Swancon 2011
Swancon is over again for another year. Many thanks to everyone involved for all their hard work, the many hours, blood, sweat and tears that go into bringing about an event like this for all of us to enjoy.
I really enjoyed my convention. I was fortunate to room with this years fan guest of honour
babalon_93 where I spent five days spending quality time with one of my favourite women, and enjoying brief co-parenthood.
I earned two parenting badges! Namely, putting child back to sleep after waking halfway through the night without parental assistance. Secondly for getting child to take a nap, also without parental assistance. Win!
My weekend was spent much more scattered than I realised it would be. I had some minor bookshop duties, I had a couple of panels, I had a personal mission to See All The People, I spent a considerable amount of time babysitting and otherwise making myself available to Babalon so that she could concentrate on being an awesome guest for everyone.
So my report is probably about as scattered as my experiences, sorry for that. Maybe I'll let go of the idea that I'll have one of those beautifully detailed and ordered reports...
So, in lieu of detailed and beautiful prose I give you, dot points:
* Drinks after most of the programming had finished on Thursday but getting to have awesome drinks with people including accidentally meeting one of the GOH's at the bar.
* A random non-fan and lovely guy who bought me a glass of Moet while I was standing at the bar just because. He was delighted to discover that there was a science fiction convention going on over the weekend, he was there catching up with an old girlfriend he hadn't seen in five years. They were both lovely.
* Started to understand co-parenthood at 6am when toddler woke up Friday morning. Toddler is however, adorable and I was not terribly traumatised.
* Hotel buffet breakfast of overpriced but tasty awesome.
* Fail to order awesome dinner, have awesome soup instead then rush off to do Safe Spaces Panel.
* Safe Spaces Panel was very positive, much smaller attendance and the group itself was safe enough that we could workshop some scenarios with some of the people there.
* Stayed up too late in the bar again Friday night, but more awesome conversations with women over wine telling outrageous stories. So. Much. Fun.
* Saturday morning toddler wake up call was 7am, no tears this time just adorable happy chirrups and chatter and playfulness - no hardship to wake up to.
* Breakfast fail at Big Mug Cafe, I wonder that they stay in business.
* Saw
azhure and hung out with her for a good couple of hours, introduced her to some of the awesome friends who were around at the time. Time spent with this lovely friend was one of my personal big highlights. It was a wish I'd made, that came true.
* Spent the day lugging a big bag of books around so that I could get them all signed. Many thanks to very patient authors and guests who were kind enough to do so.
* Wandered early around the Masquerade then did babysitting but had the wonderful company of I who joined me to drink a bottle of champagne and keep me company. This conversation and opportunity to get to know someone I knew I wanted to be friends with was another personal highlight and a longer-established-in-time wish come true.
* Decided to choose sleep over toddler waking hours and borrowed half of
ascetic_hedony's side of the bed in his room. Blissful, blissful silence and sleep. Actually the weekend was punctuated by quite a lot of quality time with AH, a little unexpectedly but definitely very welcome before I move away as he is extremely dear to me.
* Babysitting where I learned how differently you move when you wear a baby on your front for a few hours. Breakfast fail eventually became lunch success.
* Lots of chats with people and babbling excitedly about the move to Kununurra - I really am very happy and excited about it, but also very nervous.
* Didn't spent nearly the amount of time in the bar on Sunday as I intended for 3 reasons, first was that my future Kununurra housemate was in town and I took the opportunity to meet him for lunch in the hotel cafe. Secondly, the bookshop needed to restock, so I was in the dealer's room for a chunk of time too. Thirdly, I had a panel - the yearly one I do with
tommmo and Tina where we review the previous years films. So much fun, I enjoy the rapport so much.
* Room parties, more champagne, my favourite part of the awards, where I find out if there's to be a Mumfan, shared with
hipikat.
* Spent Sunday night and most of Monday with
hipikat in what was a truly relaxed and wonderful day. I understate this, it was deeply special and important to me.
* Catchups in the bar after the closing ceremony, planning of dinner and Dead Dog Party. Dinner was average but company was great. Party was low key, relaxing and really lovely. Read Irigaray to
hipikat because It sounds so pretty (though is harder to understand that way) and I thought it would be something he'd appreciate a lot.
* 'Home' to my room with Babalon and snuggling with her, appreciating the truly awesome powers of flaily toddler while feeding and waking up in just enough time for con summation chats, packing and breakfast with AH (also we noticed Justina and she joined us for a bit).
