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[timoran]

Well the reasons for closing one hour before are simple Security reasons most people who register in that time are only bystanders

You don't know that - what you are saying to me is that I would not have been a serious bidder if you had sold me stickers. Yes?
Why would someone get stickers if they didn't intend to bid on something?
In any case, whatever your reasons, nowhere was this cut-off announced in advance.

[Cairyn]

You don't know that - what you are saying to me is that I would not have been a serious bidder if you had sold me stickers. Yes?

You may have noticed that the stickers are free. If someone has tried to sell you some, you have been scammed.

As for serious bidders: I have asked people year after year to bid early to express their interest in a piece of art and to "negotiate" a price through bidding. The Closing procedure has never been intended as a "pre-auction", but as a hopefully fair way to allow people a final check of their desired art (and their bids), and to prevent sniping as far as possible. Thats why we call last bids (last bids... not first bids) and close panel after panel.

Sadly, this intent has been largely ignored, with a high number of bidders who place their bid at the very last moment to get their piece as cheaply as possible (circumventing the price negotiation and aiming at the possibility that they are the only bidders present at the moment of closing). You can observe this tendency by visiting the art show at Friday opening, when only a minor number of bids have been placed (not bidding apparently as the attempt to prevent driving up the price early).

Bidding earlier (getting to the maximum price before closing) would not just prevent many of those last-minute bids and ease the crowding situation during Closing (because a bold offer deters competitors), it would also lead to fairer revenue for the artists (because the bidders have more time to decide, whereas time pressure during the Closing causes people to drop out earlier). If I remember correctly, you claimed earlier in this thread to support this cause.

Other conventions handle the closing differently, forcing bidders to drop the pen on the spot, or closing in a much more hurried manner hardly giving people time for a final offer. We have arrived at our manner of closing after careful consideration of available methods. Unfortunately, this also requires some strict rules in the process to prevent crowd incidents.

In any case, whatever your reasons, nowhere was this cut-off announced in advance.

Except in huge red letters on the flipchart sign directly in front of the art show registration.

[Cheetah]

Sadly, this intent has been largely ignored, with a high number of bidders who place their bid at the very last moment to get their piece as cheaply as possible

Ebay has taught people that sniping is the only way to get a good deal. Sad story

[Fafnir Kristensen]

You may have noticed that the stickers are free. If someone has tried to sell you some, you have been scammed.

As for serious bidders: I have asked people year after year to bid early to express their interest in a piece of art and to "negotiate" a price through bidding. The Closing procedure has never been intended as a "pre-auction", but as a hopefully fair way to allow people a final check of their desired art (and their bids), and to prevent sniping as far as possible. Thats why we call last bids (last bids... not first bids) and close panel after panel.

Sadly, this intent has been largely ignored, with a high number of bidders who place their bid at the very last moment to get their piece as cheaply as possible (circumventing the price negotiation and aiming at the possibility that they are the only bidders present at the moment of closing). You can observe this tendency by visiting the art show at Friday opening, when only a minor number of bids have been placed (not bidding apparently as the attempt to prevent driving up the price early).

Bidding earlier (getting to the maximum price before closing) would not just prevent many of those last-minute bids and ease the crowding situation during Closing (because a bold offer deters competitors), it would also lead to fairer revenue for the artists (because the bidders have more time to decide, whereas time pressure during the Closing causes people to drop out earlier). If I remember correctly, you claimed earlier in this thread to support this cause.

Other conventions handle the closing differently, forcing bidders to drop the pen on the spot, or closing in a much more hurried manner hardly giving people time for a final offer. We have arrived at our manner of closing after careful consideration of available methods. Unfortunately, this also requires some strict rules in the process to prevent crowd incidents.

mmm
I was in front of many panels at the closing (for reasons, I had bids there) and most stickers I have seen being put at that moment were duel bid between people. I have seen very few "scavengers" (fortunately for artists).
and the time pressure during the closing usually push people bidding more than they would have with a calm mind, I have observed that many many times.
also most people around panels are people being sure nobody else outbid them. bystanders stay a bit away of the crowd crush and are certainly not the ones staying in fronts of panels when the panels are getting closed.
you may also remember the number of bid was increased on the bid-sheet to prevent too many pieces to go to the voice auction because the voice auction was starting to take too much time.

