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Novacon report
I had a good weekend .
I decided to combine Novacon with a chance to see my nephews and this turned out to be an excellent decision. I went up to Reading on the Thursday and had a delightful time with my brother-in-law and two little boys. There are few delights in life (at least to me) that compare with a little boy at the top of a fireman's pole in a playground saying 'Catch me, Auntie Judith' and reaching out to grab the pole in the full expectation that you'll be there for him at the bottom. Last time I saw him, Toby wasn't able to say much, but his vacabulary has increased by leaps and bounds and it's really nice that he now remembers who I am and is pleased to see me. Alex, too, is a lovely lad and we had fun playing chase as I ran after him wearing my cape and wrapped it round him when I caught him. He thought that was a great game!
The unexpected bonus was to my voice. It had been playing up quite a bit recently as many of you will know all too well, but like most adults who've had children, I found I was pitching my voice high when talking to the boys. It's quite instinctive - I imagine children hear better at highter frequencies. Anyway, my voice doesn't wear out as fast at that pitch and I found I was able to consciously carry the trick onto most of Novacon and actually got through the weekend without making the voice any worse.
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dougs picked me up on Friday afternoon and we travelled upto Walsall. I think I missed all the Friday evening programme apart from grabbing a quick drink in the book launch party as I met far too many interesting people and had lots of interesting conversations. Correction - you can't meet too many interesting people.
Saturday morning, I got up early and actually visited the gym. My asthma has been getting a lot worse recently and I figured regular exercise is likely to help. The gym is pretty clapped out, but one of the jogging machines worked and the sauna was relaxing even if it wasn't hot enough to justify being called a sauna (60C - I reported it as being broken and doubtless some year they'll think about fixing it).
I went to a couple of interesting programme items - Novacon had a very high standard of panellists and it's good to have discussions of scientific issues when the panellists clearly have a lot of relevent knowledge. I spent quite a lot of time on the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
orbital_2008 table.
Went to the dealers room and did some essential shopping including a copy of Singualarity Sky for my sister's birthday.
In case there's anyone left who doesn't know, the Redemption team have decided to bid for the 2008 Eastercon. (That doesn't mean a media Eastercon, but we hope to bring some things that work well at Redemption - such as our style of small informal discussion sessions - into part of the mixture that is Eastercon)
I'm pleased to say that we also gained some new people to help with the bid. We'd been hoping to gain volunteers with extensive knowledge of Eastercons, and we did.
I also pre-registered for Convoy - the '07 Eastercon bid.
I felt the Convoy people were getting some excessive flack for their choice of hotel (see also http://www.livejournal.com/users/the_magician/267775.html?style=mine#cutid1).
I felt the bid was being attacked before the committee had had a chance to say (at Concussion) what they plan in the way of programme, catering, etc. A bid isn't just about the choice of hotel. I also felt really sorry for Chris Bell who was having to cope with all the flack. It's not easy for anyone to put in a load of hard work and then cope with that kind of stress from the people you are serving. At the end of the day, if people really hate the Adelphi that much, they can always prepare a competing bid. Bid or shut up is pretty much my philosophy.
As the Sunday Eastercon panel demonstrated so aptly, there's between a quarter and a fifh of all fans (different for each group) who dislike any previous convention hotel. Whatever hotel we choose, a fairly vocal group will hate it, while others will tell you how wonderful it is. (We haven't decided on the hotel for Orbital 2008 yet, we're still looking at options - but we can be pretty certain that around a fifth of fans will hate whatever we come up with...)
I think it wasfrandowdsofa who said she'd calculated that if committee members charge for their time at normal professional rates, con memberships would be about £250 each. And probably major_clanger who reckoned that it cost people about a thousand pounds each to run a convention (in travel expenses, costs of going to other conventions to run con tables, hotel bills, site visits, etc.)
