Conventions

The P-Con Preview

~ Cheryl ~ 9 Comments

Because I had to go to Dublin last week I figured that it would be a good idea to check out the site of P-Con, which I will be attending next month. Like any good con-runner, I was worried about how to get there, was there wi-fi, what the local environment was like and so on. Here’s the skinny.

Getting to the Central Hotel from Dublin Airport is pretty simple. The cheapest method is probably the 16a bus, but that stops everywhere and takes an hour. I’d recommend the AirLink bus which is only €10.00 for a return ticket and takes half an hour [Er, no – see below]. It can drop you at the Tourist Information Center (a big old CofI church, re-purposed) and from there it is a very short walk to the Central. Here is a map. A cab takes about the same time but is door to door. I got one on the way in because I was worried about time and it cost me €20.

Update: There has been a bit of discussion in the comments and it turns out that the service I caught was not Airlink but Aircoach. It is €7 single and €12 return, but it goes more precisely to where you need to be (i.e. the Tourist Informaton Office). Profuse apologies for the confusion, and many thanks to Mr. Lally for correcting me.

The hotel is slap in the middle of the city so there are plenty of places to eat nearby, including a restaurant across the road that has a passion for science fiction B-movies judging from their decor. There is a Starbucks not far away, and a small grocery store even closer. There are also pubs. This is Ireland, remember. The main drawback of the location is that there are some nearby clubs that play loud dance music late into the night, so I guess we’ll just have to stay up drinking.

As to the hotel itself, my room was very comfortable. It had tea and coffee making facilities but not a lot else. There is free wi-fi but the signal is quite weak where I was on the 2nd floor (3rd floor for Americans), and I suspect it may be unusable higher up. I did not try the hotel food.

Finally, to give you a feel for the place, I shot a short piece of video. I’m a little horrified at how out of breath I sound, but I had spent all morning rushing around Dublin. Here’s hoping that you find this useful.

Chicago Bid News

~ Cheryl

Those of you who follow Worldcon politics may be interested in this blog post from Tom Veal, which talks about the various facilities choices facing the Chicago in 2012 bid. Finding the right facilities is never easy, and I’m pleased to see Tom talking about the issues openly so that people can get some idea of the complexities involved.

Montreal Booking Follow-Up

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Well, apparently my Worldcon hotel booking is in the system and is correct, it is just that the info I printed off from the web site is confusing. But they have no idea why I can’t access the booking online. Has anyone else tried?

Good to Find Out

~ Cheryl

The Air Canada fare sale that Kevin mentioned last night does not seem to extend to passengers from the UK. Leastways the price they are currently quoting me for Worldcon in August is almost twice what I have paid for the staff meeting trip in April.

However, I did notice that I mis-booked my hotel room. I really should be leaving on the 11th, not the 10th. So I went to the web site to change it, only to discover that they have no record of my booking. I think I shall be phoning Canada later today.

Busy Overnight

~ Cheryl ~ 5 Comments

I’m delighted to see so much activity in comments on the Worldcon post overnight. Hopefully that will continue today. However, there is one thing that I wanted to raise. Many of the people commenting are still stuck in binary thinking, which in this case means the following:

Worldcon must stay exactly as it is. If any changes are made then Worldcon will become exactly like Dragon*Con or ComicCon (and the world will end).

This is silly. Few things life are either/or in that way. For Worldcon to survive it must have its own identity, distinct from that of other major conventions. In marketing speak, it needs a mission statement and it needs to know what its core values are. Hopefully I will have a post up about that today, but I want to run it past Kevin first and he’s asleep right now. In the meantime, please keep talking.

How Publishers See Worldcon

~ Cheryl ~ 76 Comments

My following up of Google Alerts on the Seattle bid collapse led me to an author blog where I found this:

My publisher and publicists urged me to go to ComiCon instead this year–the media exposure is much better there and they have some control that they don’t have at WorldCon. The publishers are treated as vendors at San Diego Comicon so they can bring in writers for signings and push for ads and exposure in the program–they’re giving the con money, after all. WorldCon doesn’t have that structure that allows the publishers to push like that.

Mindful of what happens when Neil complains about something, I’d ask you to bear in mind that Kat Richardson is probably only parroting back what the PR people at her publishers have said. The reason I am posting this is that I would like to hear comments from publishers (especially Random House). Do you really think that you are not treated like vendors at Worldcon? If so, what would you like to see changed? I have a sneaking suspicion that publisher PR people often don’t know what they can do at Worldcon because no one sells them on the convention, but the lack of a vendor membership probably doesn’t help.

By the way, I agree entirely about the media exposure being so much better at ComicCon. I think we can all agree on that.

Talking of Seattle…

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

… which I just was, Deb Geisler has a fabulous post up about the 2/3 year bidding thing. There is an unfortunate tendency amongst parts of fandom to assume that running a Worldcon is easy and that anyone without the slightest experience ought to be able to tell others how to do it. This is nonsense. If you want to know how Worldcon works, listen to people like Deb, or Kevin, who have actually chaired one.

