How to run a generalist panel at a mediafan con
Monday, 21 June 2010 20:03![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zviNB: This advice is for a generalist panel, one that's either about canon or standard fannish behavior. If you're doing a specialist panel, where you're attempting to impart specific information (e.g. like "What CSI didn't teach you about murder police" or "Copyright and filing off the serial numbers" or "Making Icons with the GIMP",) it's a lot more like an oral presentation you might do for school, with notes and an outline and possibly slides. If you're talking about kyriarchy or writing tragedy or combining family and fandom or anything with implications for people's actual lives, you should: (i) fucking well refuse to do it without a co-mod, (ii) do some pre-reading and (iii) define some base rules of behavior and define your terms, and let people know that if they don't want to do the panel that your base rules are establishing, they don't have to stay.
But say that you're going to do the panel on "Is manpain ever appropriate on my tv screen?" or "[Your OTP] in [Your Fandom]: how so awesome?". This is what you do:
1) *Think of five to ten things to talk about that have to do with the panel topic.
2) Show up on time.
3) Start talking about the thing from your list you most want to talk about.
4) Call on people when hands go up.
5) Mention something else on your list if the conversation dies down.
6) Mention something else on your list if the conversation goes way off-topic.
7) Start wrapping up when you get your five minute warning.
*You do not have to think of these things ahead of time, but it is less nerve-wracking if you do, and you are less likely to wind up at the 25 minute mark with the awful realization that you have only thought of four things.
Optional
A) Take notes or con someone in the audience into taking notes.
B) Write a panel write up afterward.
Some easy ways tostall for time get the conversation started:
1) Make lists of things
2) Ask what makes the things on the list similar or different
3) Ask if [some other kind of fan] does things differently than [kind of fan having the con]
4) Talk about meta or fic or art or canon that is an example of the topic of the discussion done well or done poorly.
5) Gentle sexual innuendo. Gentle mocking of fandoms widely acknowledged to have poor quality canon. (The Sentinel and Enterprise are awesome for this.) Other gentle forms of humor. Talking about how [panel topic] makes you think or feel or react. Make it personal, about you, as the moderator.
6) Ask if people did this or thought about this in the old days, back when you made your zine on a mimeograph machine and were damn glad it wasn't carbon paper. Or the old days of Usenet. Or the old days of Yahoogroups. (I refuse to think about any more recent old days.)
7) Ask if anyone has something they would like to say.
But say that you're going to do the panel on "Is manpain ever appropriate on my tv screen?" or "[Your OTP] in [Your Fandom]: how so awesome?". This is what you do:
1) *Think of five to ten things to talk about that have to do with the panel topic.
2) Show up on time.
3) Start talking about the thing from your list you most want to talk about.
4) Call on people when hands go up.
5) Mention something else on your list if the conversation dies down.
6) Mention something else on your list if the conversation goes way off-topic.
7) Start wrapping up when you get your five minute warning.
*You do not have to think of these things ahead of time, but it is less nerve-wracking if you do, and you are less likely to wind up at the 25 minute mark with the awful realization that you have only thought of four things.
Optional
A) Take notes or con someone in the audience into taking notes.
B) Write a panel write up afterward.
Some easy ways to
1) Make lists of things
2) Ask what makes the things on the list similar or different
3) Ask if [some other kind of fan] does things differently than [kind of fan having the con]
4) Talk about meta or fic or art or canon that is an example of the topic of the discussion done well or done poorly.
5) Gentle sexual innuendo. Gentle mocking of fandoms widely acknowledged to have poor quality canon. (The Sentinel and Enterprise are awesome for this.) Other gentle forms of humor. Talking about how [panel topic] makes you think or feel or react. Make it personal, about you, as the moderator.
6) Ask if people did this or thought about this in the old days, back when you made your zine on a mimeograph machine and were damn glad it wasn't carbon paper. Or the old days of Usenet. Or the old days of Yahoogroups. (I refuse to think about any more recent old days.)
7) Ask if anyone has something they would like to say.