One could say that con-running is a total mug's game, but there are compensations. You get to work with some fantastic people, it's an ongoing learning process, you have challenges to overcome, and the buzz if it all works out can be really great.
Anyway, Saturday evening I went out for a meal with friends old and new and greatly enjoyed the company. I went to the fan fund auction and bought far too many books - my excuse is that some of them are actually for my sister, Gillian.
Sunday - went to the gym again, sauna still luke warm. Managed to catch most of Alastair Reynolds' talk on the work he'd being doing as an astrophysicist. It's great when you have SF writers who come from that kind of background. Having taken care to read at least one of his books before the con, it was clear to see how his interest in binary stars had made it into his first novel. He's a good speaker and I certainly learnt things from the talk.
Spent more time on the con table, appeared with others on a Dr Who panel - found it fascinating to listen to Martin Easterbrook's description of watching the very first Dr Who episode and how the way the Tardis vanishing at the end of the episode evoked that sense of wonder that is so central to the love of SF.
Went along to the Indonesian meal. One of the more interesting Novacon traditions is to have a foreign meal on the Sunday evening. The type of food is chosen by the guest of honour and Alastair chose Indonesian. The meal was okay, the company excellent. Started writing an obscene filk withdougs only to find that it started turning itself onto a clean filk on a totally different subject. As we warmed to our theme, "The Eastercon gripe session", others on the table and passers-by contributed suggestions for verses. I think it came out as a very singable filk. (after the afternoon's Eastercon discussion, the subject of stressed out committee members was rather on my mind)
The words can be found at:
http://www.livejournal.com/community/filk/80279.html
It was a good weekend. Thanks to the ban on smoking in function space, I got to more programme items than last year. I had some trouble with smoke levels in the bar (which made my throat a lot worse and generally meant I drifted around looking for someone who wanted a Tarot reading so I had an excuse to go down to the non-smoking area where the con tables were), but that's not the committee's fault.
I know I managed to say thanks to one of the committee in person, but I hope some of the others read this and know it was appreciated (though, of course, grin, I hate the hotel!).
I decided to combine Novacon with a chance to see my nephews and this turned out to be an excellent decision. I went up to Reading on the Thursday and had a delightful time with my brother-in-law and two little boys. There are few delights in life (at least to me) that compare with a little boy at the top of a fireman's pole in a playground saying 'Catch me, Auntie Judith' and reaching out to grab the pole in the full expectation that you'll be there for him at the bottom. Last time I saw him, Toby wasn't able to say much, but his vacabulary has increased by leaps and bounds and it's really nice that he now remembers who I am and is pleased to see me. Alex, too, is a lovely lad and we had fun playing chase as I ran after him wearing my cape and wrapped it round him when I caught him. He thought that was a great game!
The unexpected bonus was to my voice. It had been playing up quite a bit recently as many of you will know all too well, but like most adults who've had children, I found I was pitching my voice high when talking to the boys. It's quite instinctive - I imagine children hear better at highter frequencies. Anyway, my voice doesn't wear out as fast at that pitch and I found I was able to consciously carry the trick onto most of Novacon and actually got through the weekend without making the voice any worse.
dougs picked me up on Friday afternoon and we travelled upto Walsall. I think I missed all the Friday evening programme apart from grabbing a quick drink in the book launch party as I met far too many interesting people and had lots of interesting conversations. Correction - you can't meet too many interesting people.Saturday morning, I got up early and actually visited the gym. My asthma has been getting a lot worse recently and I figured regular exercise is likely to help. The gym is pretty clapped out, but one of the jogging machines worked and the sauna was relaxing even if it wasn't hot enough to justify being called a sauna (60C - I reported it as being broken and doubtless some year they'll think about fixing it).
I went to a couple of interesting programme items - Novacon had a very high standard of panellists and it's good to have discussions of scientific issues when the panellists clearly have a lot of relevent knowledge. I spent quite a lot of time on the
orbital_2008 table.Went to the dealers room and did some essential shopping including a copy of Singualarity Sky for my sister's birthday.
