longtime sunshine

First: What's the point of a fandom event?

Fandom is built on community and creativity. Without people, there would be no fandom, and there would be no creative works. And more often than not, without our relationships with each other, fewer works would exist, and fandom becomes smaller and less impactful.

Events within fandom inherently aim to encourage at least one of three things, by virtue of existing:

more participation from more people

more fanworks from more people

more relationships between more people

As you can see, fandom events are about people. So of course there's going to be drama, wank, and disagreements—but there's also going to be generosity, creativity, and incredibly meaningful relationships. Whatever side effects depend on the people and environment in question, but ultimately what I'm trying to get at as a moderator is: your priority should be the people.

Note that this does not mean that moderators should expect to abide by participant demands or preferences. It just means that as a moderator, when you approach the idea of running a fandom event, to maximize your results your mindset should be aligned to what you think is best for people in terms of what your goal is.

tl;dr Fandom events are not about the moderators. They are about the fandoms.

Event Goals

Before we get into the different types of events, we should ask ourselves: What is our event goal?

Different types of events produce different results, and if we have a goal in mind, we can maximize it through the event type. Goals are tied to the points I listed earlier, but here I'll expand more specifically what events can do.

A big sticking point when it comes to fan participation in the realm of creativity—and therefore signing up in the first place—is balancing two crucial factors:

Pressure - When people are pressured, whether by deadline and/or specific event guidelines (including assignments), they are more inclined to produce their works and be satisfied with the result, especially in an experimental or higher quality way. Of course, this isn't definitive—but diamonds and all. A good experience under pressure also motivates people to want to participate again.

Freedom - People still want their freedom to create what they want, do what they want, and to dropout and participate again. Penalties exist and are understandable, but part of hosting an event is making it attractive for people to feel confident enough to sign up and participate in the first place. Whether this is freedom in scope, length, creativity, or deadlines—these are all things that participants will take into consideration before they sign up, therefore what mods should consider when establishing their event.

Too much pressure may sacrifice freedom; too much freedom may not stimulate people with the same excitement that pressure allows. Because fandom is about excitement, I find both pressure and freedom critical to think about in the experience you want participants to have. Once determined, you'll have a better idea on your expected outcome, and how you can get there.

Therefore, goals are about the fanwork output, participation numbers, and the community through forged relationships. All three are essentially a part of any fandom event, but your goal may prioritize one or two over the other(s).

Overall, you will want participants and works, and the right kind of participants to create the right type of works for your event, so it's good to have a goal in mind.

Event Scope

Another thing you'll want to consider is scope. Your goal depends on who you're targeting and what kind of identity comes as a result of your event, defined by the produced works.

Your scope might be:

Fandom - For more fanworks in your fandom regardless of pairing, character, or content. Great for smaller or newer fandoms, or fandoms with a good amount of diverse sub-interests.

Pairing or Character - For more fanworks featuring a pairing or character that you like. Great across a range of ship/character popularity in large fandoms, because for bigger fandoms there will be more fans who only read certain pairings or characters. Good for forging relationships between similar-minded fans.

Multi-Fandom - For more participants and more diverse fandom results. Good to challenge creators. Tends to be more accessible to non-participants as well.

You can add tropes, genres, or ratings into your scope, though it certainly isn't necessary. The types of fanworks for your event may be centered around one specific prompt, a category of prompts, or expect to be a crossover or a remix.

If fans are not interested in the scope, then they probably won't sign up, regardless of what type of event it is or what guidelines you have. They need to know or at least be interested in the topic of the event.

One of the reasons Yuletide is such a popular event is because it's multi-fandom—so anyone can join—is a gift exchange, and focuses on small fandoms. Everyone has a small fandom they want more works for, and new types of entertainment (and therefore fandoms) are coming out of the woodwork nearly every day. Yuletide is likely to be a continuously-running fandom event until the heat death of the universe, because the nature of the event guarantees consistent interest over time.

Types of Events

Now let's go through some of the most common types of events around. If you've heard of BFE you can probably guess the three big ones, but I'll go into some others:

Gift Exchanges

By far the most common type of event, an exchange or gift exchange is an event where fans create works for each other based on assignment. In other words, the Secret Santas of fandom.

AO3 has a matching system for assignments, though it isn't perfect. I highly recommend using a blend of AO3's matching system and hand-matching.

