*One speaks into the audient void,
and lo, voices answer!
From: gnat*oreilly.com
Subject: Party solutions
Date: May 25, 2004 7:32:06 AM CDT
Your problem is the same as that of any web site mentioned on Slashdot: too much demand, too little capacity. So your choices are: increase capacity or reduce demand. Increasing capacity involves unpleasant choices for you (more parties, selling out) so look to reduce demand. A characteristic of your problem is that tou don't *know* these people, you don't have any emotional investment in *which* particular unemployed Photoshop jockey drinks your free beer. An added plus for any solution would be to be able to ensure that the people you *do* know are able to attend.
You could issue credentials. The problem with checking ID and taking rectal fingerprints or whatever they're doing at airports now is that you don't really care WHO the people are, you just don't want so many of them. So hand out tokens. Each of the Bruce Sterling Core Recruiters gets 20 invites with date, time, and location. Or you throw them into the crowd at the end of your talk and watch people tear each other apart for one. The best part is that you're creating an artificial scarcity, so an economy would briefly bloom over invites to your party: people would trade Everquest items, items of personal value, and wives for them.
Of course, you don't seem like the kind of host who would have someone at the door checking ID, so it'd really be just a big bluff. Would the social conscience of the average free kegger prevent them from txting their friends "cum 2 brcs prty. there r no bncrs!"? If word still spreads, you'd only be delaying the wave.
Alternative approaches ...
Control their supply lines: Invest in a cellphone jammer
(http://www.cellular.co.za/accessories/phone_blockers/gsm-phone-jammers.htm).
That'd prevent the flashmobbing from continuing once people were on-site. For added yuks, invite Michael Powell and jam *his* phone. If this proves unfeasible, simply burn a car in the road outside your house once you're at a comfortable attendance level.
Misinformation: ask everyone to write down how they heard about the party. Figure out the connectors. Identify the connectors you don't know. Next year, give them a bogus address.
Add a PIDS, a Party Intrusion Detection System. Put dozens of microphones around the party and have voice recognition software listen for signs of a newcomer, identifying bouncers when found. Of course, unless the technology has moved on since I tried IBM's ViaVoice a few years ago, this is laughably optimistic. The Symbiot approach is to put a shotgun with every microphone and shoot as soon as "so, is this that party?" is heard.
Really, I guess the problem is that you don't want to institute controls because you have no problems with *who* attends, it's simply the number of them–you're running out of space. Buy a bigger house. Eventually you'll be living at the convention center and the problem will be solved for a long time.
Good luck with your party problems, and congratulations on the birth of your latest book.
Nat
