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Featured Article - Tracks

Tracks are labels applied to related programming and events falling under a similar subject matter. They are primarily for the benefit of the customer-member-participant so that he may focus his attention to the subject matter of his choice. Tracks may sometimes have separate creative teams behind them. They are often scheduled serially so that a person may attend all, or at least most of, the events in the same programming track.

Some common tracks along with typical three letter codes and brief description are:

• Anime (ANM) - Related to Japanese animation and similar events related to the sub-culture.
• Art (ART) - Related to Artists or Artistry.
• Autographing (ATG) - Program time set aside to get items autographed by the author or artist.
• Costuming (COS) - Related to costume, including construction and masquerade.
• Executive - Related to executive functions i.e. Opening Ceremonies, Public Meetings of Sponsoring Organization etc.
• Gaming (GAM)- Related to Gaming events that occur in program space or the official program..
• General Fandom (FAN) - Related to the fandom in general.
• Family Friendly (FMY) - Family friendly programming that is not only intended for kids.
• Filking (FLK) - Filk events that occur in program space or the official program.
• Kid (KID) - Kid friendly programming which is intended for kids.
• Media (MED) - Mass media including comics, internet, movies, radio, publications, television, etc.
  • Battlestar - Related to Battlestar Galactic.
  • Dr. Who - Related to Dr. Who.
  • SG1 - Related to Stargate
  • Star Trek - Related to Star Trek.
  • Star Wars - Related to Star Wars.
  • X Men - Related to X-Men.
  • X Files - Related to X-Files
• Readings (RDG) - Readings where a part of a story is read by an author or someone else.
• Religion - Related to religion as it relates to the fandom.
• SCA - Related to Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA).
• Socio-Political Topics (SOC) - Related to social and political values as they relate to the fandom.
• Science (SCI) - Related to actual real science occurring at this time.
• Spirituality - Related to spirituality as it relates to the fandom.
• Writing (WRI) - Related to the 'art' of the written word sometimes called Literature (LIT).

Departments

There is no One True Way to organize your committee into departments. Often times a convention will run for a few years one way, and then combine departments that share a lot of the same resources or purpose into a single department. Or a department may split, as the needs of the convention grow. Do what works for you, and recruit reliable department heads. Create, publish, and maintain a clear set of objectives and methods to document continuity of what works, what doesn't, and why. Check on the senior staff regularly to make sure they're getting whatever support they need from you and the rest of the committee, pre-con and at-con. Department heads then recruit what staff and at-con volunteers they need to accomplish the goals of the department.

Have your department heads document the procedures of running their department, and train people under them so that you have a pool of people ready to be future department heads, and you are capturing knowledge from one year to the next.

A common way to split a science fiction convention into departments is like so:

You can easily see how Volunteers might also go under Operations, Masquerade and Dance under Programming, etc. A small enough convention may not have a person dedicated to publicity separate from their publications head, or an information desk, or whatever. And of course, some conventions don't have Art Shows, or Charity Auctions, or whatever. Try to pick a structure that best supports what you do and how you want to do it.