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

(And a bunch of stuff I bought in the dealers room too, I guess)

We were staying at the Village, across the bridge from the SEC and Crowne Plaza, which had a decent breakfast buffet but more importantly was also where Liz Batty and several Third Row folks were staying – meaning the days started with a nice little breakfast hangout. It was also the hotel where the business meeting was taking place, which was convenient for John who wanted to look in on a few of those sessions.

I made a brave attempt to see a panel on Saturday morning, but it was full, so wandered the dealer’s room and art show instead. My first stop was the Tachyon Publications booth (over by the tentacles!) to say hi to Rina Weisman, mastermind behind SF in SF amongst other exciting ventures. Next I went searching for some earrings for the Hugos, and found them at Diana’s Stellar WireWorks who had also been at Eastercon and not only had just the things but accepted groats. A further wander brought me to Brambledown Designs, who also was in the art show and whose work I first ran into at a small convention back when I still lived in Southampton. I picked up a lovely linoprint which at first I assumed to be Watership Down themed – closer inspection showed it was two hares rather than rabbits, linoprinted onto an old ordnance survey map of Shropshire rather than Hampshire – but my visit to the book’s locations before leaving Southampton is a special memory and it was too good to pass up. My last purchase was Trujillo, one of a series of Peruvian Cyberpunk comics with excellent art that I am very excited to read.

The art show was equally excellent, I was excited to see some of the January’s pottery in person, I spotted and excellent Wicker Man print that I will treat myself to in the future from Brambledow Designs, Alissa had her Gallifrean coasters but also some cool new canvas art using the Glasgow tartan, Nessa had a lovely display of new art, and of course there was the amazing Fangorn GOH display, as well many others. I’m happy to say I sold four fans out of nine, which I’m happy with given my pre-con stress, and even better I put things in the printshop for the first time and sold everything there.

We had lunch with Bryan and Mette and Warren Frey, dinner with the excellent Ric and Debbie Brtschneider along with the Beyond Cataclysm folks, at whose dealer’s room table John spent a sizeable percent of his time (and budget) during the convention. Both meals were at the Crowne Plaza entirely for convenience, and the food was decidedly average.

Saturday’s big event was the Masquerade, which I dithered about but eventually skipped. I went back to the hotel for a little downtime before changing for the evening. I got back in time for a solid hour or so at DJ Scapegoat’s Wild Wasteland, which was a solidly themed – something I always appreciate at a convention dance, and even if I didn’t dance to every song, the dancefloor was always busy. One standout was when a speech by Drummer from the Expanse came on – which was kinda cool but confusing until Gerry Cinnamon’s ‘Belter’ followed. The song is new to me but inextricably tied to the Glasgow Worldcon now. The dance eventually ended, but luckily John, Claire and Mark, Meg, and other excellent folks were hanging in the room next door.

On Sunday, after thoroughly confusing myself about the Hugo rehearsal time, John and I got into our Darkplace costumes, which even at a UK Worldcon still only got recognized a couple of times, and we headed over to the Armadillo just in time for me to get a last minute rehearsal in for the Hugos. It just involved walking up the stairs and being pointed in the correct direction to exit the stage – I was a bit glad to practice in heels all the same. We wandered Hall 4 where friends said hi to John and looked blankly at me for a full minute because wigs are basically Clark Kent glasses, we stopped at the lounge, confused Lev Grossman, handed out excellent ribbons, and finally showed Bryan and Mette our costumes and admired their The Kingdom ones, which confused even more people as we now appeared to be a large hospital-themed group costume.