In case there's anyone left who doesn't know, the Redemption team have decided to bid for the 2008 Eastercon. (That doesn't mean a media Eastercon, but we hope to bring some things that work well at Redemption - such as our style of small informal discussion sessions - into part of the mixture that is Eastercon)
I'm pleased to say that we also gained some new people to help with the bid. We'd been hoping to gain volunteers with extensive knowledge of Eastercons, and we did.
I also pre-registered for Convoy - the '07 Eastercon bid.
I felt the Convoy people were getting some excessive flack for their choice of hotel (see also http://www.livejournal.com/users/the_magician/267775.html?style=mine#cutid1).
I felt the bid was being attacked before the committee had had a chance to say (at Concussion) what they plan in the way of programme, catering, etc. A bid isn't just about the choice of hotel. I also felt really sorry for Chris Bell who was having to cope with all the flack. It's not easy for anyone to put in a load of hard work and then cope with that kind of stress from the people you are serving. At the end of the day, if people really hate the Adelphi that much, they can always prepare a competing bid. Bid or shut up is pretty much my philosophy.
As the Sunday Eastercon panel demonstrated so aptly, there's between a quarter and a fifh of all fans (different for each group) who dislike any previous convention hotel. Whatever hotel we choose, a fairly vocal group will hate it, while others will tell you how wonderful it is. (We haven't decided on the hotel for Orbital 2008 yet, we're still looking at options - but we can be pretty certain that around a fifth of fans will hate whatever we come up with...)
I think it was
frandowdsofa who said she'd calculated that if committee members charge for their time at normal professional rates, con memberships would be about £250 each. And probably major_clanger who reckoned that it cost people about a thousand pounds each to run a convention (in travel expenses, costs of going to other conventions to run con tables, hotel bills, site visits, etc.)One could say that con-running is a total mug's game, but there are compensations. You get to work with some fantastic people, it's an ongoing learning process, you have challenges to overcome, and the buzz if it all works out can be really great.
Anyway, Saturday evening I went out for a meal with friends old and new and greatly enjoyed the company. I went to the fan fund auction and bought far too many books - my excuse is that some of them are actually for my sister, Gillian.
Sunday - went to the gym again, sauna still luke warm. Managed to catch most of Alastair Reynolds' talk on the work he'd being doing as an astrophysicist. It's great when you have SF writers who come from that kind of background. Having taken care to read at least one of his books before the con, it was clear to see how his interest in binary stars had made it into his first novel. He's a good speaker and I certainly learnt things from the talk.
Spent more time on the con table, appeared with others on a Dr Who panel - found it fascinating to listen to Martin Easterbrook's description of watching the very first Dr Who episode and how the way the Tardis vanishing at the end of the episode evoked that sense of wonder that is so central to the love of SF.
Went along to the Indonesian meal. One of the more interesting Novacon traditions is to have a foreign meal on the Sunday evening. The type of food is chosen by the guest of honour and Alastair chose Indonesian. The meal was okay, the company excellent. Started writing an obscene filk with
dougs only to find that it started turning itself onto a clean filk on a totally different subject. As we warmed to our theme, "The Eastercon gripe session", others on the table and passers-by contributed suggestions for verses. I think it came out as a very singable filk. (after the afternoon's Eastercon discussion, the subject of stressed out committee members was rather on my mind)The words can be found at:
http://www.livejournal.com/community/filk/80279.html
It was a good weekend. Thanks to the ban on smoking in function space, I got to more programme items than last year. I had some trouble with smoke levels in the bar (which made my throat a lot worse and generally meant I drifted around looking for someone who wanted a Tarot reading so I had an excuse to go down to the non-smoking area where the con tables were), but that's not the committee's fault.
I know I managed to say thanks to one of the committee in person, but I hope some of the others read this and know it was appreciated (though, of course, grin, I hate the hotel!).