I had been under the impression that Bristolcon was a newish convention, a decade or so old, but it has been running since 2009. For most of its run it was a one-day event, but last year it succesfully expanded to a second day, making it a much more attractive prospect to travel down to from way up north. So that’s exactly what I did this past weekend.
John was travelling the whole week before, back home on Friday, and therefore understandably had no interest in immediatelly leaving again, especially for an unknown quantity, so for the first time in quite a while I headed off to a brand new convention on my own. I signed up for the art show, expressed interest in panels, and left the rest to fate.
The train from Bristol from Newcastle can be reasonably quick, reasonably priced, and reasonably simple, but it apparently cannot be all three. Or not even two out of three. Easyjet flies the route though, which meant I was able to work a full day, have dinner with John, and get to my hotel by eleven pm.
The convention hotel is the Hitlon Doubletree, but it was out of the cheaper rooms by the time I looked, so I was at the Premiere Suites, basically across the street, which was not bad at all for the price. I didn’t make much use of the kitchen, but I would consider it next year since the area directly around the convention hotel doesn’t have much in the way of quick breakfast or coffee options. Bristol is obviously full of great food, and St. Nicholas Market is very close, but all that good stuff is across the river in the opposite direction of the hotel, great for socializing but not exactly efficient (one exception is the excellent Authentic Hot Pot and Hand Pulled Noodles).
Saturday morning I arrived at the Doubletree, got my badge from reg and then popped into the art show immediatelly next to reg to hang my art. The art show has a really excellent set up, almost more like a craft fair – cloth-covered tables in front of grid mesh display walls. A couple of the artist were sat behind their tables each time I visited.
The convention actually has a pretty good approach to art, they generally have an artist GOH, and I saw at least one panel on art in the programme, but I’d decided not to put much effort after not seeing a lot of info on the website and not getting much communication about the process. It turns out that that was mainly because aside from being allocated a (free) space, there is no process – if you want to sell your art that’s fine, but its up to the artists to handle their sales. Which, now that I’ve been to Bristolcon, makes all the sense in the world. The convention has a very enthusiastic focus on indie publishing, and this feels very much part of that ethos. I scribbled my email address and prices on a scrap of paper and managed to sell two fans, but I look forward to being more prepared next year. It might help other newcomers to slap a page on the website with a short paragraph explaining whats up, though.
The other place communication could be improved was the panel participant process. In August the convention sent out an email asking folks to express interest in a list of panels, the ones with most interest would be in the final programme. You could also mark whether you were interested in being a panelist or moderator for that item. So far so good.
In early October an email was sent to members with a link to the draft programme, I clicked through and skimmed the html document. There was some fun looking stuff I thought, then I bookmarked the link to read on the plane down and didn’t give it a second thought.
A few days later I received an email from the moderator on my Sunday programme item (!?). I went back to the link and tried to search, but the panelist names for each item were behind a link. Unwilling to click on every item one at a time, I had to email the convention to make sure I didn’t have any other panels to plan for. The reply was a bit confused but did include a pdf of the programme, which I was then able to do a name search on and find I was also on a Saturday afternoon panel.
It all worked out, both panels were a lot of fun, but if that moderator email hadn’t arrived I would have been a no-show. Or even worse, I might have been sitting in the audience only to discover I was supposed to be on the panel, truly a “exam day at school and I haven’t studied” nightmare scenario.
The moderator in question was Pete Ellis, we’d already planned to meet in the bar to do a bit of panel prep, but they had a talk at 11am on Saturday which sounded interesting so that was my first item of the convention. We were joined by David Whitmarsh, who I previously knew from Mastodon, and had a lovely chat until Pete had to run off to another panel. I had noticed that Jonathan L. Howard, one of the panelists from my other panel was doing a talk with an interesting title, so I figured why not check that out, and I’m glad I did because it was on a videogame that I had not heard of but which sounds right up my alley.
Atomfall is inspired by the Windscale nuclear accident which I had never heard about, and imagines a Fallout-esque scenario in the North of England – so as you can imagine this is right up my alley.
An hour later I joined Howard, guest of honour J E Hannaford and BE Mears for our panel about Sea Journeys in fantasy. We covered a range of topics and opinions, mainly we all agreed that sea journeys make great fiction, but there was mild disagrement as to whether that was the case in real life (mostly from me, you could’t pay me to go on a cruise),
I popped into town afterwards to grab a bite, take a shower, and have a little wander through Bristol, which I haven’t visitied in years. It meant I missed out on a couple of interesting looking panels, alas. I changed and went back to the hotel with every intention of checking out the karaoke – which seems to be a central event for this convention, but I never actually made it out of the bar. The barcon at this convention is excellent and very welcoming, there was a lot of “come sit with us” and “mind if I sit with you guys” from strangers and I ended up chatting with some folks I already knew a bit, like David Green, and others I had just met but were willing to shared their whiskey. I also had a nice long chat with someone about the convention, what I was enjoying and the couple of issues I’ve already described, only to have him reveal that he was the convention Chair. He took my complaints very well though, hopefully I wasn’t too harsh – cause I stand by them but thought the rest of the convention was top notch.
On Sunday morning I packed up and got over to my second panel. It was at ten am, so no real time for breakfast or to go hunt down cofee, but there were free coffee machines right outside our panel room and I’d gotten some pastries from the Co-op nearby to tide me over. The convention didn’t have a green room, but most of the panelists were there early enough that we had a bit of a chat. The panel was fun and lively, aside from myself and Pete, it was Helen Claire Gould, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Rexx Deane, all writers.
I managed two more panels before closing ceremonies, one on Lost Citues and Legends, and a goofier one called Your Planning Application for a Lair Has Been Declined. Apparently there is a tradition of having a “silly” one to close out the convention, and it was very silly indeed.
Closing ceremonies wrapped things up, and I headed off into the night. But I will definitely be back next year!
