It's me, not you: Redemption Con report
So I went to another Sci-Fi con at the weekend called Redemption. These cons generally open booking 2 years in advanced, so booking it with only a couple of weeks to spare is really short notice. And having never been to this particular one before and not really having any idea about the Guests of Honour, I had no idea what to expect.
The trip up was pretty plain sailing. Randomly, I bumped into eggwhite at Euston who happened to also be planning on catching the same train I was, although getting off a few stops before me. Managed to do a bit of Ingress on the way and didn't get lost wandering the streets of Coventry either. The hotel wasn't amazing - a bit shabby, with lifts that seemed to ignore whatever we wanted them to do and come and go as they pleased. Might make a good IoD venue though in terms of convention space as they have a private bar next to the main room.
I went to a variety of panels and talks, most of which were good. A few seemed to suffer a bit from having their topic being a forgone conclusion so the panelists waffled on, but what they said was still interesting. Hard to say if they just picked a flawed topic or could have picked people with more differing opinions. There was only one that I wished I had my time back.
Only made it to see one of the Guest of Honour's - Virginia Wey. I caught two of her sessions and was an absolute hoot and I'm sure if given the chance would have kept on talking until well into next week. Mostly she talked about her career, like how the sprung the need for her to have her head shaved for her role in Farscape (she was the blue one) at the very last minute. But she also talked a lot about spanking and other kinky stuff - which she isn't in to, but recognised that a lot of people there were and was clearly playing up to that.
Had fun at the disco, got taught the "appropriate" moves for some song from the Blues Brothers that I should know the name of, but I'm drawing a blank on at the moment. Mostly though I sucked at socialising and never at any point felt like I fitted in. Which I'm annoyed at myself for - I must try harder! But I feel there is a skill/ability/whatever of going up to a circle of strangers and joining in that I seem to have lost. Or maybe I project some kind of scary-go-away aura that makes people shun me?
Either way I think I shall return in 2 years time to the next one, time, cash and guests of honour permitting. And I'm going to try and get to more other conventions too.