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[scrantonluna]

Originally Posted by conorsdad

Yet there are many people who want the city to give $25,000 to Channel 61, mainly the same people who are complaining about the convention.

RIGHT. Let's spend 25k to showcase the local NEGATIVE nut jobs and their 15 minutes of fame, which only hurts the city, as opposed to spending 10k less and getting yourself in the national spotlight, in a POSITIVE light. 61 has a lot of good programming, and I know some great people who work on the other shows, but the scranton council hearings are a complete joke and by far make up the percentage of what people watch who view 61. Spend money we 'DON'T HAVE' and air our dirty laundry, or spend 10k less and show our good side to the camera... Tough choice.

[weluvpa]

Whoa lets take a step back.....No one is knocking the exposure nor are they knocking the convention. The convention committee should have had all it needed to do this. The exposure was ok and so what we had 15 minutes of national fame. The business's downtown even said that the convention was too event driven and that they only saw a slight increase in traffic. If they really wanted these people to be out and about the city they would have set this up with some time between the events to allow for the exploring that we wanted from these people. The Times even stated that the hotels really were the ones that saw the benefits here. I think what Ed is saying is that why would the city put out the money in the first place for a convention? Why did the organizers not raise or account for all the monies needed. Then there are the conflicting reports of the money. The mayor stated that the convention tickets would cover the cost of the OT for our police, but the organizer stated that the convention tickets covered the cost of the actors being here. Also the $15,000 came from where? No amount of money close to 15k went before council so if they did not legislate the money then where did the mayor get it to give? Its not about the office but more about the money and how its being used and where its coming from. We DID NOT HAVE TO GIVE ANYTHING and the convention would have been the same and it would still have happened. The city itself and the residents really did not gain anything but a news blip and Al Roker. It will forgotten in a week and for the most part its forgotten now. It was not the huge deal it was played up to be nor was it the huge financial windfall that they sold it has. More smoke and mirrors to cover the dire finacial status of the city only instead of half ass downtown projects they decided to use a convention as the facade instead. We really got nothing for our money and our police dept was tied up at the U for most of the weekend regardless of what the times says about that my scanner says different. It was a draw at best and not even close to a victory like they wanted it to be.
Ch61. You can honestly say that giving $15,000 to a convention that got us nothing more than a blip on the national radar for 15 minutes is more important then funding the local PUBLIC ACCESS tv channel that we have all year long with a variety of shows that showcase Scranton constantly to its residents and the residents of the our out lying areas? Channel 61 does alot more for the city then just the council meetings and if you only see it for the meetings then your just not watching, not to mention that its does give the residents of this city free and open access to its gov't and how its spending our money, to me its more important to see how my tax dollars are being wasted then it is to see Al Roker at the U. Again priorities come into play here. The convention was nothing more than a 3 day drunkfest at the U.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by weluvpa

The convention was nothing more than a 3 day drunkfest at the U.

While I don't agree with the others who are blasting the city council speakers right now, I also don't agree with your negative outlook about the convention. I was in town on both Friday and Saturday along with my boyfriend and two friends from out-of-town (one of whom was from Cincinnati). We each had an "Assistant to the Regional Manager" pass (the second-cheapest one), and I feel that for $50 I certainly got my money's worth. Friday was an utterly disgusting waste of time, as the block party at the university was rained out, and the casino night at Mohegan Sun and the reception at the Radisson were useless since we're all only 20. We wound up eating a great meal at Brixx, which was the highlight of my night, followed by going to see "Dan's Real Life" at the Marquee Cinema, which was a major disappointment. The "comedy" was sad more than anything else, and the theater itself was rather filthy and loaded with little ex-Brooklynite gangster thug white-trash teenagers who used the "f"-word every other sentence to try to showcase their "dominance" over their peers as they blocked the sidewalk in front of the theater. I surely hope none of the tourists had to experience that on a rainy night.

