SST 40th Anniversary Event

[Fozzie Bear]

Having attended conventions as an attendee and a guest, panels should always have a moderator who should begin the Q&A session by stating, "There will be lots of people wanting to ask questions, so please be sure to keep your time at the open microphone quick so everyone gets a turn."

You know, I don't recall anybody acting that way at MuppetFest during Q&As. Folks would just get up and ask their questions.

 

[matleo]

My feeling on it has always been this. If one person gets up early in the evening and says "Thank you so much. You're a huge influence on my life. blah, blah, blah" and the audience then applauds. To me, that means that person has spoken for the audience. It's out there. It's been stated. It's been ratified and we can get onto the questions.

Personally, the best one of these I've been to was the one on Long Island two years ago, with Dave, Fran, Kevin, Jane and Karen Falk. for those who weren't there, the lined everyone up outside before the panel and gave everyone an index card and a tiny pencil (like the ones used to keep score at mini-golf) and everyone wrote down a question. The staff collected the questions up and while everyone was filing into the theater, Craig Shemin was sorting out which questions were useable and which ones were "Has there ever been a study to see what the world would be like if Jim Henson had played Bert instead of Ernie". Consequently the question were more thought out and it made for a more informative and entertaining afternoon instead of watching the performers wait very patiently through someone's life story only to get to some head-scratching "was that even a question?" moment.

sorry, this has actually been bothering me for a while now.

 

[MelissaY1]

Write a letter! It isn't everyday you get to express appreciation face to face, but as a result, a bunch of people didn't get to express anything. There were a couple people who really just wanted to crowbar their lives into this and acted like they were having one on one time, probably thinking in some obscure way that the cast members will somehow remember them or even want to develop a further relationship with them or something incredibly wacky. I've been to dozens of these type Q&A's, and I can't believe there's no screener or something to drill home the "make it quick" concept stick.

They should've done what they did at the Huntington Long Island event 2 years ago: have people who came early enough write their question on index cards, have someone sift through them and pick them out. Again, not everyone's questions will be answered, but it made things run a lot more efficiently then having a microphone to the audience and having people give their life story and take time away from others.

 

[MelissaY1]

Having attended conventions as an attendee and a guest, panels should always have a moderator who should begin the Q&A session by stating, "There will be lots of people wanting to ask questions, so please be sure to keep your time at the open microphone quick so everyone gets a turn."

You know, I don't recall anybody acting that way at MuppetFest during Q&As. Folks would just get up and ask their questions.

They did try to keep it short at the SS event, Foz. Michael Davis who was moderating did try to keep things moving but at the same time he didn't want to rush people along and be rude.

I also realized, and this is nobody's fault directly but as a hardcore Muppet fan (like many of us here are) that when you go to several of these things you have to keep in mind some of these people have never had the opportunity to see these people in person and may ask questions that we as hardcore fans either already know the answers to, and/or have heard a bunch of times. So sometimes it's a little frustrating for us to sit through as well. But on the other hand I think there's a way to ask questions and get to the point and still show your excitement.

 

[MelissaY1]

My feeling on it has always been this. If one person gets up early in the evening and says "Thank you so much. You're a huge influence on my life. blah, blah, blah" and the audience then applauds. To me, that means that person has spoken for the audience. It's out there. It's been stated. It's been ratified and we can get onto the questions.

Personally, the best one of these I've been to was the one on Long Island two years ago, with Dave, Fran, Kevin, Jane and Karen Falk. for those who weren't there, the lined everyone up outside before the panel and gave everyone an index card and a tiny pencil (like the ones used to keep score at mini-golf) and everyone wrote down a question. The staff collected the questions up and while everyone was filing into the theater, Craig Shemin was sorting out which questions were useable and which ones were "Has there ever been a study to see what the world would be like if Jim Henson had played Bert instead of Ernie". Consequently the question were more thought out and it made for a more informative and entertaining afternoon instead of watching the performers wait very patiently through someone's life story only to get to some head-scratching "was that even a question?" moment.

sorry, this has actually been bothering me for a while now.

I wish I would've read your post before I responded..I said pretty much the same thing. LOL I thought the index cards were a great, efficient way of getting the Q&A done