I think you are diabolizing a bit the people bidding at the artshow

[Tekumseh]

Well - I was security for Art Show Closing the last few years and experience was, that we had to stop people from entering the room because it was too crowded. This was to be prevented, if you want a fair closing, where every bidder can get in and check their bids. But with far more people at the con how can you do this? Security together with the art show crew came up with this preocedure: close bidder registration well before the closing (to allow preocessing of possible queue), allow only registered bidders into the room, form queues outside the show if room capacity is reached. All that was well announced.
And it was not because of lazyness of people - mind your tone when accusing those who work well into the night while you enjoy a drink at the bar!  

[Cairyn]

I am following the closing myself (obviously), and I cannot fully corroborate your observation. Bid sequences like 20, 40, 60, 80, 85 (the last coming from the closing) are rather common. The lack of bids on Thursday (which has the longer opening time by three hours) is a fact. Experiences from prior shows have led us to the current process, and fortunately it seems to work without larger issues. (Another thanks to Security here.)

Naturally, observation is partly personal, I can only speak about things people talk to me about (or which I get through either the art show program or the bidsheets), and it is hard to make a statistical analysis on an event that happens only once a year and is subjected to external influences. For the moment, I am pleased that no greater changes are necessary despite the longer opening, the number of new panels, and the rise in both exhibits and attendees.

(As for the number of bids to auction, yes, that was increased some years ago but has been kept stable since then. Not sure what you want to tell me there; there is no requirement to fill up the bidsheet during the bidding time or the closing?)

(And no, I am not demonizing anybody (reasonable behavior presumed); I can only appeal to bidders to bid early because we don't really want the Closing to be overrun to the point where we are brushing with safety regulations.)

[Balto]

Well in total I have to say that this was the best EF I ever had. Alot  of fursuiting, nice people, in that point perfect.

- The Suiterlounge was big, just a little to cold sometimes and in the evening too dark at first, but that problem was quickly solved.

- The Stage infront of the Suiterlounge seemed to be a little bit missplaced, it took alot of space away. But the Karaoke night was nice to watch

- Hotel Staff was cool with us, nice, talked with us about the con, never have seen that myself before in other Hotels.

- Hotel rooms are nice and clean, with working showers and air condition, so absolutly no problems here.

- A few more clocks in the Hotel lobby would have been nice, especially for fursuiters its sometimes hard to get the time. Perhaps they could be placed in front of the sigrooms. just a thought of mine

- The breakfast was fantastic. Alot of food and coffee and everything. Fantastic

- The waiting times at the events, well thats part of the EF feeling. Just the one at the pawpet show was at last not funny anymore. It was great that the Staff was bringing free drinks after some time, thumbs up for that!
What I have heard it was clear that the delay would take at least three hours, why wasn't that announced?

- The theme of the show, well, I would have thought of something more mystical, but ok. You should really make funny stories again, they are much better in my eyes then this sometimes pretty sad themes. At least the Lovestory in this one was smaller then in the last Shows, what is really a good thing.

- The fursuit Group Photo, was in my eyes a complete disaster. should have been made somewhere else, there was no space for everyone, and I guess I am not the only one who never heard someone saying that the photo is about to be made or is done or something like that. Wasn't well organized this time

Can't wait for EF next year!

