My son, Daniel, and I brought ~90lbs of books (two full checked-bags) for Water Dragon Publishing to sell in the Dealer Room at Worldcon in Seattle. So we took the books to the Dealer Room during the set-up time to drop the books off. There was a little old man wearing a convention center staff uniform standing at the door to prevent unauthorized entry.
He peered at our badges and said, “You’re ‘members.’ Members aren’t allowed in until 2pm when the Dealer Room opens.”
We had been listed as dealer-room staff by Water Dragon, so we should have been able to get into the Dealer Room but, due to a snafu, we ended up with “member” badges that didn’t list our role as dealers.
While we were standing there another person came up and then another with the same issue. The guard kept saying the same thing, “You’re badge has to say ‘artist’ or ‘dealer.’ I can’t let anyone in unless their badge says ‘artist’ or ‘dealer.'”
One woman was quite irate, “Can I speak to Amy? Can you get Amy? I need to drop off these books.”
He replied, “Your badge says ‘member’. Members aren’t allowed in until 2pm when the Dealer room opens.”
The woman became nearly apoplectic with rage when Amy happened to come by. She listened to us and then promptly directed us to bring in our stuff and drop it off.
When I was leaving, I thanked the guard for his service. He said, “I just can only let people in if their badge says ‘artist’ or ‘dealer.'”
“Yep. It’s waaaay above your pay grade,” I said. “Thanks again.”
Privately, Daniel commented to me, “I’ve never seen someone go full NPC before.”
I commented that he didn’t have much experience with the military because that’s what they train you do to: follow orders.
Later, I was on a panel where someone with a dealer badge said, “Where do you get those name placards?”
“They’re in your participant packet,” someone said.
“Participant packet?”
“Yeah. That white envelope you got when you got your badge.”
“I didn’t get one!”
When I got my badge, I just said my name and gave them my ID and assumed they had everything cross correlated regarding the various roles people had. But evidently their system only tracked one role. So you were either a member or artist or dealer. That’s just my hypothesis.
Later in that day, I was able to get a dealer ribbon that now gives me access to the dealer room during set-up time. So it’s all good.