Options: Anonymous Round (highly recommended)

Evaluation: High pressure and low freedom, due to assignment and deadline

Good if your goal is: To simultaneously produce more works and more participation in your scope.

Prompt Fests/Fests

A prompt fest is an event in two creative stages: participants leave prompts, and then participants sign up for prompts to fill. More often than not, prompters do not have to sign up to create for prompts, and vice versa. All prompts are not expected to be filled; this event is more of an exchange of creativity.

A standard fest does not have a prompting period and therefore no expected signup/assignment, but is still a closed schedule of submitting works by a deadline to be published during reveals.

Options: Anonymous Round (highly recommended)

Evaluation: Low pressure (due to voluntary participation instead of signup), medium freedom (due to schedule)

Good if your goal is: To produce more works for your scope, with a side effect of encouraging more diverse participation. Good to make a lot of different people feel involved even if they aren't making fanworks.

Bangs

A bang is an event where writers write a fic, and about halfway through the event, each fic's metadata/info gets advertised for artists to claim and help create a collaborative fic-and-art piece at the end.

Big bangs and reverse bangs (where the artist and writer's positions get switched) are the most well-known types of bangs, although there are others, usually defined by size; for example, mini bangs.

Options: Work Length (double digit ending in a 0-thousand for big bangs as a minimum, fic word count maximums for reverse bangs to guarantee emphasis on the art)

Evaluation: Medium pressure due to deadline (and any work guidelines), medium freedom (depending on role/event guidelines)

Good if your goal is: To produce more collaborative works in your scope with your designated word length, with side effects of encouraging participation and community bonding.

Zines

A zine is a collection of works compiled into one project for audience distribution, whether digital or print. Digital zines are usually available for free; print zines tend to require payment from fans.

Before the internet—and before we had exchanges/fests—we had zines for fic. Nowadays, zines tend to be exclusive collaborations with a higher focus on art.

Options: Invitation-only

Evaluation: High pressure depending on work length and deadlines, medium freedom depending on scope/creativity

Good if your goal is: Quality, or the production of the zine itself

Kinkmeme

A kinkmeme is an event consisting of mini prompt-fill periods per prompt/fill, and no deadline. Essentially, a kinkmeme is an ongoing prompt fest.

Kinkmemes should always allow anonymity for both prompts and creators, to allow privacy (if desired) and therefore more works despite attribution.

Options: Platform; kinkmemes are usually hosted on platforms that support threaded comments (LJ, Dreamwidth), though they can also be hosted on AO3 with the limitation of prompts per user, at 50.

Evaluation: Low pressure, high freedom (no deadline)

Good if your goal is: To produce more fic, a variety of fic, and oftentimes kinkier/less conventional fic. Encourages regular participation from people with ideas but no time/interest in writing. And if you don't want to manage people.

Stocking Exchanges

A stocking exchange is an event where participants submit wishlists of prompts along with personal limitations/guidelines; wishlists then get posted publicly for creators to secretly fill their wishes. All fills get revealed together.

This is, in a way, a low-pressure combination of an exchange and a prompt fest.

Options: Platform - Best hosted on Dreamwidth or LJ, with each wishlist getting its own post, and fills in the post's comments.

Evaluation: Low pressure (filling is voluntary), medium freedom (due to prompts/wishlist limitations)

Good if your goal is: More participation and community bonding, with a side effect of more works

Fanweek

A fanweek is a week or designated time period where each day (or smaller designated time periods) has a specific prompt. Prompts are revealed at least a month before (recommended) to allow participants time to create. During the event period, works fulfilling each prompt on the designated day are shared on the event account.

Options: Reveal period length (a month, two weeks, weekends, etc.)

Evaluation: Medium pressure (due to deadline and prompts), high freedom (universal prompts encouraging voluntary participation should err more loose than restrictive)

Good if your goal is: To produce more fic and art almost equally, and if you don't want to manage people

Notes: This event typically does not have a signup period or check-in, as it is usually at-will.

Team Competition

A team competition is an event where participants get sorted into teams (whether self-selected or assigned) and compete for points through the creation of works. This requires high participant management, and is usually best moderated by a team of mods instead of a single person.

Team competitions are best suited for multi-fandom or fandoms with large diverse scopes. They consist of multiple rounds of differently measured challenges, to tally up points.

Options: There's a lot; I usually defer to kpop_olymfics, HSWC, and the Sports Anime Shipping Olympics as examples.

