WorldCon comes to London in 2014

[Liz W]

2 days to go!!!!!

Really excited now

Hugs

Liz

[Geoffrey(aka Jasper)]

I just made a one day, Saturday, visit to Loncon3. It was great.

Okay, I did have problems in the shape of a combination late night and early morning, and a car which developed a mind of its own which rather impacted on my personal enjoyment, but with the con itself there were no problems e.g. registration was pretty darn smooth.

No problems? Well, I heard second hand that some rooms where too small for the panel i.e. fans having to be turned away, while other panels had half-a-dozen attendees in a huge room, but that's only criticism I came across.

I only made it to one panel which was about cover art on YA fiction, which was surprisingly interesting. At the very least I now know that the expression "Philosopher's Stone" translates into Danish as "The Stone of the Wise."

Otherwise I had a pleasant time bumbling around the dealers room (a lot of nice stuff) and the art show (a lot of very nice stuff) and the fan space (which was nice.) And saying hello to people I knew, both from Armadacon and other places as well. Sorry to those I didn't get to meet up with, especially Ros and David.

Anyway I'm glad I went, and I hope that everyone else who is still there is thoroughly enjoying themselves.

[David A Harvey]

Down and safe, and back from LonCon3. Gosh it was a lot of fun, as Jasper said it wasn't without its problems*, but it was the festival of, by fans and for fans, science fiction that I'd hoped for.
It was lovely to see so many friends there, sorry to have missed you Jasper but pleased you enjoyed what you did get to see.

Anyone else seriously considering Dublin in 2019? <bounce bounce>

...........................

*It was a very ambitious programme with a huge number of items running in parallel most of the day and the heartiest of respect to those who dived in and worked their socks off setting it up.
I found the mixture of 50 (morning and evening) and 80 minute (noon to 6pm) slots for panels worked quite well and there were far fewer than usual times when the discussion was just getting interesting when the bell went.
It also meant that when you missed out an afternoon panel to have lunch there was plenty of time to eat and socialise but not quite enough time to get around the dealers room before the next one.

On the minus side I was disappointed by the number of panels that were scheduled in rooms that were too small for the number of people who wished to attend them**. I've encountered this occasionally at big cons (and is usually solved by moving the panel into a bigger room but with so many items there was probably nowhere to go) but at Loncon3 I had to fall back to my 2nd, 3rd or even 4th choice more times than in the whole of my previous con-going career Still I always got into something and some of those 3rd choices turned out to be fun so it wasn't a problem with too many people total. I would have been happier with a more limited choice of panels (often there were two items in the same interest stream running concurrently) but in bigger rooms where getting my first choice felt more like the rule rather than the exception.

** {JT Edson mode on} The worst example I heard about was a military sf panel featuring the one appearance of Hugo Award winning author Joe Haldeman scheduled in a room with a capacity of 60 (London suite 2***). A friend who didn't get in reported that the queue went all the way out of the conference suite and backed up into the adjacent display hall. I say heard about because just that once I was luckily already in that room attending the previous item; a costuming panel.

***http://www.excel-london.co.uk/media/106 ... ersion.pdf

[Rotobunny]

Hi all,

Alan and I had a great time at worldcon and felt of the three we have attended that this was the best, although we are beginning to feel our age a bit and found the early morning/late nights got to us a bit by the end. Sorry to anyone we missed, but it was brilliant to see those we did see. We didn't do as well in the art show as we would have liked, I don't think anyone did, but I did sell one picture so we covered the cost of the stand we had (although not the cost of travel and printing out Alan's pictures). It was certainly well worth doing, even if few people came to talk to us at the "Artist meet and greet" sessions. I must admit I felt like putting on a big badge that said "Yes, I'm an artist. No, I don't bite. Please talk to me". We did get to talk to other artists though, including some of the big names, and all were most encouraging. Fred Gambino especially needs a mention as he gave up an hour of his time to talk to Alan and myself and to take Alan through his workflow, they both use the same software to help create their images. We also appreciated the friendlyness of Chris Achilleos who shared the same bay as us in the art show. When we discovered we were going to be next to him we nearly packed up our pictures and put them back in the car, we didn't feel worthy! But he was very welcoming and very modest about his abilities and made us feel we were good enough. To those who came to "heckle" us at midday on Friday and Saturday in the art show, many thanks, we appreciated the humour and the chat, (see my comment about a big badge above). To those who didn't, we understand, really we do. There was so much going on that it was difficult to fit in all we wanted to do so we know why you didn't come to see us, it would have been good to have clones at times. We both feel LonconIII will be a difficult one to beat. We have decided we need to put work into more art shows to get ourselves known so you may see us at more conventions in the future. We are hoping that Dublin wins it's bid for 2019, it would be a good one to go to and a good excuse for Alan to go back to his roots (he was born close to Dublin).

Looking forward to seeing you all in November. Don't forget, we will be filming the fan movie so may be absent for part of the time, but we will be there.

[Liz W]

Hi all

Well for my first WorldCon (and my first ever big convention) I have to say I enjoyed myself very very much

I didn't get into the 2 George RR Martin panels (the 3rd was cancelled by his agent); but that was my choice after looking a the size of the queues
But I did get my book signed (after spending 2 1/2 hours in the queue!) so I was happy

The future of con running panel was a bit dissapointing, as I was hoping to get some ideas to help bring more people to ArmadaCon. However just about everything that was talked about wasn't relevant to us; as we are too small

Other than that one, I enjoyed every other panel I attended *yay*

My highlight has got to have been the Philharmonic; wow!

Captain Tartan was briliant; as I expected it would be
Having a front row seat (as I was operating David W's camera for him) was a bit special
Extra kudos to David and Ros who were superb

Well I have to go, as it's time for work; I'll continue this later

[lordashram]

Well I survived WorldCon

Yes I did see a lot of the Armadacon crew as I ran around as an Ops Staff (Gopher) in my blue high vis top and wide brimmed brown hat.

Hardest part was looking after the George RR Martin signing line which got so long it was outside the excel center.

Captain Tartan was briliant; as I expected it would be I was in the 3rd row with some of the Armadacon gang.

Looking forward to being the Armadacon gopher again.

See you all there