Saturday morning likewise was a letdown at first, and I began to regret spending $100 on the convention when I could have better spent it towards purchasing Christmas gifts for my family. The rain was relentless as we showed up to a large tent on the campus so that my friend Meg, who was randomly given an autograph pass, could get in line to see the cast. What we saw was utter chaos as there were various lines forming all over the place with nobody directing people into one line or another. It was apparent that the convention organizers were in over their heads as hundreds of people crowded beneath the tent and were becoming irritated at being given no information as to which line was for registration, which line was for the autographs, etc. My boyfriend and I waited outside of the tent to keep ourselves out of the way; a nearby idling steam locomotive kept us occupied while the stars predictably ran late. A few committee people would occasionally stand up on chairs and attempt to yell directives at the crowd, but without megaphones or microphones it was pretty pointless. I was able to discern something to the effect of the nearby train being able to shuttle 200 people on a first-come, first-serve basis to the trolley museum after the autograph signing so that we all wouldn't have to get soaked walking back downtown. Naturally due to the tardiness of the cast members, the train pulled away with only several people on it, much to all of our chagrin (another sign of poor planning).

Finally a white Expedition limousine pulled up and cast member Stanley exited and made a bee-line for a nearby port-a-potty. Next, member Darryl exited, and I was sure to snap pictures of both celebrities with my digital camera (expect to see dozens of photos from the convention posted once our home PC is repaired tomorrow). They went over and started signing autographs while another vehicle pulled up with a few more cast members (I believe Oscar and Kevin were there this time). After Megan had her picture taken with the cast we retreated back to my vehicle, which was parked on North Webster Avenue, and I drove us to the Steamtown Mall garage so we could dry off and warm up inside the mall. We did all of the stupid touristy things (we took pictures by the "Welcome to Scranton" sign, for example), and then we waited near the center court for the Dunder-Mifflin Shareholders' Meeting to begin. Much to our surprise cast members Oscar and Darryl showed up unexpectedly to participate in this hillarious mock meeting (which netted all of us novelty stock certificates for Dunder-Mifflin, and I was one of the lucky ones to get a coupon for a free sandwich from Subway, which I put to good use about an hour later).

After the meeting we headed back to my vehicle to drop off a few things and then headed back into the mall. Much to our shock we found ourselves face-to-face with Darryl and Oscar, who were being led out of the mall at the same time as we were coming back in! We then headed to the food court, where I saw another celebrity, city councilwoman Sherry Nealon Fanucci, buying food with what appeared to be friends of hers. I wanted to ask for her autograph, but I figured she might accuse me of threatening her and then cancel the next weekly city council meeting! LOL!

Next we left the mall and enjoyed the street festival along Adams Avenue and Linden Street downtown. It was nice to see so many local businesses involved in selling their wares to profit off of their mentions on the show, including Alfredo's, Cooper's, and Poor Richard's. Lavish had all sorts of neat posters in their windows. The Regan Funeral Home along Linden Street near the university had a neat sign that I'll post later along with my other photos. We headed to the gymnasium on campus for the cast member Q&A session from 5 PM-7 PM. We were thrilled to see so many homemade "Youtube"-like videos being shown on the big screens before the cast members arrived, all of which featured city residents pumping up their city's image to all of the tourists through song (Mayor Doherty even got his groove on during one of them, but sadly I didn't get to see councilwoman Janet Evans doing the macarena). LOL! Finally my entire $50 paid off in just the next two hours as the nearly 4,000 specators in the gym went hog wild as the entire cast (except for those who were "too good" to show up) entered for the Q&A session. This quite honestly was the most fun I've ever had in a gym! LOL!

Afterwards we once again determined the remaining events to be over-21-oriented, so we headed down to Wilkes-Barre to visit friends at Wilkes University. By and large though the event was a huge success for the city. I'd just like to recommend that Michele Dempsey and the others responsible for planning it consider some more under-21 events for future conventions, as I heard a lot of teenagers whining about feeling "left out."

[NYRangers 2008]

Dan, I'm glad you get it and understand where I'm coming from. The convention may of been a feel good story for Scranton in terms of exposure, but it really didn't benefit us financially except for the hotels and restaurants. I read in the paper that the vendors at the street festival barely broke even. Scranton had it's 15 minutes of fame and people came here and claimed they loved it, but now it is just an afterthought for them and we still have real problems here. And I do think it is more important to fund the city's local public access channel than some convention about a TV show. That channel is there for the people who can't get to the meetings and for people who want info about their city. I'm not knocking the convention, if you went and had fun more power to you. I'm just saying we shouldn't of had to kick in anything towards it when we didn't get much in return except for some minimal exposure.