[Bloo09]

Approvals and Denials have begun going out! So panelists please watch your emails! We are currently only reviewing the 160 panels who applied by the first initial deadline of October 31st. If you applied after that date your panel will be reviewed once we get the first 160 in the schedule. If your email tends to get a lot of spam make sure you put @acen.org emails on your friendly email list and search your email for @acen.org emails in case you missed it. All emailed in questions have been answered as of right now (check this post's time stamp) so if you emailed us before now the reply is probably in your spam folder or you should send us another email.

All panelists including co panelists will be emailed with a confirmation email listing the length of the panel requested, and the time it's been scheduled for. Only the head panelist may request changes by March 1st. After that it is set in stone and cannot be changed.

All panelists will be sent the amount discounted off of their badge. It is either 50% for one panel, or 100% for 2 or more. Discounted panelist badges will not be mailed out. They will be available for pick up in the panels office in Gatwick which is located in the basement of the Hyatt on the right side of the escalators when going down. There will be a sign! A photo ID is needed to pick up your badge, you may only pick up your badge, you cannot pick up badges for your co panelists. We are not allowing mailing due to the amount of panelists who change and leave panels, we would have no way to correct the discounted badge to a full badge.

We highly suggest for those receiving 50% to pay online once your account is updated with the discount. DO NOT PAY before 50% is taken off of your account's charge. If it shows as full price then contact us ASAP so we can correct it. If you do not pay online you will need to pay in the registration hall at con, we do not handle money in the panels office. If you pay at con please consider that there is an average of 1000 people in line at a time and come well before your panel time to get your badge.

REMINDER! A lot of panels have said they will be handing out candy in their application. This is against a new policy rule. You cannot hand out candy, tea, anything edible in your panel. This is against our contract with the Hyatt. There is no way around this rule. Small party favors make a good substitute if you need something to encourage audience participation. Feel free to contact us if you need ideas on something to hand out if you feel it is needed for your panel.

As always please ask any questions you may have! You can contact us at PanelProgramming@ACen.org or 630-442-0008 between noon and 8pm.

Chelsea Tessmann
Dept. Head of Panel Programming

[tsukeru]

When is the latest we can expect to receive an approval or denial email if we had applied well before the October 31st mark?

[Bloo09]

It should be by December 1st. If it takes longer we will post how long it will take on December 1st.

[tsukeru]

Thank you.

[The Creeper]

I got a question. If you submitted two panels (which means 100% off the badge price if I am not mistaken) and say those panels are both approved, what do you do next? Do you need to still purchase them online and you notify someone of your panels or something? Or do you just wait til the con and pick up your badge(s) at the pick up station in the hotel?

[Bloo09]

I'll be sending out instructions on how to register tonight

The discount is automatically applied to your account. But you still need to check out as if you were buying a badge. This is so everyone will have to check their information and update when needed.

[The Creeper]

Bloo09, on 23 November 2011 - 05:46 PM, said:

I'll be sending out instructions on how to register tonight

The discount is automatically applied to your account. But you still need to check out as if you were buying a badge. This is so everyone will have to check their information and update when needed.

Okay I think I did it right but I am not sure. I have the badge in my cart but I did not checkout with it because the checkout requires credit card information to go to the next page. Do i just leave it in my cart and then it is taken care of or do I checkout with it and put in the credit card information? I just want to make double sure so I do not pay for it since there are no refunds for it.

[Brightdreamer]

As I have asked repeatedly in other threads, what should I do if I already accidentally ordered a badge? How will I get my discount applied?

[tsukeru]

I never received an email with instructions or times/days yet for my panels. Was this sent out? And if so, why didn't I get it? And can someone resend it out if that's the case to tsukeruu (at) gmail [dot] com?

[Bloo09]

You don't need to enter credit info. You may have hit a small glitch which we fixed last night. If it requires it again select mailed in payment.

The confirmation emails have not been sent. We've said within the next few weeks. It is the approval/denial emails that are sent by December 1st.

Brightdreamer your account should be fixed.

[Musashi219]

So are all the current panels listed on the Google Group official? I ask because I noticed there are two panels currently for Takashi Miike (I'm running one, another group is as well) and feel that could potentially cause some conflict and/or overlap. I did reach out to the other group regarding what route to take but no guarantees I'll hear back from them.

Part of the reason I ask is when I ran the Miike panel in 2009, another group was attempting to do the same, and we were forced to merge. Turned out the other group knew next to nothing about him, had only seen two of his films, and we were forced to carry them through the panel while they got free badges for doing nothing. Not saying this is going to happen again this year, but I'm curious as to why the decision was made to have two panels that seem like clones.

