Vakkotaur

Looking back at faires, the furry cons I've been to, and some other gatherings and outtings, I've noticed something. The larger the group and gathering, the less fun it is for me.

It's not that big is automatically bad, but it's not a good way to start. "You and 200 of your closest friends" makes for a good joke, but it is just that, a joke. A larger gathering may have more variety to offer, but it can also be overwhelming. Where does one start? Indeed, is there a place to start, even? A smaller group means I can really meet people, rather than just get introductions which will fade as more introductions are piled on top of them.

This seems true for all gatherings. I first noticed it with the Animanias (not the anime gatherings, the real Animanias). But it has held, so far, for furry cons and faires as well. The only way to deal with a large group is to chop it up and deal with a small piece - and then hope you don't miss something by picking the wrong piece.

Something as simple as going out to eat can get complicated if too many are involved. A couple examples come from RCFM. The supersponsor dinner worked because although it was a fairly large group to get together for a meal, it was planned in advance. This meant no, or at least not too much, hassle over getting everyone together at a certain time and agreeing on where to go.

A much smaller group was assembled, or nearly assembled, the next night. It was almost two cars of folks with the problem of getting everyone to agree to go, agree on when, and where. It was to my great relief that it did NOT happen that way. With one carload (admittedly cramped) those decisions are just that much easier. Also, all could sit at one table and converse and have an idea of who was who. This is important for someone who doesn't already know everybody and also doesn't instantly pick that sort of thing up.

Something happened this past weekend that reinforced the above. There was no malice. The intent was good. And, from reports, most folks had a good time. Yet somehow it just didn't seem to work for me. It might have been that the crowd density was high. Or, that things happened such that I wound up not near anyone I knew for a while, and an assumption was made by someone that left me uncomfortable. The result was that I left a gather early - at a time and place I'd never have expected I'd bail out of. I actually felt bad about bringing my folks into it. Fortunately the rest of weekend was more as I had expected it to be.

It's not that I want to be isolated. It's that I want to be able to get things done without it taking forever and that I don't want to get lost in, or lose someone else in, a crowd. So, as I see it, bigger is not better. As the crowd grows the apparent value of each person in it seems to decrease, as people fade into little more than interchangeable carbon-based automata. "The more the merrier" doesn't hold true. "The more, the more wearing" is perhaps more the case. The cost of a larger group is bigger. Oh yes, there can be economies of scale if everyone wants the same thing and orders in bulk or such. But that is an unusual circumstance. A larger group is harder to keep organized and is more hassle than a smaller group. That hassle can easily outweigh anything else. That's the diseconomy of scale.