if you count dudcon iii, I have been to FIVE CONVENTIONS JUST THIS YEAR

[emilly]

I gotta say, for the most part I had an excellent con. new friends! excellent programming! fulsome compliments from people I admire! A round of applause from the dudcon business meeting! free drink & surprise cake! gorgeous art! a good time, almost every minute.

but oh man! the way my friends were treated! It half destroys the entire convention for me. The ridiculous solution for panelists on wheelchairs. The mess with the Continuum party. In both of these cases, things were sorted out: but in both of these cases, the committee's suggestion was, frankly, hurtful. I know all the convention staff were volunteers - I volunteer on convention committees myself - but it really doesn't matter that you're not getting paid. If you can't even pretend you care about something you're responsible for, what the fuck are you running it for?

I didn't make it to a lot of programming - instead I spent a lot of time setting up the continuum/london parties & working on the fan tables. I met so many great people - that was awesome. I need to start bringing cards to conventions with my contact details!

I also now have a massive list of convention-related things to do. I seem to be working for or helping out with:
-Continuum 7 2011
-Continuum 8, the 2012 natcon
-the London bid for the 2014 worldcon
-underconstruction, an australian metaconvention
-some as yet hypothetical feminist perth con.
eeeeeeee! i'm excited!

hypothetically i will write a real conrep at some point but right now must eat and sleep and pretend to start unpacking.

Comments

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

Trouble is, some of the most influential forces in the A4 committee only care about some things. The masquerade shambles, the party shambles, the lack of dead dog party, etc, make obvious some of the categories of disinterest.

[mireille21.livejournal.com]

Agreed, in so far as, when push comes to shove and time and money runs out, it seems obvious where peoples' area of interest lies. I personally was very disappointed in the lack of childcare. I see it as a must at a con, and whilst it didn't greatly affect me, others, such as Danny and Sharon were really disadvantaged by it. Overall however, I did have a really good time.