[Fafnir Kristensen]

I rarely bit the first day, it's more of a exploratory visit, where I take the time to enjoy the art and look at all the panels, taking note of what I find interesting, going with friends and commenting, etc.
second day is for bidding, where I come back to all the pieces which I sorted from my previous visit, I then bid and usually high.

about that, I would like to say to the person who passed after me on a panel and called my bid an "asshole bid" because it was high that many artists tend to set a lower initial price than what the art is really worth, as an incentive price to motivate possible buyer to place bid, meaning putting the lowest amount is not respectful of the artist work. now of course you may not have much money, but thats not an excuse to look down at an artist time and effort put on their work.

last day is for fight, before the closing for pieces Im not ready to go all the way, and at the closing for pieces I dont want to let go.

for me the current situation seems a good compromise between crowd management and bidder flexibility but I would certainly dislike more drastic/coercive measures

[Tsanawo]

What I have heard it was clear that the delay would take at least three hours, why wasn't that announced?

Because it wasn't clear that we were going to run into a 3 hour delay. If it would've been clear then we would've announced it beforehand.

[SiranaJHelena]

The information about the delay changed a lot and contradicted itself.
After we waited already 1-2 hours some people came along who said they were told to spread the information about a delay of 3 hours. We checked different other sources then (Prime TV, Staff members, BBFs twitter account) and got many other delay times from 1 hour to 5 hours.
I infered from that that nobody really knew.

[Runo]

I think it would be cool if bids during closing had to be at least 20% of the current price, with a minimum of 10€. 

[Cheetah]

The information about the delay changed a lot and contradicted itself.
After we waited already 1-2 hours some people came along who said they were told to spread the information about a delay of 3 hours. We checked different other sources then (Prime TV, Staff members, BBFs twitter account) and got many other delay times from 1 hour to 5 hours.
I infered from that that nobody really knew.

The cause lies in the nature of the delays. For the last two hours, we were basically fixing and finishing things as fast as we could - but it wasn't one single thing that needed to be done, it was more like a list of a hundret little details, and when you're in this state, all you can say is the order of magnitude of the delay, especially if you discover new problems while fixing others. We knew it would be at least an hour - so that's what we communicated the day before. We did not expect three hours delay, otherwise we would have re-scheduled things more consistently. We were hit with many unexpected challanges. We will do our best to not let that happen again. My sincerest apologies.

[Kamuniak]

As for serious bidders: I have asked people year after year to bid early to express their interest in a piece of art and to "negotiate" a price through bidding. The Closing procedure has never been intended as a "pre-auction", but as a hopefully fair way to allow people a final check of their desired art (and their bids), and to prevent sniping as far as possible. Thats why we call last bids (last bids... not first bids) and close panel after panel.

What if only people who have already set bids to certain art, would be allowed to add new bids to that piece when panel is closing? Then at least people have to register, actually go through the art and add bids to interesting pieces before closing. Instead of just coming to closing and start adding bids to any good deals.

[Ralesk]

As for serious bidders: I have asked people year after year to bid early to express their interest in a piece of art and to "negotiate" a price through bidding. The Closing procedure has never been intended as a "pre-auction", but as a hopefully fair way to allow people a final check of their desired art (and their bids), and to prevent sniping as far as possible. Thats why we call last bids (last bids... not first bids) and close panel after panel.

What if only people who have already set bids to certain art, would be allowed to add new bids to that piece when panel is closing? Then at least people have to register, actually go through the art and add bids to interesting pieces before closing. Instead of just coming to closing and start adding bids to any good deals.

I'm not really sure about this.  On one hand, this helps artists sell stuff, they won't have to carry it back home, they'll get money for it, and — if the base price wasn't too low, which I understand sometimes is, to get people to bid easier —, they'll get a good amount of money.  On the other hand, people might just push the bid price further up just to make things worse for the actual people wanting to win the piece.  I'm not sure how common that really is — someone bidding on something they don't really want, just to make things worse for other bidders (and eventually better for the artist, again).

[Fafnir Kristensen]

  I'm not sure how common that really is — someone bidding on something they don't really want, just to make things worse for other bidders (and eventually better for the artist, again).

it's part of the deal: if you want something, you must accept to pay for it, even if someone pushed you higher, maybe it not cool nor nice, but thats how it is, and as you said, it's not bad for the artist.