NSA '96 - The View From the Top?

[P3D Bill Davis <bd3d@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all.  Well, we made it!  NSA '96 is  history now.  (Well, not quite, 
since I can't close the books until the Convention Center and Hotel 
have been paid and all of your checks have cleared.)  Things went 
almost without a hitch, if I do say so (and I do!).

It was my very great pleasure to bring this Convention to all of you 
and I hope to do it again in four or five years.  (NSA '01 doesn't have 
quite as nice a ring to it, though.  Maybe NSA '99.)

Here are the numbers:
We had 621 pre-registered when I opened the registration table Thursday 
afternoon.  Between then and Sunday at 3:00 when I closed up, we sold 
28 3-day badges, 86 one-day stickers and 127 general admission Trade 
Fair tickets, for a total attendance (dealers and helpers too) of 862.  
I don't think that quite beats Atlanta.  There were just over 160 
tables at the Trade Fair from just over 100 dealers.  There were 90 
Early Bird badges sold.  There were 250 people at the Banquet and 150 
at the President's Breakfast. 79 people went on the Eastman House tour 
and 27 went to Letchworth. 

Unlike my associate from the National office, who denied responsibility 
for nearly everything after the Awards Banquet (A little after-dinner 
whine, anyone?  Could you believe that?), I accept full responsibility 
for my actions.  If you had problems with your registration, it was my 
fault.  If you had problems with the badges, that would have been mine 
too.  If you didn't like the program booklet, whether for content or 
format or how straight the sticker was or how well stapled or folded, 
that's my baby too.  If you didn't like either bus tour or the 
scheduling or the food, my fault, I arranged it all. If you didn't like 
the Keynote Speaker (what, are you nuts?) I arranged that too.  It goes 
on, but I won't. :--)  You get the picture.  

Don't get the wrong idea, though.  Even though I often felt like the 
Little Red Hen "Who will help me lead a tour?  Who will help me fold 
these fliers? Who will call this list of people?  Who will help me 
stuff these envelopes?"  "Not I, Little Red Hen, not I!",  I am 
positively sunburned from basking in the praise that has been coming my 
way.  Many, many people came up to me at the Convention to say how much 
they enjoyed it.  I am pleased.

For the record, the NSA '96 Convention team consisted of Dick Twichell, 
Program Director, who was responsible for selecting the Stereo Theater 
programs and the nearly impossible job of keeping three days of stereo 
slide programs on schedule.  Dick also met Bill Duggan's motorhome on 
Wednesday to unload all the projection equipment.  Dick also made the 
run to Kodak for the new lamp modules.  (Those lamp modules were the 
result of an amazing flurry of eleventh-hour faxes by Bill Duggan, 
NSA's master projectionist and master faxer, by the way.) Dick also 
helped rescue us from a near-disaster when we ran out of glasses on 
Saturday.  (Seems the NSA member who was supposed to bring the 200 
pairs left over from last year's Convention left them back in Ohio!) 
Dick drove home and brought back 100 pairs of his own (very stylish) 
glasses. Thanks, Dick for all that you did for this Convention.

Marty Abramson (from Niagara Falls, for crying out loud!) drove over 
one morning and spent the day walking Main Street soliciting ads for 
the program.  The souvenir stickers were also his idea and his baby.  
He made all the contacts and did all the legwork for those beauties.  
Thanks, Marty!

Bill Tribelhorn made our first contact with the Museums and led me to 
Bill Ewald after a long series of calls and visits to track down 
information on the designers of the Kodak Stereo. Thanks Bill for all 
the moral support when things looked bleakest.

My wife Kathy and daughter Diana, who stuffed envelopes, folded 
programs and helped enter registrations fill out the team.    

I want to say that even if the rest of the Convention had totally 
bombed, my efforts would have been worth it for the Keynote Speech 
alone.  To see the pleasure in Bill Ewald's eyes as he addressed that 
rapt audience of nearly 500 stereo enthusiasts was by far the highlight 
of the convention for me.  I got some kind of plaque a few minutes 
after the talk, but I don't really remember that much.  It was such a 
great personal pleasure to have made the acquaintance of such a 
fascinating, imaginative and creative gentleman that it paid for the 
whole trip for me.  To have been able to bring you to him and him to 
you was the most personally satisfying thing I have ever accomplished.  
There are several other happy and more personal stories connected to 
that, but again, I'll stop.

Did everyone who went to the Eastman House get to see Bill's tabletop 
viewer?  That's quite a piece of equipment.  We almost didn't find that 
one.  Bill knew it was down there in the archives somewhere, but didn't 
know where.  The current archivist was quite sure that it wasn't there, 
and anyway certainly hadn't seen it lately.  A call to the former 
Director of Technology for the museum, Phil Condex, set things 
straight.  Phil knew exactly where it was, in fact had kept it on his 
desk when he worked there, he was so fascinated with it! That 
push-button projector is quite an ingenious piece of equipment, too!  
Too bad you didn't get to see that one working! 

The Letchworth tour came off without a hitch, too.  The weather was 
warm and sunny, with a nice touch of atmospheric haze to enhance the 
depth steps far up the gorge.  I shot my share of the obligatory "row 
of photographers with a full assortment of stereo cameras and 
camcorders standing at the precipice of a deep gorge with the 
waterfalls in the background" pictures with my trusty Kodak. 

Thanks to Jon Golden for the great deal on that like-new Guild Viewer 
(with box) and Dalia for the View-Master preview reel I had had when I 
was a kid.

Thanks to all who attended!  See you in a few years!

Best Regards,
Bill Davis 
NSA '96


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