omnicron

From what I understand, the Funds for Commvex is via a separate bank account with the Fresno group. Robert is the president and Dick Estel is the treasurer. I doubt Dick knows what is happening with Commvex since re retired from helping with Commvex last year (age related). I would hope the Fresno group would review the situation and make a determination on how to proceed that would save the money that would be spent on this Commvex fiasco and help support the Commodore Retro Expo. Since Robert is the founder of the Frenso group, I do not know if they have bylaws that would allow the members to have a voice in the running of Commvex or even the leadership of the Fresno group.

Although I am not against a different venue than the Plaza, I have a feeling getting a different venue so late in the game for the price the of the Plaza would be very hard. In addition, the Plaza has a history with commodore events and they feel very comfortable with hosting these types of event.

In reality, Commvex has mostly been about the social aspect of the show since almost no one has been allowed to participate in growing or changing the show due to Robert. The Frenso Commodore Group with Robert as the president has been running the show since day one with the support of the Vegas 5C club. Now a whole new organic support group needs to be developed that comprises the key supporters (i.e attendees) of previous Commvex shows that have been disenfranchised by Robert and his failure to listen to his actual supporters. I hope that multiple user groups and key projects can help in the future. Problem is Robert has been juggernaut in all the Commodore groups in the area and even travels internationally for commodore. He "runs" Socal sccaners group, Fresno, Commvex and even took over Pacific Commodore Expo NW from the Portland Commodore group (PDX) with little approval from PDX and called it PaCommEx. see http://blog.retro-link.com/2016/11/floor-plan-of-pacommex-exhibit-area.html Robert had been critical in getting guest speakers for the event and raffle prizes for the show. People had complaints about issues and things did not change much until we had the larger Commvex room at the Plaza which helps a lot and Robert fought everyone over but it happened. In reality Robert did not want help in planning or running the show. This time he ruined the event by using the California with the MAJOR limitations as to render the show UNUSABLE for this type of event. Jim Drew had donated thousands of dollars in hardware and cash in the past several years to keep the show healthy and growing and without him we would not had the larger room. I would have stopped coming last year if we had the same attendance and the small room. There also was a c64 audio digitizer project that was sold at Commvex and a few user group meets by Robert worked on by various members (I think PDX group also). Robert was very sensitive about price for the device and I don't believe made large sums of money on it. With Robert being president of the Fresno group and Fresno being the primary usergroup with control of the Funds for Commvex, can the Fresno usergroup be involved in a different show without Robert's blessing? There will now be thousands of dollars wasted on a show will have an attendance of 5-10 people, maybe less. Commvex has been mostly successful even with the problems people have had. That is why it continued. Robert had done mostly a good job until now. We have all been scratching our heads in the last few years trying to figure out how to get even a little control over some aspects of the show, without eliminating Robert, to work on elements of the event that Robert had been neglecting. Now Robert has eliminated us, the attendees. Lets see how that works.

I had been asking for years to be able to preregister not only attendance (even if free) but also tables/vendor space. Never was going to happen. I was doing the badges for the last several years...Trying in my own way to make things better.

The key to how later Commvex years were financed were the raffles. The door costs probably cover 50-80% of room price. The raffles is where the other half or more comes from. The Plaza offered a nice room for around $2000-2500 I understand. With around 30 people attending at $25 it covered less than half the room cost but the other money came from the raffles. I personally handled the money for one year and we had around $3000+ in the till at the end of the event. If there is not a raffle or a sponsor for the event to cover some of the costs, the event can not pay for itself. For a raffle to exist there has to be items that people want. In the past there has been donations from individuals and user groups of rather desirable commodore hardware that people wanted to get, so the ticket sales were decent.

I wanted to chime in. When I had heard about the new venue, I was not happy. Knowing the situation I doubted it would change. I was just planning on making a trip to commvex and if the show was not good, just making it a Vegas trip. I knew this new venue with the restrictions was not going to be take well. I am very happy to hear that others feel the same and want to improve a new show at an appropriate venue hopefully here in Vegas. I will be joining 5C and giving my vote in the upcoming meeting on the 21st on a new show. Problem is now, even if Robert were to change the show back to a venue that worked for this type of event, too many people will not attend the show due to the inappropriate behavior of Robert in banning and trying to control any discussion or discontent on the unilateral choice of venue. Of the core people I have talked to, NONE wants to go to an event that Robert runs due to this. I do not understand Robert's inability to understand that the venue at the California does not work for a large majority of attendees, supporters or vendors. It is almost like he has intentionally agreed to this limited venue to make the show so restrictive as to limit the ability of people to bring a lot of equipment or wares to sell to keep the show smaller for him to manage. His comment that people just can not bring multi tables full or gear and need to time themselves as to pack and unpack their equipment does not lend itself to this type of hobby. I did see last year that Robert was very tired and seemed overwhelmed. Although the larger room was very nice and I had a good time, a lot of the details and presentation times of the event were not well planned out. There is only so much one person can do. I think a show that has multiple actors and organizations to allow continual growth and success is vital to the success of OUR show. Now, we can only move forward. I hope that all the people that will not attend Commvex WILL support a new show and venue and continue support of OUR hobby. This hobby is not out of obligation, it is out of the joy we gain from playing, working and using our favorite platform that inspired all of us as children, teenagers or younger adults. Remember that Christmas we opened our first c64 and data-cassette? What about the first time we saw a C64 at K-mart and marveled at the demo disk running the amazing music. The sharing of our memories, machines, experiences, programs and time is what this hobby is about now. Don't let this be destroyed due to one person. Lets work together and make a show for all users that we can all enjoy! Tim W.