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Nineworlds. New con, new danger.
Aug. 12th, 2013 10:43 pmI really wish I could have arrived earlier. And left later. And slept on the Friday night (damn insomnia).
Nineworlds was the sort of con I'd been missing. Redemption is and always has been fun but it didn't have that vibe last time I went. Nineworlds did!
So, con report: Went to con. Didn't do costuming because absolutely everything costume-y is in a storage locker in Brighton. Saw talks on Harry Potter and the need to be sorted, Psychology of conspiracy theorists, Evolution of Blake's 7, Cyberbullying Sarah Jane Adventures. Played a game. Winning team on the pub quiz. Caught up with friends. Wanted to talk to Laurie Penny but was too shy. Had to fly home before the event was over. Was in Club Europe which I didn't realise when I booked so I got to use the executive lounge.
Different fandom streams had their own rooms, and were organised by different people. There was as steampunk room with lots of steampunk displays. There was a My Little Pony room with muffins and cupcakes and a sort of bizarre confused chaos about it. We had people in costumes. We had a bar. There was no sense of serious organisation, but I think that's more about decentralisation. There was nowhere that everyone had to be. We could pick our own convention.
I think this was why I've been a bit disappointed by conventions recently. They're all stuck in their ways. They do things the same as the previous con because that works, and nobody wants to do things differently. This is sensible, and probably the right thing to do, but it does mean that conventions don't evolve. This group aren't really part of that culture so they did things their own way. Some of it worked. Some of it didn't.
It was all new. It was shiny. It was different. Some things didn't work but other things did!
So I don't think it was a great idea that similar themed talks and panels were often on at the same time, or that there was half an hour between panels (and they usually finished 15 minutes early), or that we were split into two hotels. For some reason they didn't negotiate with the hotel over bar prices. The costume competition was rubbish (turn up, get photographed, get judged by a couple of anonymous judges) but I'll put all this down to teething troubles.
What was really great was the number of people who had never been to anything like this before. It's so much fun meeting newbies. It's also great that we have new fans who can be shown that fandom is run by fans, and is about the fans! I was really worried that we weren't getting enough new blood.
Am tempted to go next year. This would mean missing Discworld. This is quite the dilemma.
Nineworlds was the sort of con I'd been missing. Redemption is and always has been fun but it didn't have that vibe last time I went. Nineworlds did!
So, con report: Went to con. Didn't do costuming because absolutely everything costume-y is in a storage locker in Brighton. Saw talks on Harry Potter and the need to be sorted, Psychology of conspiracy theorists, Evolution of Blake's 7, Cyberbullying Sarah Jane Adventures. Played a game. Winning team on the pub quiz. Caught up with friends. Wanted to talk to Laurie Penny but was too shy. Had to fly home before the event was over. Was in Club Europe which I didn't realise when I booked so I got to use the executive lounge.
Different fandom streams had their own rooms, and were organised by different people. There was as steampunk room with lots of steampunk displays. There was a My Little Pony room with muffins and cupcakes and a sort of bizarre confused chaos about it. We had people in costumes. We had a bar. There was no sense of serious organisation, but I think that's more about decentralisation. There was nowhere that everyone had to be. We could pick our own convention.
I think this was why I've been a bit disappointed by conventions recently. They're all stuck in their ways. They do things the same as the previous con because that works, and nobody wants to do things differently. This is sensible, and probably the right thing to do, but it does mean that conventions don't evolve. This group aren't really part of that culture so they did things their own way. Some of it worked. Some of it didn't.
It was all new. It was shiny. It was different. Some things didn't work but other things did!
So I don't think it was a great idea that similar themed talks and panels were often on at the same time, or that there was half an hour between panels (and they usually finished 15 minutes early), or that we were split into two hotels. For some reason they didn't negotiate with the hotel over bar prices. The costume competition was rubbish (turn up, get photographed, get judged by a couple of anonymous judges) but I'll put all this down to teething troubles.
What was really great was the number of people who had never been to anything like this before. It's so much fun meeting newbies. It's also great that we have new fans who can be shown that fandom is run by fans, and is about the fans! I was really worried that we weren't getting enough new blood.
Am tempted to go next year. This would mean missing Discworld. This is quite the dilemma.