Evaluation: High pressure, low freedom (due to metrics that would allow everyone to be evaluated on the same level)

Good if your goal is: Participation, community-bonding, and work output. Requires consistent moderator to participant communication and healthy communication within teams.

Auctions & Raffles

Auctions and raffles are events where creators sign up to create for some specific fandoms, and then get auctioned off to other fans to create for the highest bidder's requested fandom/prompt. These tend to be done for charity events, where bids are real-life money.

Options: Invitation-only (to limit the amount of creators you need to manage)

Evaluation: High pressure (limited or no dropouts), low freedom (for creators, depending on prompt)

Good if your goal is: Charity, or whatever the bid currency is

See below for additional notes on charity events in fandom.

Notes on Charity Events

Though fandom is characteristically nonprofit, people in fandom are generous enough to utilize its communal creativity for charitable purposes.

When it comes to this, then the goal shifts from being less community focused and more on maximizing monetary profit.

In this case, I highly suggest:

Auctions/Raffles (see above)

Maximizing inclusivity for participants/payees or buyers

Loose work deadlines, since the focus is more on the payment (best donated prior to publication) than the work

Exclusive charity zines depend on buyer interest, which is not always dependable in fandom, and therefore tends to minimize profit, even if the profit is acquired. Unless there is a high interest in not only the works but the scope of the zine, I would recommend auctions/raffles instead.

Similarly, single-scope zines limit interest from both participants and buyers as well. Multi- or mega-fandom scopes align better with charity goals because they inherently encourage more participants; therefore, again, more profit for the charity/donation in question.

Of course, everything is subjective. But these are just my tips when considering any fandom event—it starts with your goal.

Additional Factors

When it comes to running events, other things you'll need to consider are:

Scheduling

Each fandom event has, at minimum, the following stages:

Signup Period

Creation Period (usually starts once a participant has signed up)

Check-In

Final Draft/deadlines

Reveals

Some events may do advertising prior to signups, though it isn't mandatory. Signups last as long as you find necessary; I see week-long signups most frequently. Two weeks to a month may be sensible for larger events.

The creation period depends on your event type, minimum work length, and the culture of the fandom. On average I see three months for a minimum 1000 words, 6 months for bangs and zines, and very rarely anything beyond 8 months (for high word count Big Bangs.) I usually don't recommend creation periods less than three months, though smaller fandoms or more insular participation may benefit from it. Otherwise, even if people can write fast or slow, keep in mind that people love to procrastinate in addition to having their own lives to live.

This is why we have check-ins—to make sure participants are still in and haven't forgotten about the event at all! It's okay if they have; remember what I said about pressure. Check-ins are a poke to make sure people are still in, and allow people the chance to drop out. They may drop out by communicating with you via check-in, or by not filling out the check-in at all. People tend to not like the shame that comes with communicating a dropout so even if they haven't forgotten, they may ghost. It's better to get that ghost via check-in rather than at deadline.

Check-ins may be at the halfway point, or closer to the deadline by way of a first draft submission, depending on what you find suitable. You may have more than one check-in per event, depending on schedule. Be sure to give your check-ins a deadline so you know if people are ghosting you or have just forgotten. Don't allow people to flake and don't reward poor communication; while people do have their own lives, sometimes you will have to make the executive decision for someone to drop out because they clearly can't make the schedule or are uninterested. It's best to have this figured out by check-ins rather than at the final deadline.

The final draft deadline is when ALL expected works per initial signups are due. This may be a specific time on a specific day, or a 24- to 36-hour period of a day (e.g. December 11th anywhere in the world), depending on what you find suitable. This is separate from reveals in case your event needs a period for pinch-hitters to create makeup works, or to cushion late stragglers before works go live. For more on pinch hits, see below.

Once all works are in, then it's time for reveals. You may choose to stagger reveals (one or some number of works getting revealed per day throughout a designated time period), or reveal all works at once. See below for more notes on reveals.

Ultimately, remember that as an event moderator, you'll want to maximize the positive experience of as many participants as possible, rather than accommodating one participant and inconveniencing everyone else, including yourself. Take stock of your priorities every time you hit a road bump. At times you will need to be a benevolent dictator over being a people pleaser.

Pinch Hits

Pinch hits apply to events that involve assignments: gift exchanges, bangs, and auctions/raffles. You may consider pinch hits for prompt fests and zines as well.

