Saturday afternoon: went to the Ad Astra program meeting. Was a good start. If everyone on the Ad Astra concom were as clueful as chanilye and Megan, it would be a great convention. I need to send them a report on previous years.

Then marahsk drove me up to janeg's friend Marsha's horse farm in Uxbridge. We filked, petted the horses, rode a little, had birthday cake ( Read more... )

Munich to Vienna: 437 km, 4.24 hours
Vienna to Bratislava: 79 km, 0.87 hours
Bratislava to Budapest: 200 km, 1.95 hours
Budapest to Zagreb: about 300 km, 3 hours
Zagreb to Lubljana: about 120 km, 1.2 hours
Lubljana to Venice: 182 km, 1.8 hours
Venice to Milan: 277 km, 3 hours
Milan to Zurich: 288 km, 3.3 hours
Zurich to Munich: 312 km, 3.44 hours

( Read more... )

late Saturday
The last night of the Seattle party rocked, not that it was technically busier (how could it be?) but people were more relaxed and more open with their wallets (which was saying something). Except for some smofs and smokers, everybody wants to come to Seattle. (Obviously the people who talked to me were a self-selected sample, but even ( Read more... )

Friday
Friday was kind of a blur. Went to the business meeting, covered the Seattle bid table for a couple hours, had lunch, covered the bid table again, caught up with stuff online. Got hungry; Subway was open, so I bought subs for me, Marah, and four more for Bobbie. Seattle party busy again; a few less people, better layout made things easier for ( Read more... )

Tuesday, 7:00 PM
Dinner with a bunch of folks. Mostly the Chicago bid, plus a bunch of others. Lisa, Matthew, Seamas, and Isobeal from Columbus, Grant and Theresa from Portland, Jill and Don from Boston, and I can't remember all the Chicago folks (Dave, Helen, Raymond, Ron, etc.). I had the basil duck with ravioli. Marah reminded me after I ordered ( Read more... )

While I was reading email, GalaxyQuest came on TV, which set a very good mood for getting ready for a convention. Marah and I disagreed about the whole crashing a spaceship into the main function room. I thought it was great from a programming and events perspective. Marah thought that having alien bad guys with ray guns was less good from an ( Read more... )

There has been some chatter about Denvention being the most expensive domestic Worldcon to date, and about how Montreal seems likely to be more expensive still. There is a reason Worldcons are run the way they are. Concoms could make different choices, but they are still constrained by the effects of the real world.

( economics, supply, demand, revenue, and marketing )

I'm working on a list of hotels for consideration for ConComCon 16. I started research by looking for hotels near the Vancouver airport. Then Danielle came up with the helpful point that we should have a hotel near a Skytrain station if we want local conrunners to come. It appears that Skytrain does not run near Richmond ( Read more... )

We had a very good organizational meeting for our new convention on Saturday. Wasn't a huge group, but a number of people have expressed interest since. We had a good discussion about basic issues: governance, mission, budget, and convention planning (hotel, recruitment). The meeting actually went longer than I expected; people had some good ideas ( Read more... )

On the one hand, I've always been in favor of member democracy at conventions. The Worldcon business meeting, while occasionally afflicted with a certain amount of smoffish obscurantism, and as such is much too long, and as such has too low a participation level among the membership, is still a good example of how to permit and encourage member ( Read more... )