exhaustedEveryone on the Business Meeting team, from the head table to the Sergeants-at-Arms to the Video Team, did a great job. I do not see how things could have done any better than they did.
We did not overflow the room for the Business Meeting. Attendance was between 225 (based on the one counted vote we did) and 275 (my estimate). That's about 6% of the bodies-on-site (see below). In fact, there were seats available, had they been needed. Some people preferred to stand along the edges, even when I told them that I'd never call on them over there no matter what they did.
As I rather expected, we only managed to complete the absolutely required business. Tomorrow we'll pick up with the committee reports and resolutions, to which we did not get yesterday. I expect that after that we'll have 30 minutes of discussion about the 4/6 and EPH proposals in Committee of the Whole, and then finally we can get to ratification of constitutional amendments. Goodness knows how many new items we get done tomorrow. We'll need to do more of them on Saturday, and possibly Sunday.
After the Business Meeting, the head table staff went to a smaller function room for a debriefing panel where we discussed what happened from a technical perspective. This was relatively lightly attended. We'll do it again on Friday.
After that, I caught back up with Lisa and the video team and took them all to lunch. Admittedly it was only the concession stands, but that's what was handy because we were too late for the lunch in Riverfront Park that the DC bid was serving. And we somehow managed to snag one of the small number of tables in the food service area, which meant people could stop by and chat with us as we took a load off.
Around this time, Lisa determined that, as she'd never been officially asked to record the Fannish Inquisition, and because our official work uploading the Business Meeting wasn't done yet, we would have to not record the Inquisition and focus on getting the BM videos uploaded. We did that after lunch. Segments 4 and 5 had been delayed by a technical problem, but we got them uploaded in the late afternoon, and all five segments are now up there on the YouTube Worldcon Events Channel.
Lisa and I got about an hour to actually look at the Dealers' Room (Lisa bought a new hat) and to cast our 2017 Worldcon Site Selection ballots. By then, although it hadn't been too long since lunch, we concluded that we'd better get dinner early because there would be no other chance. We went to Hill's Restaurant, where we both had what might have been the best salmon I've ever eaten.
Getting Match Game SF set up was a little challenging, even with having the minivan only a few steps (relatively speaking) from Room 300B where we were doing the show. Consequently, we started a few minutes late. However, the show was an audience success, drawing an estimated 85. Indeed, when after Game 5 I started to close us out because we were nearing our planned 10 PM close, popular demand had us play a sixth and final game. I hope I didn't get us in trouble with the convention, because I later learned that contractually we were supposed to be out by 10:30, and thanks to going into overtime, we didn't actually roll the last cart out the door until 10:45.
There were so many things I wanted to get done today that I did not get done. I've taken photos that I don't have time to post. But I must get some sleep now, as we have to be up again in only six hours to start over. Fortunately, we only have a Business Meeting tomorrow and not a game show, although I think I'm part of Montreal's ballot-counting team tomorrow night.
Membership figures as of late tonight: 4,394 warm bodies (individual people attending) and 11,149 total memberships (including supporting). That makes Sasquan officially the largest Worldcon (in terms of total memberships, not attendees) of all time, breaking the record from last year that Loncon 3 set of 10,800.