A pinch hit (taken from the baseball term) is when a participant drops out and someone takes their place. If someone drops out from a gift exchange or auction/raffle, a pinch hitter is needed so their recipient can still get a gift fanwork as promised. A bang pinch hitter is needed for the second assignee (artist for a standard bang, writer for a reverse bang) so the final work can still be multimedia.

Gift exchange pinch hitters tend not to be given or assigned gift works in turn; their role is backup generosity. Of course, feel free to change this if you'd like.

I recommend for pinch hit signups to open via Google Form alongside initial signups if not afterward, so people who are unsure if they can commit to the event can at least be put on the pinch hit mailing list. After a participant drops out, mods send a mass email with the recipient's prompts/preferences to all signed up pinch hitters to see if any are interested. Each dropped assignment requires only one pinch hitter, though I wouldn't discourage against more fanworks if more people are interested.

Pinch hits can be assigned as soon as a participant communicates a dropout, an unfilled check-in form by check-in deadline (implicit dropout), or otherwise whenever you (the moderator) are notified that a participant cannot fulfill their assignment.

If not all assigned works are in by a deadline, you will also want a pinch hit period where all missed recipients' prompts can get sent to the pinch hitters for someone to pick up, and some amount of time for the pinch hitters to create their works. I would recommend one to two weeks for this. Pinch hitters should be willing to create in a shorter time period under pressure.

Invitation Only

I only recommend invite-only over signups if your scope is big or your focus is on quality more than participation or works. Because of fandom's communal nature, invite-only tends to appear cliquey and is inclined to make people feel excluded and uninterested in the resulting works. If you consider making your event invite-only, I would take great care in thinking about how this would appear to fans who are not invited, and the fandom at large.

Public Prompts/Signups & Treats

For events with assignments, you may consider allowing signup prompts/requests to be public. This is in case other fans, whether they're also signed up or not, might be interested in fulfilling requests without the commitment of assignment.

Works filling a signup prompt/request without being an assignment are called Treats.

Because the whole nature of fandom events inherently encourages more work output, allowing signup prompts to be public encourages this even more. Everyone is expected to create for their assignment—and some people may be interested in creating a Treat. Additionally, fans who didn't sign up may see a request that they like and choose to fill it, granting the recipient even more works without needing the assignment.

You can toggle this for an AO3 collection on the "Challenge Settings" page by ticking the box next to "Requests visible?" under "Request and Offers." I almost always encourage this, because more is better, and everyone likes treats.

Or, in other words, the Two Cakes rule.

Anonymous Round

If your event has an anonymous round, all works are anonymous during work reveals. An event with an anonymous round will also have creator reveals.

Anonymous rounds are good for:

Drumming up excitement by way of mystery, particularly if each work has a designated recipient.

Encouraging readers to check out works based on work intrigue, without creator bias.

Allowing newer creators some attention without feeling intimidated by better-known creators.

Anonymous rounds do not work for all events, particularly those that focus on art, show sneak peeks of fic before they are posted, or cannot have separate work and creator reveals. It also does not work for events where you (the mod) do not manage participants directly, nor does it work for events with no deadline.

I recommend an anonymous period of one week. Any more may make creators impatient; any less may be pointless.

Platform

Keep all event management on the least number of platforms when possible.

This will make it easier for you, the moderator, as well as participants, so there's less need for everyone to remember what is where. I prioritize the platform that the works are going to be posted on—in other words, if the works are going to be posted on AO3, then signups should be conducted through AO3, not a Google Form.

My recommended platforms are:

AO3, for fic

Dreamwidth, for kinkmemes and stocking exchanges

Tumblr, for fanweek social media (for searchability, event wholeness, and customization)

Bigcartel, for print zines

Google Sheets, for moderators to manage event data. Sheet data can be imported from Google Forms.

Google Forms, for check-ins and pinch hits, and signups not conducted through AO3

Airtable, for bang work headers (collaborative claims)

Email/communication

As an event moderator, you will be managing people and therefore will need to be able to communicate to all participants en masse (if there are signups.) In this case, you will need your participants' email addresses at the very least. Luckily, if signups are conducted through AO3, moderators will automatically be able to see the email address associated with signed up accounts.

For participants: If your AO3 email is associated with you IRL and you'd rather it not, and you want to participate in AO3 events, you should probably change it!

I say email and not other social media because email is private, generally gets checked more reliably by more people, and is a lot harder to ghost. As a moderator you should also have a sense of privacy and respect for your participants as well, since fandom email addresses tend not to be very public.