* 'Home' to the boys and I unpacked started organising my packing, did grocery shopping, hugged the internets and had dinner with
samvara,
chaosmanor and
maharetr who gave me awesome books! Wonderful to have the company post con, easy to find myself in a down if there's an explosion of social intimacy and then a dearth. Tapering is the key :P
Looking forward to Pancakes in Northbridge tomorrow, my Friday Night Gathering (last one I'll physically be at for a while) and figuring out my Awesomely-Busy-Complicated-Saturday-Night so I can do All The Things.
More by way of con review:
* Guests were brilliant and I loved accidentally meeting and drinking wine with them the first night, and with delight on a couple of other occasions.
* Heard that the 2012 launch was brilliant and I can't wait to go to the convention! I am sad that I didn't manage to order one of the foil-y t-shirts, but time just wasn't on my side. Delighted beyond all reason by the Australian and Fan Guests.
* Dealer's room was rather awesome this year, though power access was a bit of an issue for the central stalls.
* Professional art show looked amazing, shame that the fan art show was so difficult to notice and enjoy.
* Hotel was woefully unprepared for us, and was very hard for anyone with disability considerations to navigate.
* Food was also quite bad from the hotel, despite having been given relevant and useful information by the committee, so they were incredibly understaffed and they lost a lot of potential income by things being so very *closed* or *slow* all weekend. Lack of food around the hotel was as frustrating as anticipated, but events leading up to the con meant that I wasn't organised enough with bringing my own food - just wasn't going to happen.
* Enjoyed the couple of program items I got too, wished I could have gotten to many more.
* Met some brilliant new people and caught up with lots of friends.
* Loved the Rebel Empire performance, can see how much all the hard work is paying off over a few years now and how much improved the characters, acting, performance and martial skills are overall.
* Very pleased by the winner of the Mumfan recipient, didn't quite manage to catch her for more than a brief chat, but did get to mention to her how much her contribution had influenced my own with all the stories and anecdotes about her shared.
* Did not go to Business Meeting. Did not volunteer for anything, but really wanted to at various points. Contenting myself by being awesome at people who are doing stuff and will continue doing the same.
And now, some sorting stuff for packing or scanning of books, then bed. Actually, maybe just bed.
This entry was originally posted at http://transcendancing.dreamwidth.org/812487.html
I really enjoyed my convention. I was fortunate to room with this years fan guest of honour
babalon_93 where I spent five days spending quality time with one of my favourite women, and enjoying brief co-parenthood.
I earned two parenting badges! Namely, putting child back to sleep after waking halfway through the night without parental assistance. Secondly for getting child to take a nap, also without parental assistance. Win!
My weekend was spent much more scattered than I realised it would be. I had some minor bookshop duties, I had a couple of panels, I had a personal mission to See All The People, I spent a considerable amount of time babysitting and otherwise making myself available to Babalon so that she could concentrate on being an awesome guest for everyone.
So my report is probably about as scattered as my experiences, sorry for that. Maybe I'll let go of the idea that I'll have one of those beautifully detailed and ordered reports...
So, in lieu of detailed and beautiful prose I give you, dot points:
* Drinks after most of the programming had finished on Thursday but getting to have awesome drinks with people including accidentally meeting one of the GOH's at the bar.
* A random non-fan and lovely guy who bought me a glass of Moet while I was standing at the bar just because. He was delighted to discover that there was a science fiction convention going on over the weekend, he was there catching up with an old girlfriend he hadn't seen in five years. They were both lovely.
* Started to understand co-parenthood at 6am when toddler woke up Friday morning. Toddler is however, adorable and I was not terribly traumatised.
* Hotel buffet breakfast of overpriced but tasty awesome.
* Fail to order awesome dinner, have awesome soup instead then rush off to do Safe Spaces Panel.
* Safe Spaces Panel was very positive, much smaller attendance and the group itself was safe enough that we could workshop some scenarios with some of the people there.
* Stayed up too late in the bar again Friday night, but more awesome conversations with women over wine telling outrageous stories. So. Much. Fun.
* Saturday morning toddler wake up call was 7am, no tears this time just adorable happy chirrups and chatter and playfulness - no hardship to wake up to.
* Breakfast fail at Big Mug Cafe, I wonder that they stay in business.
* Saw
azhure and hung out with her for a good couple of hours, introduced her to some of the awesome friends who were around at the time. Time spent with this lovely friend was one of my personal big highlights. It was a wish I'd made, that came true.
