "If you want to come back dressed more like this, that would be okay" -- that sent an unintended message.

NOW I understand that "more like this" meant, "in costume." What we heard was "like a slut," and that offended us.

We like dressing sexy. Sometimes. Had we known about that ahead of time, we could have chosen to do so -- thinking about what we had with us, we could probably have put something together. But being hit by it the way it was expressed hit my "I'm not your fucking trained monkey" reaction.

"Dress like this" sounds like "dance, monkey dance". "Dress in costume" is cool.

And, again -- I don't have a problem with closed parties. I've been a door guard for closed invitation-only parties at Arisia at previous years.

I've been a door guard for parties at Arisia that were invitation-only because we didn't want the police to find out. We weren't breaking any of the drug laws, but . . . um, I'm not going to go into detail about what laws we WERE breaking because

rebmommy is my mother and reads my LJ.

Mom, Lis and I haven't been to any of THOSE parties since we've been married.

OK now I'm starting to get defensive. :)

I'm sorry it came off like that and will see that door speak is more clear in the future. While I understand some folks would take offense at a leash as a fashion statement, I also hate the boundaries of political correctness and would have to say that last years Church of Skank was surely offensive to persons of each religion of the types of clergies we dressed up as, but we still did that. We like to be equal opportunity offensive.

I might curb the leash use so as not to send the wrong message at the door, but I would not want to take it off the list of possibilities just to avoid offending alternative lifestyle folk (whom I nevertheless support fully). Can I also not wear collars or leather, or rubber, or latex, unless I am heading to a play party? What if I belong to a certain group, but am just going out dancing? Is it offensive to wear a ring on your left hand if you are not married?

We understand special relationships and we actually let either party hold the leash if it was requested, not a problem. But everything is a symbol to someone and in our walk-on-eggshell society, sometimes I just get tired of the overthink. I can't promise we won't offend someone next year too, but only some of it will be on purpose, and none of it will be meant to hurt anyone's feelings, or to exclude a single person who has met our single criteria of spending time and effort on making a cool costume and not creeping us out.

Thanks.

or to exclude a single person who has met our single criteria of spending time and effort on making a cool costume and not creeping us out.

I think those are good and admirable criteria for a party.

I just wish I'd known about the first half of it.

(I did kind of assume the second half.)

Yeah, my time at the door talking to the guardian was spent finding out what the dress code was, and then we slipped down the hall and complied with it. And yes, it would have been easy to get a bad feel from that discussion, but I routinely get told no in much less agreeable ways, by people who are professionally mean, so I just talked through it. It really depended on how you heard what was being said, and the presentation was borderline. On the other hand, this discussion started from the lack of major incident, and the people who were cruising for booze, with the intent of getting polluted and falling down the stairs didn't seem to be able to comprehend and comply with the dress code. So, in a way, it worked.

And for the poster down the thread who complained about how the party seemed organized to draw conventionally attractrive women, there was at least one fantasticly attractive man there. I had to stand between my wife and him at one point to get her attention to ask a question :)

Leashes are already a touchy subject for some of us. . . because we take them seriously. You'll find a number of people at Arisia who are really offended by using leashes as fashion statements.

-In my opinion, such offense is equivalent to certain types of Christians objecting to other people using the name of God in vain.

NOW I understand that "more like this" meant, "in costume." What we heard was "like a slut," and that offended us.

So you got offended by what you heard rather than by what was said; that explains a lot.

And is pretty typical in human communication, yes.

Being common hardly justifies something; you didn't bother to find out what the doorguard meant because what you heard fit so well with your expectations.

A communication failure happens because of two things: a message sent failure, or a message recieved failure.

You'll notice that I'm not the only one who received the message I received.

That means that, while a certain amount of the failure happened on my side, another amount happened on the "sending" side.

In general, in communications studies, we tend to consider a communications failure to usually have the larger portion of the failure happening on the "sender" side. In a typical communication failure, about 70% of the error happens on the sender side -- that's obviously an approximate number, because this isn't something that can be ACTUALLY measured.

Naturally, what I heard fit with my expectations. That's the way that things work, and that's part of the sender side -- what expectations have been set up.

You'll notice that I'm not the only one who received the message I received.

I also notice that many received the intended message and this is obviously a skewed sample; of those who were initially turned away but weren't offended, how many do you think are finding this post and bothering to say anything?

There are also several people posting here who both got in and had a great time.

Naturally, what I heard fit with my expectations. That's the way that things work, and that's part of the sender side -- what expectations have been set up.

I'm talking about your world-view that predisposes you to find offense in this kind of circumstance; those planning the party had no part in that world-view, I'm guessing. Both the posters (and the invites) set up the expectation in me that dressing skanky was the way to go. The invites explicitly said, "Inappropriate dress required" (and no, I didn't get one because I'm a hot chick) but that was only heavily implied on the posters.

Of course I have a world-view that predisposes me to find offense in this sort of circumstance -- that's what I've been SAYING. And of course the ACTUAL party hosts had no part of that.

That, of course, doesn't mean that they aren't aware of that sort of mind-set, nor that they are -- I mean, we live in the same culture, so I assume we have some sort of cultural commonality, but, as I have never met them, I don't know that.

As far as sent messages: I also assume that other people were SENT other messages. They had different people working the door at different times; different people have different communication styles. Every communication event happens in a context, between people. I, personally, received a message. A few other people ALSO received the same message, which suggests that the ENTIRE burden of miscommunication is not on me.

