In hearing the discussions at the work sessions, I get the impression that convention management is dealing with gotchas of various sorts on almost a daily basis. Here's one example of disaster narrowly averted that Deb wrote about on the SMOFs mailing list...

After Interaction announced that they were conducting a Hugo base design competition similar to Noreascon Four's, Deb wrote:

Um, I have to tell you that your spec is wrong -- and I suspect I know where you got the wrong spec. I'm posting this openly because it's one of those sorts of Smoffish "gotchas" that other folks need to know about.

So N4 had this contest. And we got the rocket spec by measuring an old un-trophied rocket that was in the NESFA Clubhouse from, I believe, Noreascon Three. And we gave this rocket to our Hugo designer so he could make everything work out.

We also had a contest for the Retro Hugo trophies, and, since we'd given the spare rocket to our Hugo designer, we sent a Retro trophy from MilPhil off to the Retro designer.

Ahem. Somewhere in the 12 years since we got the rocket we've had kicking around in Boston, and MilPhil in 2001, the thread spec changed. The bolt to be used (and, hence, the bore of the rocket) is now 5/16-18 bolt, rather than 1/4-20.

All 38 of the rockets we got from the UK were the new spec. (I'd never thought to ask...just ordered the rockets. This was a *doh* I'm not sure I could have anticipated or planned for.)

Fortunately, our Hugo designer is an ME...but the words "rebore the rockets" were being bandied about a bit, before he found another design solution.