Vintage Computer Festival Midwest is an annual celebration of all things vintage computing. It is organized and paid for by Chicago Classic Computing, a 501c3 non-profit entity. At VCFMW, you can expect hundreds of tables with a mixture of exhibits and vendors, a large inclusive community to nerd out with, and a series of presentations from community members. Admission to every VCFMW has always been free. I believe in this mission, and I am proud to be a part of the organization that puts on the show every year.

For the past decade, my primary role has been organizing and executing our presentation track (ie. “talks”). This includes, but is not limited to:

• Choosing talks from submitted proposals, based on diversity and fitness of subject matter
• Organizing the talks schedule, based on each presenter’s availability and requirements
• Setting up and tearing down the talks room (speakers, screen, projector, mics, AV, etc.)
• Recording video and audio of the talks, then editing and uploading them after the show

I perform nearly all of these activities myself. It is exhausting, and I don’t get to see the actual show very much because I’m running the presentations, but I believe in the cause and I’m happy to do it. The presenters work hard on their projects and presentations, so I work hard producing a quality final result that the community can learn from.

Interest in our show exploded

The interest in VCFMW has skyrocketed in the past two years, to the point where we were forced to move to a venue 4x as large as our previous one to ensure that every exhibitor who wanted a table could get one. Even with the new space, table sign-ups effectively “sold out” in a matter of hours.

This success also translated to presentation submissions, where we received nearly triple the number of talk proposals we’ve gotten in previous years. Unfortunately, we were not equipped (mostly financially) to provide additional space, equipment, and personnel for running two simultaneous presentation tracks to accommodate everyone who submitted a proposal. With only one track, roughly half of the proposals had to be declined.

Why a transparency report?

It’s come to my attention that some people are unhappy that their talks were not selected. It has even been suggested that I “play favorites”, ie. choosing presentations based on personal relationships or selfish motivations, rather than what is best for the show. While I am under no obligation to explain our criteria for selecting talks, I thought it would be beneficial to provide insight into our selection process. It’s my hope that this will give closure to those who may have felt wronged, and possibly help inform any other vintage computer shows that struggle with selecting presentations.

How we select proposals

Proposals are considered based on multiple criteria. Some of these are obvious:

Is it on-topic for a vintage computer show? This is hopefully self-explanatory: The closer your talk is to the genre of vintage computing, the more likely we will select it.

Is it “on-brand” for our specific midwest show? Most vintage computer shows are on the east coast or west coast, and tend to present east/west coast history. Midwest computing history is not as well represented, so we lean towards midwest-centric history topics.

Is it new or “deep” research? The primary purpose of presentations is to inform, teach, and educate. We are more likely to select a proposal that has new revelations about a subject, or extremely deep dives that are not already well-represented online.

How wide is the audience? If your proposal targets a tiny niche group of people, we are less likely to select it than a proposal that appeals to a wider audience. (We have unfortunately learned this through experience: Talks that attract an audience of less than 5 people take up a valuable slot that could have been allocated to a talk that informed hundreds or thousands of people once online.)

Is it multi-generational? To serve our mission of inclusion and education, we more closely consider proposals that appeal to multiple generations. One core tenet of our show is that of outreach: Without younger generations becoming interested in vintage computing, the field will die.

Has it been given before? We have precious few slots for talks, and tend to pass up talks that have already been given previously in the past 12 months and/or already online.

There are also non-obvious, behind-the-scenes reasons talks may be selected or rejected:

Individual presenter availability. If we get two fantastic proposals where both presenters are only available for the exact same time slot, then we obviously can’t select both proposals, as we can only support one presentation track at this time.

Equipment or venue restrictions. If a proposal relies on exotic video hookups we cannot accommodate, or 3-phase 220V power, or something that the venue restricts, we cannot technically meet those requirements and cannot select the proposal.

Organizer privilege. Executing VCF Midwest takes months of hard work every year, and we ask for nothing in return, other than people attend and have a good time. On rare occasions, given two differing proposals with equal merit, we sometimes reserve the privilege of preferring one proposal over another as compensation for putting on the show.

Concerns about favoritism

“Organizer privilege” is not necessarily the same thing as favoritism. Favoritism implies unfair preferential treatment, but in accordance with our selection criteria, we try to be as fair and accommodating as possible given our available resources. Despite that, some people have expressed concern that we are “playing favorites” based on individual desires and personal relationships. To that, I will only point out the obvious: Given that our community is “small” (relatively speaking), it is a statistical inevitability that some submitted proposals will be from people I know personally. I stand by what I’ve previously written: Proposals are primarily selected due to their merit and their relevancy to the show.

A very specific example was brought to my attention that is worth going over in detail: This year, we received three proposals for the same topic family: Modern fantasy/”new retro” 6502-themed personal computers. Had I selected all three to not “play favorites”, over 1/4th of our entire presentation schedule would have been taken up by 6502-based “new retro” personal computers. Had I rejected all three (also not to play favorites), it might have led to accusations of our show somehow being biased against 6502-based projects. So, I decided to select only one of them. Of the three, one talk had already been given in June and the video of it was already online, so it was removed from consideration. The remaining two were considered based on the criteria listed above, and a single one was selected that satisfied the most criteria.

That’s all that can be said on the matter. If people still have a problem with our selection process, they are free to take their proposals to other festivals (although that is no guarantee another festival will have as open and considered a selection process as we do).

Improvement plan for the future

Despite having a lot of experience putting on our show, we are not professional event organizers. We make mistakes every year, and we try to learn from them. As mentioned earlier, the growth of the show caught us off guard, and we could have handled talk submissions a little more gracefully.

For 2025, we plan on making the following changes to the talk proposal submission and selection process:

• All talk submissions will go into a webform (rather than emailed), which will be open for a specific time to be clearly communicated. Proposals will only be accepted during that time. Using a webform will also ensure we have the full information we need (title, abstract, speaker bio, etc.) rather than just an email saying “Hey, me and some friends want to have some stage time to discuss XXX”, etc.
• We will not “pre-consider” any submissions. Submissions will not even be looked at until the submission window closes.
• A roundtable discussion amongst multiple CCC members will be held for pre-selection and initial voting, to address concerns that any single person is “playing favorites”.

What would it take to add a second presentation track?

VCFMW is free to attend, and although we are asking for a donation for tables and power this year, that amount does not actually cover the full cost of tables and power. We have also experienced a 4x growth in one year due to a surge of interest in the show, which had to be dealt with by getting a larger and more expensive venue (the alternative would have been to limit the number of people who could attend our previous venue).

As such, our 501c3 non-profit cannot always fund the show. We rely on donations and the show auction to generate enough money to put on the show for next year, but sometimes it isn’t enough. Every year, the organizers contribute personal funds as necessary to ensure a nice show for everyone, such as buying equipment that we need. (For example, every piece of equipment you see in the talks room was purchased for use at the show, as that is cheaper than renting in the long run.) We do this because we believe in the community, we want to advocate and promote vintage computing history and outreach, and want everyone to have a good time at our show.

If you are unhappy with various aspects of VCFMW, please try to keep the above points in mind. Better yet, why not donate to help cover the costs of putting on the show? With enough funding, we might be able to support simultaneous presentation tracks in future shows, ensuring that more talk proposals have a chance to be selected and presented.