* Spent the day lugging a big bag of books around so that I could get them all signed. Many thanks to very patient authors and guests who were kind enough to do so.
* Wandered early around the Masquerade then did babysitting but had the wonderful company of I who joined me to drink a bottle of champagne and keep me company. This conversation and opportunity to get to know someone I knew I wanted to be friends with was another personal highlight and a longer-established-in-time wish come true.
* Decided to choose sleep over toddler waking hours and borrowed half of
ascetic_hedony's side of the bed in his room. Blissful, blissful silence and sleep. Actually the weekend was punctuated by quite a lot of quality time with AH, a little unexpectedly but definitely very welcome before I move away as he is extremely dear to me.
* Babysitting where I learned how differently you move when you wear a baby on your front for a few hours. Breakfast fail eventually became lunch success.
* Lots of chats with people and babbling excitedly about the move to Kununurra - I really am very happy and excited about it, but also very nervous.
* Didn't spent nearly the amount of time in the bar on Sunday as I intended for 3 reasons, first was that my future Kununurra housemate was in town and I took the opportunity to meet him for lunch in the hotel cafe. Secondly, the bookshop needed to restock, so I was in the dealer's room for a chunk of time too. Thirdly, I had a panel - the yearly one I do with
tommmo and Tina where we review the previous years films. So much fun, I enjoy the rapport so much.
* Room parties, more champagne, my favourite part of the awards, where I find out if there's to be a Mumfan, shared with
hipikat.
* Spent Sunday night and most of Monday with
hipikat in what was a truly relaxed and wonderful day. I understate this, it was deeply special and important to me.
* Catchups in the bar after the closing ceremony, planning of dinner and Dead Dog Party. Dinner was average but company was great. Party was low key, relaxing and really lovely. Read Irigaray to
hipikat because It sounds so pretty (though is harder to understand that way) and I thought it would be something he'd appreciate a lot.
* 'Home' to my room with Babalon and snuggling with her, appreciating the truly awesome powers of flaily toddler while feeding and waking up in just enough time for con summation chats, packing and breakfast with AH (also we noticed Justina and she joined us for a bit).
* 'Home' to the boys and I unpacked started organising my packing, did grocery shopping, hugged the internets and had dinner with
samvara,
chaosmanor and
maharetr who gave me awesome books! Wonderful to have the company post con, easy to find myself in a down if there's an explosion of social intimacy and then a dearth. Tapering is the key :P
Looking forward to Pancakes in Northbridge tomorrow, my Friday Night Gathering (last one I'll physically be at for a while) and figuring out my Awesomely-Busy-Complicated-Saturday-Night so I can do All The Things.
More by way of con review:
* Guests were brilliant and I loved accidentally meeting and drinking wine with them the first night, and with delight on a couple of other occasions.
* Heard that the 2012 launch was brilliant and I can't wait to go to the convention! I am sad that I didn't manage to order one of the foil-y t-shirts, but time just wasn't on my side. Delighted beyond all reason by the Australian and Fan Guests.
* Dealer's room was rather awesome this year, though power access was a bit of an issue for the central stalls.
* Professional art show looked amazing, shame that the fan art show was so difficult to notice and enjoy.
* Hotel was woefully unprepared for us, and was very hard for anyone with disability considerations to navigate.
* Food was also quite bad from the hotel, despite having been given relevant and useful information by the committee, so they were incredibly understaffed and they lost a lot of potential income by things being so very *closed* or *slow* all weekend. Lack of food around the hotel was as frustrating as anticipated, but events leading up to the con meant that I wasn't organised enough with bringing my own food - just wasn't going to happen.
* Enjoyed the couple of program items I got too, wished I could have gotten to many more.
* Met some brilliant new people and caught up with lots of friends.
* Loved the Rebel Empire performance, can see how much all the hard work is paying off over a few years now and how much improved the characters, acting, performance and martial skills are overall.
* Very pleased by the winner of the Mumfan recipient, didn't quite manage to catch her for more than a brief chat, but did get to mention to her how much her contribution had influenced my own with all the stories and anecdotes about her shared.
* Did not go to Business Meeting. Did not volunteer for anything, but really wanted to at various points. Contenting myself by being awesome at people who are doing stuff and will continue doing the same.
And now, some sorting stuff for packing or scanning of books, then bed. Actually, maybe just bed.
This entry was originally posted at http://transcendancing.dreamwidth.org/812487.html