In cases where only a single person receives a message, you can assume that the entire fault belongs to that person: "I asked him if he wanted paper or plastic; he assumed that I said to worship our Lord Satan and kill babies. I guess I could have been clearer. . . "

In a case like that, you wouldn't assume that the SENDER of the message had been at fault. But if MULTIPLE people assume that that supermarket bagger is suggesting infant sacrifice, you might want to check to see if the supermarket bagger is maybe wearing a button which says "ASK ME ABOUT SACRIFICING INFANTS TO SATAN" or something.

If a statistically significant number of people are receiving the wrong message, then the message sender needs to look at that -- even if the great majority of people are receiving the intended message.

If a statistically significant number of people are receiving the wrong message, then the message sender needs to look at that -- even if the great majority of people are receiving the intended message.

I don't believe a statistically significant number of people got the wrong message nor do I believe that if the great majority got the right message that it should change to accommodate those that didn't.

I also believe that you (and the others turned away who didn't come back in "proper dress") aren't their "target audience"; while you may well have enhanced the party, it was a surer bet for them that others would.

I also believe that you (and the others turned away who didn't come back in "proper dress") aren't their "target audience"; while you may well have enhanced the party, it was a surer bet for them that others would.

Nothing I'm saying contradicts that -- what I've been saying, and still hold to after all this discussion, and even now that I have a much better idea of what the party hosts intended -- is that, under that dynamic, the party shouldn't be advertised.

I agree that advertising the party with no room number was a bit odd and said as much to my assistant who knows the people who put it on. But I don't think it *shouldn't* have been done; I just think they could have been clearer about the dress code.

The whole thing has spiraled out of control, though, and people are talking about how the party should have been canceled, the posters taken down and the people not allowed to return to Arisia, all for the sin of turning away people at the door and thus pushing some people's buttons. And that, I think, is a total over-reaction.

For the record -- none of those people are me. I'm saying that the party shouldn't have had posters up, and that, other than that, everything else was tacky at worst, and, now that I'm understanding where they're coming from, I don't even feel quite that.

I'm not certain where anyone said the party should have been closed down -- "closed", yes -- but I saw that in the sense of "closed party", not "closed down party".

I'm not certain where anyone said the party should have been closed down -- "closed", yes -- but I saw that in the sense of "closed party", not "closed down party".

Check this thread and the one over at the

arisia; at least one person said in no uncertain terms that Arisia should have closed down the party. And it was implied more than once that these people shouldn't be let back into Arisia until they didn't do that kind of thing any more.

You're both partly right I think. Yes some of the door people were new and they would start by giving folks at the door a hard time and then move to explaining that if potential guests changed into some sort of costume they would be let in. Folks that left right away without having the conversation only got the hard time, and that is probably our fault.

We were trying to create buzz for the party with the posters, that's why there was no room number on the posters, and *even* if we intended to be slightly more open than we were supposed to be, without making that clear (which we couldn't on the posters because we were supposed to be closed, and didn't always at the door because of communication problems) this may have followed the letter of the law but not the spirit (not sure there), and we were probably wrong there too.

I agree with xiphias that we should not have advertised a closed party, which even though it wasn't *that* closed was still arbitrarily selective.
I don't think we needed to be closed down - we've been having these parties at Arisia for probably 10 years and are just starting to friendly them up outside our immediate circle of friends. Asking us to take down the posters should have been enough, I mean we're paying hundreds of dollars (probably a grand or so to put on that party) and spending 150 hours on decor and we got a little overexcited. That doesn't seem like a crime punishable by exile.

Finally, I am not saying that xiphias would not have been a fun guy to party with - he just got the wrong message which is probably halvsies our fault & his... but hell yes we are trolling for folks with a sense of humor. WE are the skanks - all our badges say skanks, we are dressed in the party theme, and we've been using the term 'skanking out' for years and years as we get ready for parties. It was a natural progression to theme our parties. Folks who come to the door and laugh when we give them shit about their jeans and tshirts and are willing to do something like put on a leash to be a muggle-in-tow (no disrespect intended to lifestylers, we meant it as a marker not a relationship statement) or most especially to run back to their rooms to change for us - those are our kind of people, they're willing to have fun with us and to play along, and so we want to share our hard work, bridge of the enterprise, dance party, snacks and our Con experience with them. Folks who get angry that we used the term skank, or who get angry at the door check (when it is properly applied, sorry xiphias) well they are not willing to have fun with us so yeah we're weeding them out.

But postering even without room numbers is advertising, and advertising if we retain the right to turn people away upsets the people that get turned away. Should we do it - I'm guessing not. Is it wrong? It happens all the time in the real world, but maybe it shouldn't at Con. I haven't finished forming my opinion on if its wrong, but you're all helping. Thank you.

And, like I've been saying, as I've been hearing from your side of the story, I'm really understanding where you guys are coming from.

For the record, if there are camps, I'm firmly in the "Hell, yes, this party should exist if people want to throw it" camp, even if I'm also in the "advertise it? Um. .. " camp.

I thought the party was wonderful, and having folks put effort into a real party, not just putting out chips and m-n-m's and expect people to show up and hang out.Party throwing is an art, and you did great.
Also, I agree with

gilana, a dress code does not make it a closed party.

*Thank* you. :)

Yes, it was a great party, and I'd love to be more in the loop for it next year. :-)

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