Loncon 3 seemed to do quite well with its Code of Conduct; it was available on the website and reprinted in the front of the convention pocket guide. As far as I'm aware, there were only a handful of incidents reported to the convention staff that required it to be applied ( Read more... )

It sounds as if Jack O'Con (last weekend in Albuquerque) is going to be a star addition to the list of Great Conrunning Disasters:

Jack O’Con - The Comic Convention That Suddenly Wasn’t (Bleeding Cool News)

One Artist Attending Jack O’Con Tells Their Story (Bleeding Cool News)

An attending dealer tells his story

I suspect that there's a lot more to ( Read more... )

"You are offering a room full of vintage first-edition hardbacks to a group of people who read books on their phones."

Madeline Ashby: 'Memento mori. (Or, how Worldcon’s youth problem will resolve.)'

If I had more time this would be a long post ranging over:

• how the people I see at conventions in my mid-40s are in large part those I went to cons with ( Read more... )

...and I'm not even on the committeeI have an extremely small role within the events team, and I'm invoking the Get Out Of Worldcon-Running Free card that I earned from being on this year's Eastercon committee to keep it that way. So why am I having dreams where I'm attending weekend-long Loncon committee meetings starring all the usual suspects ( Read more... )

I'll be doing a detailed post on EightSquaredCon's blog soon regarding panel parity, but the gender breakdown of our 73 panels looks like this:


( Read more... )

I was initially a bit sceptical when I heard about Nine Worlds (very ambitious plans from a group seemingly without major con-running experience) but saw that the organisers were getting a lot of writers and fans I knew on board and was impressed by some of the ideas they seem to have. So I've joined, as has S, and we look forward to seeing how a ( Read more... )

darth_hamster is perusing the draft Eastercon programme:

"Angry Robots Singing? What on earth is that about?"

(I peer more closely)

"That will be Angry Robot Signing dear..."

In all fairness, it was in a fairly small font!

If I'd attended every single Picocon since arriving at Imperial College as a fresher then yesterday would have been my 24th. I haven't - I know I've had to miss some - but I'd guess I've been to about 20 since my first, Picocon 5, back in 19861987 (oops). Some things have changed a lot in that time, such as the main student bar in Beit Quad (now on ( Read more... )

If you read nwhyte's journal (and is there anyone left who doesn't?) you'll be aware from this post that Irish fan slovobooks has been banned at short notice from attending Octocon this weekend, seemingly on the basis of unspecified conduct or comments relating to his criticism of the current committee.

Can they do this? More importantly, should they?

( The legal position... )

My programme schedule for Constitution in Cambridge this weekend is as follows:

Friday, 7pm: War in SF and fantasy
War is all too often a backdrop in fiction, a quick and easy way of shaking up your characters and getting the plot going. How do you escape the cliches and address conflict realistically and sensitively? {Steph Swainston, David ( Read more... )