[Zerox20]

Musashi219, on 09 January 2012 - 08:14 PM, said:

So are all the current panels listed on the Google Group official? I ask because I noticed there are two panels currently for Takashi Miike (I'm running one, another group is as well) and feel that could potentially cause some conflict and/or overlap. I did reach out to the other group regarding what route to take but no guarantees I'll hear back from them.

Part of the reason I ask is when I ran the Miike panel in 2009, another group was attempting to do the same, and we were forced to merge. Turned out the other group knew next to nothing about him, had only seen two of his films, and we were forced to carry them through the panel while they got free badges for doing nothing. Not saying this is going to happen again this year, but I'm curious as to why the decision was made to have two panels that seem like clones.

Currently we have plenty of space for more then one group to go on the same topic. Reaching out to that group is fine and if you guys decide to merge its perfectly alright. If you feel you would be better doing your own thing and your own panel that is perfectly alright. We have 2 or 3 topics that are the same but different groups. Our staff will constantly be monitoring panels this year as we have a lot more so we can keep better accountability on quality of our panels. Our Feedback system is being re-looked at as well to ensure what happened to you does not happen again. At this time we have no reason to "force" merge anyone's panel, nor do we plan too in the near future, if this changes we will be sure to notify all of our panelists.

This post has been edited by Zerox20: 10 January 2012 - 12:23 AM

[tsukeru]

I'm still a bit fuzzy about how this year's panels are working. I thought us panelist were suppose to get an updated email with a rough draft of a schedule back in December - yet it's January already. Did I mis-read something somewhere? Or did this happen and I did not receive anything? I know that ACen is doing panel programming differently this year, but I'm just as confused as any other panelist about this process. Sorry to be a bother about this.

[Zerox20]

tsukeru, on 10 January 2012 - 09:46 PM, said:

I'm still a bit fuzzy about how this year's panels are working. I thought us panelist were suppose to get an updated email with a rough draft of a schedule back in December - yet it's January already. Did I mis-read something somewhere? Or did this happen and I did not receive anything? I know that ACen is doing panel programming differently this year, but I'm just as confused as any other panelist about this process. Sorry to be a bother about this.

No it was not a rough draft of the schedule, it was mainly just a rough approval/denial list that we were posting/sending out to the mailing lists. Scheduling has not been posted yet.

[tsukeru]

Zerox20, on 11 January 2012 - 01:55 AM, said:

No it was not a rough draft of the schedule, it was mainly just a rough approval/denial list that we were posting/sending out to the mailing lists. Scheduling has not been posted yet.

Ah, ok. I was a bit confused on what was meant. Thank you for clearing that up.

[Spice3132]

Are we still going to get a list of what equipment is available and what we need to supply as in cables?

[Bloo09]

Yes, everyone will be informed of if their requested equipment was approved and what type of cable is needed. Mostly I see some microphone requests will be slimmed down for those who made notes that they needed 6 or more, it's probably not going to happen. We don't see an issue with you sharing mics

[sweetbeanpaste]

When do we find out what time our panels are?

[Zerox20]

sweetbeanpaste, on 12 January 2012 - 09:47 PM, said:

When do we find out what time our panels are?

Currently we are still getting space all 100% finalized and we have rough copies of schedules completed, once we believe we have a set schedule that won't change we will be sending that out to the general mailing list. We currently don't have a time frame of this, but we are MUCH more organized then in previous years in getting what we need completed. Rest Assured make sure you are on the mailing list to get the rough schedule when its posted.

[iammako3]

Zerox20, on 16 January 2012 - 02:45 AM, said:

Currently we are still getting space all 100% finalized and we have rough copies of schedules completed, once we believe we have a set schedule that won't change we will be sending that out to the general mailing list. We currently don't have a time frame of this, but we are MUCH more organized then in previous years in getting what we need completed. Rest Assured make sure you are on the mailing list to get the rough schedule when its posted.

Any news on when you'll send out if you've accepted a panel from the people who applied after October? I haven't found any list yet besides the first set of approvals. Last year I didn't know my panel had been approved until someone else looked at the schedule on the main website, so this year I'm trying to get one step ahead, lol.

[Zerox20]

iammako3, on 19 January 2012 - 03:19 PM, said:

Any news on when you'll send out if you've accepted a panel from the people who applied after October? I haven't found any list yet besides the first set of approvals. Last year I didn't know my panel had been approved until someone else looked at the schedule on the main website, so this year I'm trying to get one step ahead, lol.

We have actually built a very rough schedule at the moment, and hoping to take a look at where we can still fill in spaces etc hopefully this coming week. I wish I had more information for you, but ensuring we have rooms and trying to get bigger and better rooms for Panelist is something we are always working on. I can tell you this, we WILL email out any updates we get and ensure they are plastered all over the forums as well. You will NOT have to see the schedule to know if you got approved or not.