Doing two virtual conventions the same weekend is easier when both have significant differences in timezones, like these two – Croatia and Pittsburgh respectively. Futuricon is the one I spent the most time at, given it was only an hour off. It followed the website-streaming-video plus Discord model, although the streaming video platform they used was buggy and had the (dis)advantage that it also provided a chat form. Obviously it’s useful for folks who can’t or don’t want to use the Discord to be able to chat, but it also can dilute things by splitting the conversation. There were three …
Category: Conventions
Con reports
October starts with a bang
Two conventions this weekend; Futuricon, the Croatian Eurocon and C’Monfluence, the virtual Confluence. Neither has an art show and neither seems to be doing much with parties, but so far I’m enjoying the respective Discords and the panels seem decent. Meanwhile it’s exactly one month till the election and the news is even more 2020 than it has been so far. Just. a lot. One piece of sad news that actually happened on the 30th but I just saw was the Quino, creator of Mafalda, has died. I actually had looked him up earlier this year in a fit of …
September
I guess September happened? We left the house a few times, to Unity for beer to go, to the Bookshop for beer to go, to the Butchers for beer to go (I sense a theme). We went to Paddle and Peel for date night – sat outside and had delicious pizza and chocolate calzones for desert. John’s friend Emma, who lives nearby now, came by for a drink and chat in the garden. Oh, I took Alice to the vet! That was a small adventure which she did not enjoy at all but was luckily a minor inconvenience and nothing …
NASFiC
NASFiC was this past weekend. The first thing I did was check if I was in the art show, although I had signed up pretty early I never heard back, although I did get contacted on an art-related item which seemed to indicate I was set. Still, I was glad to see my art in the tidy, single page gallery they had chosen. On the plus side, was a nice clear layout gallery with names and bios prominent and the format was landscape, so pieces looked good. The disadvantage was that the images had no additional info or links, even …
ReCONvene
Yesterday was ReCONvene, a single-day virtual convention put on by the NESFA/ gang. It has two program tracks with panels, gaming, lectures, plus a Discord server and an art show on their website. I participated in all of that except the gaming, of course. The convention started at 4pm my time, but the first panel I was actually interested in was at 5pm so I spent the first hour in the Discord and checking out the art show. The art show was beautiful; it was a single gallery on one page, with a title card and five images per artist …
Water from the sky
The heatwave has properly broken and we can think again! In the end I sold four fans altogether at CoNZealand, so I’m calling that a success. This weekend is ReCONvene, which is a single day convention and I’ve just signed up for the Open Art Show so I don’t expect sales necessarily, especially given that it is tomorrow and there hasn’t been much communication. Still, the programme schedule looks good and there was no cost to the art show so no risk. Then next week is NASFiC (my first) which is a bit bigger of course. Virtual conventions are easier …
Beat
CoNZealand is all wrapped up. I sold one fan and got a nibble on another, plus a commission for a third, so not gangbusters but not bad for new territory. Didn’t do much else other than skim through the Discord this morning, but at noon it was time for a live recording of Octothorpe, which was a good episode with several discussions of future projects, exactly the sort of vibe I hope for after a good convention. One of the things that got mentioned was fannish Discords popping up in the wake of CoNZealand, which is something I briefly pondered …
Days, what even are those?
Day three of the convention, I think? Watched the Greg Broadmore guest interview, which was pretty great. Went to a Peadar Ó Guilín which was great, not the least because although the subject matter was dark the author is just has the most mellow, positive vibe imaginable. Kicked around the Discord having nice conversations for a bit until the afternoon lull, it was very hot here so I walked the cats, twice. Alice is getting very adventurous, Quentin less so. For some reason I had missed selecting the party stream on the Grenadine site so it didn’t pop up on …
Oh, so it’s going to be that sort of Worldcon
Went to a couple of parties, one small and informative the other packed to the second Zoom page. Did a little more last minute Exhibits stuff, bounced around a few enjoyable Discord conversations, and ate some Tim Tams. Then it was the fallow time so I napped, we ordered pizza and watched a super bummer episode of For All Mankind and I was ready for the evening. Did a little more last minute stuff, potentially got roped into a probably super fun (??) fannish project, contemplated getting a drink… … and then I remembered the artist reception is at 6am …
CoNZealand Day 1
The first half of today was last minute convention set up, my own (art show) and theirs (Exhibits pages). Then after dinner, going through the schedule a ticking off far too many panels, as is tradition. I spent too long trying to figure out how to get Grenadine to show my schedule local timezone – turns out that isn’t a feature it offers, it will only show the local time when you click on a specific item. However, someone on Facebook mentioned that it does allow you do download an .ics file of your schedule and your calendar will do …