Leprecon 37 Con Report
Chris and I spent this weekend at Leprecon in Phoenix, where once again, Arizona fandom has proven to be a mixed bag. (I blogged about earlier experiences back in July 2009). Although there were a few shiny, happy moments, Arizona fandom did not perform well when given a chance to redeem itself.
On the upside:
When I contacted the con com with my credentials, I received an invitation to serve as a program participant.
The program chair did two really nifty thing which I had not seen elsewhere. First, she sent out suggestions for successful readings and asked each participant doing a reading to submit a brief description of what the reading would be. I read from my Smartpop essay about the Anita Blake series, and had three people seek out my reading, evidently because of the advance description. Second, she sent out an email to the each panel with a description of the panel and a suggestion to do some advance coordination. That made it easy to do a "reply all" and have a brief discussion. I attribute the fact that two of my panels were the among the best I've been on to that advance coordination.
We scored a John Picacio print we've been wanting at the art show. Yea!
On the downside:
Attendance seemed really light, and overall, the energy at the con was really low. The art show was quite small; one-half of the dealer's room appeared to be self-published authors; and the *vast* majority of program participants were locals (and often fans or authors with credentials that wouldn't have made the cut at most midwestern cons).
The Arizona filk community (with a few notable exceptions), continues to be very insular and unwelcoming. I'm now at six requests to be included in notices of Phoenix house filks, and continue to be excluded from the list. The only exception was the February house filk when janeg was staying with me. It's hard to escape the conclusion that they just don't care to expand their circle (I've heard the same thing from others, so I don't think it's personal). Filk at the con was fairly disappointing (no open filk to speak of on Friday or Sunday, and only three or four active filkers on Saturday). But they apparently had a house filk last weekend, and I was the only "outsider" at the con, so they essentially had already had their quota of filk. It's also hard to escape the fact that a couple of leaders of the local filk community have what I call "cool kids" syndrome - if you are a "star," then you are welcome and they salivate at your feet. If you are not, then you're nothing. I hate that attitude in any context, but it is totally antithetical to the ethos of filk.
I don't want to get into finger pointing, so I'm not going to name names, but I do want to reiterate that there are several notable exceptions, and there are a few Arizona filkers who have been very welcoming. To those folks, a hearty "thank you."
The upshot of the weekend is that while nothing particularly bad happened, both Chris and I left the con with a shrug and a "well, we've got better ways to spend our weekend." From the anecdotes we heard from several people, our experiences are not unique. Pretty much everyone we talked to who moved to Arizona after being active in fandom elsewhere has received the same less-than-enthusiastic reception. Indeed, the most commonly used words to describe the experience are "cliquish," "unwelcoming," and "insular." I guess I'm thankful that it doesn't appear to be anything personal, but good, heavens, this is just a bit ridiculous.
On the upside:
When I contacted the con com with my credentials, I received an invitation to serve as a program participant.
The program chair did two really nifty thing which I had not seen elsewhere. First, she sent out suggestions for successful readings and asked each participant doing a reading to submit a brief description of what the reading would be. I read from my Smartpop essay about the Anita Blake series, and had three people seek out my reading, evidently because of the advance description. Second, she sent out an email to the each panel with a description of the panel and a suggestion to do some advance coordination. That made it easy to do a "reply all" and have a brief discussion. I attribute the fact that two of my panels were the among the best I've been on to that advance coordination.
We scored a John Picacio print we've been wanting at the art show. Yea!
On the downside:
Attendance seemed really light, and overall, the energy at the con was really low. The art show was quite small; one-half of the dealer's room appeared to be self-published authors; and the *vast* majority of program participants were locals (and often fans or authors with credentials that wouldn't have made the cut at most midwestern cons).
The Arizona filk community (with a few notable exceptions), continues to be very insular and unwelcoming. I'm now at six requests to be included in notices of Phoenix house filks, and continue to be excluded from the list. The only exception was the February house filk when janeg was staying with me. It's hard to escape the conclusion that they just don't care to expand their circle (I've heard the same thing from others, so I don't think it's personal). Filk at the con was fairly disappointing (no open filk to speak of on Friday or Sunday, and only three or four active filkers on Saturday). But they apparently had a house filk last weekend, and I was the only "outsider" at the con, so they essentially had already had their quota of filk. It's also hard to escape the fact that a couple of leaders of the local filk community have what I call "cool kids" syndrome - if you are a "star," then you are welcome and they salivate at your feet. If you are not, then you're nothing. I hate that attitude in any context, but it is totally antithetical to the ethos of filk.
I don't want to get into finger pointing, so I'm not going to name names, but I do want to reiterate that there are several notable exceptions, and there are a few Arizona filkers who have been very welcoming. To those folks, a hearty "thank you."
The upshot of the weekend is that while nothing particularly bad happened, both Chris and I left the con with a shrug and a "well, we've got better ways to spend our weekend." From the anecdotes we heard from several people, our experiences are not unique. Pretty much everyone we talked to who moved to Arizona after being active in fandom elsewhere has received the same less-than-enthusiastic reception. Indeed, the most commonly used words to describe the experience are "cliquish," "unwelcoming," and "insular." I guess I'm thankful that it doesn't appear to be anything personal, but good, heavens, this is just a bit ridiculous.