Back from Eastercon!
Well I'm back from a (mostly) excellent Olympus 2012 Eastercon! :-)
If the measure of how excellent it was is based on the old "time flies when you're having fun" adage, it would be that on Monday, when I woke up, I thought "bugger me, I've been attending items for two full days and now I've got to pack up all my stuff and check out after breakfast but it feels like I've only just got here!"
There was almost no time at which there wasn't some item I wanted to attend on the programme (meaning I had to miss a couple of items I'd like to have gone to in order to get food!) and later in the evening I got involved in various board games in the games room.
A minor niggle with the gaming was that, late at night, people started playing Werewolf which, I'm sure, for them, was enjoyable, but got rather excessively noisy, I think next Con I might suggest that since eg Royal A+C next door was empty at that time of night, the Werewolf players could use that and be as loud as they like without distracting other who wanted to play games.
I also wasn't too happy that neither the BDSM talk (which I've given at about 5 conventions), nor the Rope Bondage Workshops (both of which have been well attended previously) got onto the programme and, when I asked, I was told they "Didn't make the cut" which sounds like someone decided they simply didn't want them on the programme.
Talking of Programme Items, I'd suggested that Eastercon try what had been done successfully at Illustrious, Eastercon 2011 where they'd had hour long programme items with 90 minute slots meaning that if an item hit an interesting topic just before the end there would be time to let it over-run a bit and, of course, that people would have time to go from one item to another (via the bar if needed) without rushing. Also people who were going to be on a panel could meet in the Green Room beforehand without having to leave an item early.
Unfortunately, instead, they decided to keep the hour long slots and rely on notes on the panel tables saying "please finish at 10 minutes to the hour", something which was, regrettably, either not noticed or blatantly ignored by some Moderators/ speakers.
The result of this was that a) some items over-ran and b) that subsequently delayed the following items, meaning that if the following item *did* end at 10 minutes to the hour, you'd only get perhaps 25 minutes of panel and 15 minutes of questions/ comments from the audience which wasn't as satisfactory.
On a personal note, one good thing was that, after having run the Sound Desk for the Toast and Jam session at a couple of Discworld Cons, when someone on a Panel said "the microphones aren't switched on", I could nip across, shift a few slides and get them working.
At one point it turned out that Entorien Scriber was in the room when someone said that (I hadn't seen her), but I'd got to the sound desk before her! As a result I was "rewarded" (if that's the right word ;-) ) with honorary membership of Tech (complete with badge), consequently getting co-opted into helping set things up for the production of Oliver with a Twist (as I said, I'm not sure if this was actually a reward!)
There were also a couple of problems with the Hotel's food, eg the ReadMe said breakfast was up to 10:30am, but the staff tried to tell me there they were closed for breakfast at 10:20 and also a lack of options for the evening meal, so I ate at The Pheasant pub around the corner which cost no more and had really good food and portion sizes.
The only real down for me was that I was supposed to be giving my talk on Scrabble Tactics on Monday at 2pm, but either because people were eating or it clashed with other items (or because an item that started at 1pm featuring George RR Martin over-ran by 20 minutes!) nobody (and I mean *NOBODY*) turned up for the talk at 2pm except for Watervole who I'd invited to help out if she was free.
After hanging around until ten past two I got fed up and wrote "Scrabble Talk Cancelled Due to the Lack of Any Audience!" on the flip chart and wandered off. I did look back in a bit later and found one person had at least had the good grace to add "Sorry I turned up late", but that's small consolation and probably contributed to my deciding to head off home whilst the Closing Ceremony was on, rather than hanging around to say goodbye to people after, so apolgies to anyone I didn't say goodbye to, it wasn't your fault :-/
But apart from those few things it was, all in all, a most enjoyable Eastercon :-)
PS the reason for the Keep Calm avatar is that I was wearing my Xmas present sweat shirt with that on, something which quite a few people appreciated!
If the measure of how excellent it was is based on the old "time flies when you're having fun" adage, it would be that on Monday, when I woke up, I thought "bugger me, I've been attending items for two full days and now I've got to pack up all my stuff and check out after breakfast but it feels like I've only just got here!"
There was almost no time at which there wasn't some item I wanted to attend on the programme (meaning I had to miss a couple of items I'd like to have gone to in order to get food!) and later in the evening I got involved in various board games in the games room.
A minor niggle with the gaming was that, late at night, people started playing Werewolf which, I'm sure, for them, was enjoyable, but got rather excessively noisy, I think next Con I might suggest that since eg Royal A+C next door was empty at that time of night, the Werewolf players could use that and be as loud as they like without distracting other who wanted to play games.
I also wasn't too happy that neither the BDSM talk (which I've given at about 5 conventions), nor the Rope Bondage Workshops (both of which have been well attended previously) got onto the programme and, when I asked, I was told they "Didn't make the cut" which sounds like someone decided they simply didn't want them on the programme.
Talking of Programme Items, I'd suggested that Eastercon try what had been done successfully at Illustrious, Eastercon 2011 where they'd had hour long programme items with 90 minute slots meaning that if an item hit an interesting topic just before the end there would be time to let it over-run a bit and, of course, that people would have time to go from one item to another (via the bar if needed) without rushing. Also people who were going to be on a panel could meet in the Green Room beforehand without having to leave an item early.
Unfortunately, instead, they decided to keep the hour long slots and rely on notes on the panel tables saying "please finish at 10 minutes to the hour", something which was, regrettably, either not noticed or blatantly ignored by some Moderators/ speakers.
The result of this was that a) some items over-ran and b) that subsequently delayed the following items, meaning that if the following item *did* end at 10 minutes to the hour, you'd only get perhaps 25 minutes of panel and 15 minutes of questions/ comments from the audience which wasn't as satisfactory.
On a personal note, one good thing was that, after having run the Sound Desk for the Toast and Jam session at a couple of Discworld Cons, when someone on a Panel said "the microphones aren't switched on", I could nip across, shift a few slides and get them working.
At one point it turned out that Entorien Scriber was in the room when someone said that (I hadn't seen her), but I'd got to the sound desk before her! As a result I was "rewarded" (if that's the right word ;-) ) with honorary membership of Tech (complete with badge), consequently getting co-opted into helping set things up for the production of Oliver with a Twist (as I said, I'm not sure if this was actually a reward!)
There were also a couple of problems with the Hotel's food, eg the ReadMe said breakfast was up to 10:30am, but the staff tried to tell me there they were closed for breakfast at 10:20 and also a lack of options for the evening meal, so I ate at The Pheasant pub around the corner which cost no more and had really good food and portion sizes.
The only real down for me was that I was supposed to be giving my talk on Scrabble Tactics on Monday at 2pm, but either because people were eating or it clashed with other items (or because an item that started at 1pm featuring George RR Martin over-ran by 20 minutes!) nobody (and I mean *NOBODY*) turned up for the talk at 2pm except for Watervole who I'd invited to help out if she was free.
After hanging around until ten past two I got fed up and wrote "Scrabble Talk Cancelled Due to the Lack of Any Audience!" on the flip chart and wandered off. I did look back in a bit later and found one person had at least had the good grace to add "Sorry I turned up late", but that's small consolation and probably contributed to my deciding to head off home whilst the Closing Ceremony was on, rather than hanging around to say goodbye to people after, so apolgies to anyone I didn't say goodbye to, it wasn't your fault :-/
But apart from those few things it was, all in all, a most enjoyable Eastercon :-)
PS the reason for the Keep Calm avatar is that I was wearing my Xmas present sweat shirt with that on, something which quite a few people appreciated!