Thoughts on World Fantasy Con

[jimhines]

I’ve been hearing a fair amount of frustration with this year’s World Fantasy Convention over various issues.

WFC was the first “world-level” convention I attended, more than a decade ago now. It was intimidating and overwhelming, but also fun and rewarding. Sadly, I won’t be at WFC in Brighton this month. Which could raise the question, “Why am I

Comments

[suricattus]

Yep, I was asked to be the moderator on the "Broads with Swords" panel. I accepted because the best way to haul that sucker around to a more useful discussion is to be the one directing the discussion.

But there was a lot of internal wincing and WTFing before I agreed. There seems to be a lot of poking-the-bear in the panel descriptions, this year. It reflects badly on the programming people, not the participants.

The charge for the kaffeklatches... yeah. There was and is a LOT of unhappiness among writers on that. It's just Not Done, and made many of us go "er, no, thank you." We are hoping this was a quirk of this particular WFC, and will not be carried over to anywhere else.

Probably the best way to think about WFC overall is as less of a convention and more of a conference - a single track of focused topics, and a lot of time spent in the bar networking with peers. Thats why I like it, as a change from the more convention-y conventions.

(one of the quirks of WFC is that only the GoHs have ribbons on their badges. Everyone else - reader, writer, publisher, fan - is on the same level)

(this is written while consuming my first cup of coffee. Please excuse any potential incoherence)

[mme_hardy]

It's worth mentioning that the Brighton Metropole has its own accessibility handout --a very nice one, too, mentioning things like a hoist available in the pool)-- and the handout explicitly states that all meeting areas are accessible. I infer that the concom didn't think of asking about accessibility in advance, or they'd have had a copy.

*That* panel.

[ext_2202850]

I'm on this, after coming to a similar conclusion. I'd be interested in some discussion of potential topics beforehand if that sounds like a good idea?