I Went to Worldcon and All I Got Was These Excellent Friends – Part Three

(And a Hugo for John!)

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it is taking me longer to write about Worldcon that it did to experience, but we’re finally at Hugo night!

The pre-Hugo reception was described as having hors d’oeuvres, but was basically a hot dinner buffet so that was quite nice, as was the free wine. There were many delightful outfits, standouts that I remember were GUFF winner Kat Clay, Ruoxi Chen, Kelly Sue Deconnick, Charlie Jane Anders’ excellent skirt, Adri’s hat, Adrian Tchaikovsky’s spider brooch. Olav Rokne took the finalist photos, which are excellent, and you can check those out over on flickr.

The great thing about being in the fan categories is that you’re early in the evening, so after the opening speeches (Scalzi made me cry) right out of the gate Laya Rose took best fan artist and I could relax for a minute and only be nervous for John and the gang. I had a good feeling, but of course you never know, and John’s little face was utterly flabbergasted when the Best Fancast winner was announced as Octothorpe. Just open mouthed astonishment as a cheer went up, it was delightful. Our dates for the evening, since we both got a plus one, were Lori and Kevin Anderson from Hugo, Girl! and they were clearly delighted for him too – John, Liz, and Aliso scrambled up to the stage and gave a pitch-perfect speech in my perhaps slightly biased opinion. And now we have a Hugo in the house, and a very lovely one to boot, designed by fellow fan artist finalist Iain J. Clark. The rest of the ceremony was great, good winners, great speeches culminating in the amazing Emily Tesh who wrote hers at her seat like the absolute legend that she is, and just real good vibes.

We poured out of the Armadillo and back around to Hall 4 the long way, into the same reception area which was now officially the post-Hugo party. There was more wine, and sandwiches for those who had been too nervous to eat beforehand presumably. Seattle 2025 were the hosts and provided a little branded espresso cup as the finalist gifts, which was lovely. The Octothorpe gang was buzzing and they and the other winners were running around showing off their trophies and letting people hold them. I had vaguely thought I wouldn’t stay long since a large hall is a large hall, and you could see the party area through the separator curtains, but I ended up seeing folks I hadn’t had a chance to see earlier in the convention, and then got introduced to other cool people who I had great chats with but was too full of energy and wine to remember their names the next day.

Eventually the drinks ran out and they ushered us into the main hall, where seveal of the party tents were going strong, we found Andy and Jo, who was wearing a fantastic eighties dress, hung out there till things started to thin out. We proceeded to the Crowne Plaza where the Octorhorpians plunked their Hugos down on the first table we encountered, and that was our base of operations till the end of the night.

The hotel bar and restaurant area works nicely during the evening as a social space, since its arranged in several sections that are only separated by low walls or the slight elevation of the central area. Its easy to have smaller gatherings, but still has good flow to bounce between conversations, stop and chat on the way to the bar, and have quick asides if you spot someone you need a word with.

We were joined by Meg and Esther for a while, we met the impeccably attired Jess Jewell and generally had a drunken good time until 4am or so when I decided it was my bedtime and John more or less agreed