Visa: The Last Word

~ Cheryl

Kevin and I had a long conference call with the immigration lawyer last night, and the upshot of it was that there really is no visa that it is sensible for me to apply for. There are always options, but they would be very expensive and by no means guaranteed to succeed. As we have spent a lot of money already and got nowhere, we are not inclined to pour good money after bad.

This does not mean that I am banned from the US. It just means that I have to be a lot more careful how I come and go. If I can steal a phrase from Douglas Adams, I am going to be spending a year or two dead for immigration purposes. Fortunately Worldcon will be outside the US for the next two years, so finances permitting I will still be able to go, and by 2011 I’m hoping I’ll be allowed to make short trips to the USA again.
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Montreal Programming Update

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

As per comments in my original post, the page that Ed Willett and I blogged about appears to have been made public in error. That’s not to say that all the people I listed won’t be on program. I’m pretty sure that most of them will. On the other hand, there may be people there (including me) who don’t make the cut, and as I said yesterday I’m sure there are people who will be added.

I’ve just been exchanging email with Farah and from what she says I still think that Montreal will be away ahead of the usual pace in getting programming information out. That is a very good thing, because if you are trying to sell a convention it really does help to have a long list of big-name attendees, not just a small list of GoHs, many of whom are being honored for their length of service rather than because they are currently hot property.

Congratulations, Montreal!

~ Cheryl ~ 14 Comments

One of the things that has always driven me crazy about Worldcons is that none of them ever made good use of the huge number of top writers who were going to be on program. It always used to be that a Worldcon web site would promote the Guests of Honor, but to find out who else was attending you had to trawl through the online membership list. Montreal has done something different. There is a preliminary list of program participants online, some 6 months before the convention.

Doubtless there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Not everyone who wants to be on program will be listed. I’m sure more people will be added as time goes on. And doubtless one or two will unfortunately have to drop out. That’s the way of the world. But the annoyance caused by that pales into insignificance compared to the PR value of having all those other names up there.

So sure, they have Neil Gaiman, Élisabeth Vonarburg, Ralph Bakshi, Julie Czerneda, Tom Doherty, David Hartwell and Taral Wayne; but they also have David Brin, Pat Cadigan, Ellen Datlow, Andy Duncan, Hal Duncan, David Louis Edelman, David Gerrold, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Joe Haldeman, Mary Robinette Kowal, Jay Lake, David Levine, Louise Marley, David Marusek, Sean McMullen, L.E. Modesitt, James Morrow, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Robert Sawyer, Robert Silverberg, Charlie Stross, Cecilia Tan, Harry Turtledove, Robert Charles Wilson and doubtless a whole host of others whom I missed on a quick scan through, with more to be added later. And to someone who has never been to a Worldcon before, that’s a whole big pile of “how cool is that!”.

As someone who wants to see more people attend Worldcon (and I acknowledge that there are those who would much rather see it shrink), that makes me very happy indeed.

Oh, and I am apparently on the list.

Welcome to the Fairmont

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

A lot of you will have already seen this because Kevin posted it on his LiveJournal, but I think it bears further publicity. It is a video shot by the folks who run Further Confusion, a major furry fan convention held annually in San José, introducing their members to what will be their new hotel as of next year. The hotel in question, the San José Fairmont, also happens to be the hotel for this year’s World Fantasy Con, and is the proposed site for SFSFC’s 2011 Westercon bid.

It looks like the hotel staff had a lot of fun helping make the video.

P-Con Room Share Wanted

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

I have booked my flight for P-Con. I’m flying RyanAir from Bristol. I’m not looking forward to it, but the flight is only an hour so I think I’ll survive.

What I haven’t done yet is book a room. The con hotel is quite expensive (especially as the price is in Euros), so if there is anyone out there who is also going and would be interested in a room share please let me know.

Travel Update

~ Cheryl

Due to being mired in a bureaucratic swamp, I am not going to be able to make it to the US for ICFA. My lawyer still sounds very hopeful about my getting a visa in the end, but because I am a very square peg who does not fit into any of the nice round holes for which most people get such things, it is going to take time. It would, of course, all be much easier if one could actually make money doing all of the things I go to the US for, but I don’t, so I’m stuck. More news as and when I have it.

But the good news is that this means I shall be in Europe in March and can go to P-Con VI! Dublin! Guinness!

Comments closed on this, because having people venting about such things does not help my cause.

Someone Is On The Ball

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Neil is the subject of a lecture at a university in Ontario next month. The public announcement includes the following:

Mr. Gaiman is being honoured this year at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), an annual meeting on science fiction and fantasy. Worldcon is taking place in Montreal this summer and information on attending the convention will also be available.

Yes! Worldcon marketing done right.

Update: Edited as per Neil’s note below.