CoreCon is considered a vacation for some. Even if you live within walking distance of the convention, being able to hole up in the hotel with nothing but your fellow gamers, cosplayers, furries, or whoever else can be the best thing. But just like any other vacation, your entire weekend can be ruined by losing something. When you’re not at home, misplacing an item can feel like an emergency. And if the thing you’ve lost is your medicine, it might actually be one. There’s where Operations (or Ops) comes in.
The Operations Center is the center of CoreCon. The location is listed in every program guide, so many attendees are familiar with it, but not everyone knows what goes on in there. It’s staffed 24/7, and the team is prepared for all sorts of things. If anything goes wrong, they’re ready for it. Need a rubber band or a paperclip? They have extras! Lost your copy of the program guide? They have extras (probably)! Lost something? They might have found it! Found something? Maybe it’s lost!
The Ops team works closely with other departments, including Medical, and Security. They’re well versed in all of the hotel policies as well as emergency protocols. Not only can they handle most situations, they know who and where to find the right people to solve special problems.
If you can’t find a member of the staff during the convention, many of them have radio communication with Ops and can be located from the room. The Operations team can get their exact coordinates and put you in touch with them. As much as members of our team like to turn off our headsets so we can ignore our responsibilities, headsets are like Howlers from the Harry Potter universe: The more you ignore them, the worse things will be when you finally face them head on. Plus, the Ops room is the absolute best hideout, so we can’t stay off the radar for too long.
Even if you just have a quick question or want a suggestion of what to do, don’t be afraid to meander into the Ops room and talk to them. They’re mostly friendly people. They want to make sure everything runs smoothly and everyone has a good time. Funny as it may be to the rest of us, no one wants to force our attendees to crawl around looking for a dropped safety pin when the Operations team can just get you a new one.
Enjoy your time at CoreCon X at the Holiday Inn of Fargo May 24th to 27th, and know if you need help, whether it’s finding people or places or a Band Aid, Operations has you covered.
Check out blogs from the rest of the CoreCon Justice Team when they are published! We will have one for each team that works to keep you extra safe: Medical, Security, Operations, and Accessibility. The Medical team blog is already up, and you can read it here!