Lighting&Sound America Online - News: Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and its Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) are partnering to host the Themed Entertainment Association's (TEA) annual SATE conference, September 17 - 18, 2015. Shirley Saldamarco, president of Interactive Media Productions and an ETC faculty member, is co-chair of the event with Loren Barrows, director of business development at Alcorn McBride.
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Maybe this is just me, but I am curious as to the content and the specifics of what will be happening during the conference. It sounds a little bit like listening to a few lectures in the Chosky Theatre and schmoozing in the Lobby. Not that there is anything wrong with that, heck, some conference are exactly that under the guise of something else. What is most striking, however, is that the article mentions a few times the collaboration between CMU and the SATE conference. Yet, I know that more than a handful of CMU Drama students did not even know that the conference was happening. Alas, the bane of the world has once again become communication. Regardless, this sounds like a pretty interesting gathering that would be worthy of attendance at least once. I’m curious of how long this conference has been happening and what the industry reception to it has been?
I think it is really cool that we get to host such an important even in the themed entertainment world, a world that a lot of students might want to be a part of one day. It is so cool that I am honestly a little upset that it is, for the most part, pretty inaccessible to most students. The tickets to this conference are anything but cheap and the jobs were limited (and not well advertised). Why not just host the event at a conference center that is designed and has trained workers to deal with conferences just like this? Why host it at a university if you are not going to engage the students, especially the students who walk by the tables full of candy and food and can hear the applauding and laughter through the walls. I know there is a lot of very valuable information that is being dished out in that room and I am upset I am not able to learn from it.
I was extremely excited to learn about the SATE conference on campus. Unfortunately, I heard about it too late to apply for a scholarship to cover the cost of the ticket and I was unable to join the run crew for the presentations. Thankfully I have still been able to speak to some of the attendees. Wednesday night/Thursday morning I helped to paint the fence with and speak to a few scenic painters. It was unbelievably stirring to get to hear their stories of how they got into this line of work as well as talk about their most recent projects. This conference is a great opportunity for students, and the school, to build connections.
The largest problem with this conference was the lack of communication. Only three of the freshmen have expressed interest or tried to attend the conference. Many are disinterested (I assume from lack of understanding of what this event is) and some believed that the conference was a yearly occurrence here at our school. If the event had been advertised more to the students, maybe it wouldn't be met with so much apathy.
SATE was awesome! It was very nice being exposed to some of the very new ideas in technology and experience design that are permeating the themed entertainment industry. It is kind of funny having a conference for an industry that is completely dominated by one company, and that the diversity in the field comes somewhat from different companies, but largely from the separate departments within the same company. That and the rivalry between Disney and Universal is hilarious, and this may have been the only convention that ive been to where Google was slightly out of place. It was very interesting hearing Google talk about wanting to build a more integrated user experience for all of their disparate technologies that are scattered around to world in shops and offices, but do not talk to each other.
I have to agree with most of the conversation on this topic so far. I think that this was a great idea to host the event at Carnegie Mellon, however I wish things would have been handled a little differently. Everything it seemed like it popped up the day before and I personally did not even know that the conference was happening or what it was about. I agree that if the event was being held on campus that it should have been available to students, or at least School of Drama students since they were using the building. It also was a little distracting to have the conference here, but that's understandable as it would be distracting in any academic building. I think that the conference was probably great about those who knew about it and are really involved in the field and had tickets, but as someone who may have been interested in casually going I did not have the opportunity to go.
I wish I could attend this conference. It’s looks like an extremely interesting thing when you look down from the 2nd floor lobby 2 days ago but actually now I read and I actually knew what was expected to be seen in that conference, I felt a little regret that I missed it (Also those pictures of them Purnell friends with C-3PO all over facebook wall feed, was just killing me). I really like that the conference was held here but also I have a small comments on the email that was sent out to us. It’s very unclear of what this conference is and what’s actually going to happen nor let alone when was it actually going to happened. I remembered I was with couple friends trying to figure this time out so that we knew if we could join or not or even if it’s going to worth the time.
As someone who was very loosely involved with the SATE conference, I have to say it was really an incredible event and it was a shame that more students were not included. My own involvement included painting the fence with TEA club and ETC students on Wednesday night and attending (sneaking in) to the conference for most of the day on Friday. I was able to meet some really incredible industry professionals and hear talks and see demonstrations that absolutely blew me away. I have only recently begun to consider what my options as a manager might be within the themed entertainment world, but this week really got me excited to think about where I might fit in. This excitement only makes me more disappointed in the way the attendance was handled. There is nothing worse than getting a drama-all email talking about a really cool conference with a link to the tickets saying you must pay $700 to attend as a non-TEA member. The sad part about that is the TEA NexGen program is supposed to be attempting to bring new minds into the field, and the people involved are constantly talking about making themed entertainment more accessible, but there has yet to be any evidence supporting this. I was only able to see and hear the things I did this weekend because I snuck in with my friends, and I was so impacted by everything I experienced. If any student were able to go to the conference, I can't imagine how much we could have all learned, or how many people would now be interested in pursuing at least one facet of themed entertainment.
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