With email you may want to have canned emails/responses and/or email templates for work manageability. You may also want a designated email for the event, so you are not sending moderator emails through your personal email. Dedicated event emails will stand out to participants in their own inbox.

I suggest at least one social media account for your event, if not two, depending on the reach of your event. Of course, when I say one or two, I essentially mean:

Tumblr - For FAQs, longer advertisements, cross-platform sharing

Twitter/Bsky - For news and more frequent updates, shorter advertisements, cross-platform sharing

Your Event Guide & FAQ

When writing up guides and rules for your event, you will need to premeditate questions and what your ultimate vision is, so you can easily figure out answers to things you haven't considered before. With a vision, you can better understand what you want others to get out of the event, and therefore can write guidelines you can confidently stick by, even if people question them.

Though FAQs, rules, and guides may contain long blocks of text for people to read, do not expect yourself (the moderator) to answer every question that comes your way throughout the event. When advertising on social media, you will likely get questions that you can answer while linking to your guide/FAQ to minimize further questions.

People tend to skim or not read guides/FAQs all at once, which is understandable. However, whether or not they read it well or at all is not your responsibility, and answering every question when you've answered it before will only waste your energy. So if your guide/FAQ has answers to most concerns in one way or another, it will minimize the amount of work you put in while still answering people's questions, as long as they do research. This may feel impersonal or mean, but this is the best way to be a moderator and not give yourself a headache and grow impatient with people. The guide/FAQ is a resource for people to refer back to, so they don't have to constantly refer back to you.

When setting up your event, be sure to write a technical guide that focuses on each chronological step of the event, covering as many questions people may have and that you find important to preemptively answer. It doesn't have to be encyclopedic and you don't have to address every concern that comes to your mind, but the guide/FAQ should cover everything necessary for participants to understand before signing up for the event.

If you need help with this, I highly recommend checking out other fandom events' guides/FAQs for some tips. Here are some event guides I've written, for further help: Exchange, Prompt Fest, Kinkmeme, Big Bang

Work Length & Completion

Each event needs a minimum work length so you can establish the least amount of effort you expect from each participant. This is not to say that you should expect participants to only put in the minimum effort—it's to be prepared in case people do. It's also not to say that hitting the minimum work length is the least amount of effort, just that there needs to be a baseline of what participants know is acceptable for the event.

For fanfiction, I recommend a 1000-word minimum, particularly for exchanges and fests. For art, I recommend a minimum of one full-body character as a flat color render, or equivalent.

Additionally, I recommend that most events require all fics to be completed by reveals. Oftentimes allowing WIPs also allows participants to create a last-minute WIP as a copout, instead of dropping out and allowing a pinch hitter to create a perhaps more suitable work.

I would only recommend allowing WIPs by deadline if the fandom is small and insular, otherwise there's a higher chance of WIPs not being read. People are more inclined to not be interested in a WIP and only read completed works but not vice versa. A completion requirement makes each work more appealing to the audience, as well as the event as a whole.

Reveals

In addition to determining anonymity to establish if you'll have creator reveals in addition to work reveals, you can also consider revealing works on a staggered schedule, particularly on AO3.

What this means is that instead of all works being revealed all at once, certain works will be revealed on specific days, drip feeding all works. This is good for the excitement of surprise (who knows what works will be revealed on what days!), increasing readership (readers will be inclined to read each fic as they come out due to availability limitations) - and, if participants know what day their work will be revealed on, giving them more freedom to work around it.

Staggered reveal dates may be assigned by you (the moderator) or as a part of signups, or a combination of the two - participants list their preferred reveal dates with the decision ultimately up to the mod. I generally recommend staggered reveals to be operated by the moderator instead of depending on participants to remember when their work will be revealed and to reveal it themselves.

More often than not, I recommend all works being revealed at once, since this also attracts interest from non-participants. Staggered reveals are better suited for larger scale works (like big bangs), more works, or more insular fandoms.

When it comes to chaptered works, I do not recommend allowing creators to stagger reveal chapters, because then you will not have control over if/when those chapters get revealed, particularly if you expect all works to be fully completed. If works are to be completed by reveals, it is best for longer works to have all chapters revealed by the moderator at once.

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I hope this is a decent rundown of running fandom events. Maybe this will motivate someone to run their own event for the first time!