And I know enough of the HRI business (it being one of the Old Family Businesses) to be aware that, whatever a con may look like to a bewildered stringer told to cover it for the local rag or feed, we really are quite a lot better behaved than the usual convention crowd. Things have improved slightly since the "Sons of the Desert" cliche of guys in suits cut loose from home, wife, family, and spending their own money to indulge in Babylonian fantasies of Great You-Know-Whats with phone numbers graven on their thighs, but TV sets do still get thrown out of windows. Anyone who was at one of the Philcons that occupied congruent space to the Army-Navy Game will know what I mean.
I have an indelible memory of sitting in the lobby bar at (a different) Philcon, watching a young woman in a gold lame jumpsuit with matching stilettos, nails, and hair try with increasing bewilderment to ply her ancient trade. F. Paul Wilson showed up, and we discreetly watched the spectacle for a while, until the lady stamped her pointy heels and called for a taxi to go somewhere mor promising.

Well, okay, maybe sf cons aren't A-list in -everybody's- dossier.

OTOH, there is a lot of odd behavior at cons. And I don't go to a lot of cons. So maybe I should just shut up.

If that's not the case, or if the suggestion doesn't work, let us know.

Mitch, believe me, one grows thick-skinned, both about the silly epiphenomena and about the reporters who fixate on them.

The past few years, we have met in Minneapolis in March because we could get the hotel for almost free. The first year, they were skeptical until we sold out the hotel. They immediately asked us back, particularly when they had to get extra help in the bar and restaurant (which has truly boring hotel food, but IETFers are notoriously lazy about going out, particularly when there is wireless access).

(A related quote, second- or third-hand, from Housekeeping at the Atlanta Worldcon with the huge atrium: "I like these people. They throw light things.")

As for John M. Ford's tale of the "pro" in the lobby, one of her sisters was at San Jose in gold lame bodysuit and cat makeup. She tried valiantly to bypass the elevator lines, protesting that she wasn't part of the convention, she "just wore this to fit in!"

Teresa: unfortunately, there is no "60-year history of paying our bills", thanks to the little affair in Baltimore in 1983. (And if you go back much before that, SF conventions probably drop off the national radar -- per http://www.worldcon.org/wclist.html, attendance didn't break 1000 until 1967. (From what I read about some 1950's conventions this may be a Good Thing.) There used to be complaints that the hotels weren't paying attention -- I was told in 1982 (by a less reliable source) that the Chicago Hyatt decided the Phoenix Hyatt must have been lying about the business done at the first open-all-night coffee shop.