Here's a dilemma I'd like to throw out to those who've run conventions
before, because I don't have a good answer for it, and maybe it'd help to
illuminate the discussion a bit.

I was talking to X, who is a prime mover behind one of the for-profit
convention companies. I noted, in the course of the conversation, my
surprise that Actor Y had not been invited to many conventions by that
company. X's response: "Well, that's because Actor Y keeps showing up at
fan conventions for free. How can we justify paying someone who's lowered
his/her market value like that?"

Initial reaction: that's rather odious thinking.

Secondary and tertiary reactions: you're an actor. You don't really
come out of the SF field, you don't know the ins and outs, or what the
diff is between a fan con and a profit con. Convention A asks you to do
their convention, and will pay $4,000 plus transportation and airfare.
Convention B asks you to their convention, but can't pay anything but the
hotel and a guest pass. Actors are not limitless pools of money; they
have the same fiscal nuts to crack as everyone else...mortgage, car,
alimony, kids, doctors, name it.

It does put things very much in the favor of the paying cons when it
comes to actors and the like. How does one tell an actor not to do it?
(Not that it is my job or anyone else's to do so, and I'm not entirely
sure it would be *right* to do so...any opportunity an actor has to
perform for an audience, and be properly compensated for that performance,
should be seized.) So maybe it isn't so much "don't do this one," as "be
OPEN to the other type as well." But then how do you counter the X/Y
conversation above?

It is, frankly, a real mess....

jms