VidUKon 2022 Feedback Updates

[cosmic_llin]

A huge thank you to everyone who filled in our feedback form after last year’s con! We’ve been taking your responses on board and working on some of it behind the scenes, but ahead of this year's con we wanted to post and share some updates on some of the things that came through in the feedback and how we’re planning to address them.

First of all, thank you to everyone who highlighted what worked well and what you enjoyed - the vast majority of feedback was in this vein and it’s great to know that, broadly, the con is working well for a lot of folks. And thank you as well to everyone who pointed out stuff that wasn’t working so well or that could be improved - we really appreciate this too as it helps us to make sure we’re providing the best possible experience!

On to some specific feedback - these are not direct quotes but paraphrases based on things that came up across the write-in sections, sometimes from more than one person.

Tech/Infrastructure:

“Hybrid panels worked well on the whole but there were some audio issues and it wasn’t always easy for online attendees to keep track of what was going on in the room. The bar for online attendees to join the StreamYard stream to contribute felt high because of the 10-person limit.”

This year we will be making a change to our microphone setup in the room, to hopefully improve sound quality for those watching online. We will also ask speakers to introduce themselves before contributing, so that everyone knows who is speaking, not just the folks in the room who can see them.

Since expanding the con’s hybrid options, we’ve gone through a lot of trial and error to find the best tech solution to set up hybrid panels. Streamyard has its advantages; we are considering returning to Zoom this year, though, since Zoom is familiar to many and lowers the participation bar for Conline attendees. We’ll have to ask you to be patient with us while we figure out the best setup, and to keep letting us know what is or isn’t working for you.

“Conline is great but please could it be easier to navigate warnings/skip to a specific vid while watching on-demand/find out what programming is happening right now and next?”

We are just one of several cons using Conline, which is a platform built as a passion project by Lithiumdoll to allow anyone to set up a hybrid or online con: with Conline, cons don’t necessarily need a coding whiz on their team to be able to make their con’s programming available to online participants. Other cons using it include KisCon, ConTXT, and ConFab.

Since we’re users on this platform rather than owners, though, this means that we don’t have as much control over Conline features as we would over a platform we set up ourselves. Which is a long way to say that we’ve passed your feedback on to Lithy, but can’t promise anything. Conline also has a support Discord which is linked on the Conline homepage where Lithy is available and happy to answer questions and take feedback directly. Please keep in mind, though, that she is managing this platform on her own, for free, and in her spare time.

Regarding warnings specifically: we are aware that warnings aren’t always easy to see or keep track of during a vidshow. For this reason, warnings are included in the Conbook, which will be available for free as a PDF download as soon as the con opens. For now, please use the Conbook as a warning reference. We are also hoping to have an announcer bot this year that will include warnings: this is still in the works but definitely something we’re putting effort into.

“On Discord, could we have a pronoun bot/roles, something that shows whether attendees are online or in-person, and/or a bot that announces the vid titles?”

Yes! We are looking into options for all of these. We may not end up doing all of them but we are figuring out what will work best.

“The in-person vidshow and the streaming vidshow weren’t always in sync, which sometimes felt a little disconnected, especially for in-person attendees sitting in the back row in order to participate in the Discord chat.”

We would love to have both in-person and streaming vidshows perfectly in sync, but sometimes the practicalities of the in-person con - things like the internet connection at the hotel, and the logistics of giving everyone time to pee/get drinks with limited bathroom stalls/space at the drinks station - mean that the in-person con doesn’t start bang on the hour. This year we’ll do our best to keep to time, and depending on how the schedule shakes out we may experiment with longer breaks in part to facilitate this, but ultimately we may not be able to guarantee always staying in sync.

“In-person communication was sometimes a struggle due to everyone wearing masks.”

Yes, some of us on the concom had trouble with this too! This is a tricky balance to strike as we want everyone to feel safe and comfortable at the con, but we also want everyone to feel able to communicate clearly.

Ultimately this year we’ve decided to keep to the same covid policy as last year and continue to require masks in con spaces. We recognise that this makes some things trickier. We will continue to review this policy each year.

“It’s hard to understand how to submit vids.”

Similar to the Conline question above, the short answer is that we don’t have control over the vid submission process in Conline, since we are platform users rather than owners. We’re aware of this issue, though, and are hopeful to, if not make it simpler this year, at least provide clear instructions. To receive these instructions, please make sure you’re signed up to our mailing list, or – if you prefer – to follow either our Dreamwidth or Twitter:

Mailing List: https://vidukon.us16.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=55af1bbf4e461112f616d06a5&id=1994d6bae7

Dreamwidth: https://vidukon-cardiff.dreamwidth.org/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/vidukon

If you’re ever unsure how to get your vid to us, please never hesitate to contact us at vidukon@gmail.com. We’re happy to help.

Format

“The con is fantastic, I just wish it fit in better with my timezone!”

We got a lot of feedback in this vein! While unfortunately we don’t have the power to abolish timezones, we’ll continue to try to schedule things like Premieres so that they’re reasonably doable in as many timezones as possible, and we’ll also do what we can to support folks outside the con’s timezone to organise watching together or hanging out together while the UK con is asleep.

“It would have been nice to have some audio/video channels in the Discord, for online folks to chat informally.”

We’ve actually had these for the past couple of years, but this came up a few times in the feedback so it sounds like we haven’t hyped them up enough or made it clear enough how and when folks can use them!

This year we will look into options to make these more visible and a more attractive option for online socialising, including possibly having some set meetup times, or specific activities planned.

“The Discord felt kind of sprawling and tricky to keep up with.”

This is one of those nice problems to have - folks are chatting so much that there’s no way to keep track of every conversation! But we do have some ideas to make the Discord a bit easier to navigate, including removing some lesser-used channels, creating some kinds of channels on request instead of by default, and hopefully providing a bit more guidance on getting the most out of the server.

“The quiz is fun, but for online teams that need to type to discuss their answers, the pace is a bit fast!”

This year we are making some tweaks to the quiz to make the questions simpler to follow (although not necessarily easier to answer!). We are also looking at ways to give more time to answer.

Content

“We’d love more panels and workshops!”

So would we! Items like this are trickier to get than vidshows as they rely on folks volunteering to run them, and so we tend to get fewer submitted. This is understandable because talking in front of people and preparing material is a high bar, and now we’re hybrid there are more things to think about. We’ll look at what support we give to panellists to make sure it’s as easy and straightforward as possible. In the end though, most of VidUKon’s programming depends on what people decide to do, so if you’d like to see something we very much encourage you to submit it in future years.

“It might be cool to have more social stuff that people can just turn up and enjoy, without needing to sign up or commit to the entire session.”

We will look into options for this, particularly online where folks might need a bit more support to coordinate.

“It would be good if panellists and VJs could have more say in when their content is scheduled.”

Given the constraints of timezones and competing needs, it’s not always possible to give everyone their preferred slots, but we will consult with panellists and VJs to try to ensure that their content is scheduled at a time that works well for them.

In both 2022 and 2021, we received a single response to the feedback poll that suggested, essentially, that the con’s programming has become too diverse. We are not planning to take this feedback into consideration for future programming decisions (or, in fact, at all).

The content at VidUKon has always been influenced by what fandoms are currently popular, and the number of sources familiar or compelling to any single attendee will likely fluctuate from year to year. Over the years, VidUKon has also frequently featured plenty of vids made with less well known source material.

VidUKon is made up of the ideas and perspectives of many vidders, VJs and members of vid communities, and as such we the concom guide the con’s content rather than fully controlling it. However, our intent is very much to embrace and encourage small fandoms, queer themes, marginalised stories and non-Western canons. We believe that this is what will make our programming more balanced and accessible, and we are not interested in becoming more “mainstream” or in catering to an audience that is only interested in a narrow range of vids.

Comments

[such_heights]

<3 thank you for everything you do!

[valoise]

Running a con always sounds so hard, like juggling and riding a unicycle while herding cats. It is very gratifying that you actually give serious consideration to feedback. Maybe some day I can actually cross the Atlantic to come in person.

[frayadjacent]

late reply, but we would love to see you if you ever are able to come! Thanks for the kind comment.