Eastercon - Summary

[mbernardi]

So it's been a week since the convention ended, what do I still remember?

The first thing was that it was a very good convention, with a very strong programme, and a good convention hotel. The hotel was well laid out, had a good sized main hall and dealers room, there were at least 3 areas where you could sit and read, drink or chat, there were even three bars with real ale available. The dining area provided reasonable cost meals for both lunch and dinner, and both were available for a wide time slot.

In fact there were only two faults that I can recall. And both faults were worked around.
1) The overflow hotels were rather a long way away, and required the con to provide a free bus service
2) The cost of WiFi in the con was excessive, but it was free at my hotel (the Midland)

The big events were also cool, but mostly different. The silent movies with live music was new, as was the full orchestra (though I personally would have preferred more SFnal music e.g. the Dr Who theme) and the Dave Wake play, was well performed (if not original)

Then there was the science program The George Hay Lecture was an excellent presentation on the RepRap project a very cool idea.
The other one I caught was the Search for Dark Matter (in a salt mine).

I even caught a few media items. The one thing I didn't get to see were any programs with both fan guests, maybe next year.

LX also decided to go the route of a memory book, rather than a program book. I look forward to seeing it.

Comments

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

One problem with an orchestral Dr.Who theme is whether there is an arrangement for 38-piece orchestra available from the orchestral score suppliers. Vince told me the original list of potential pieces was much longer and they discarded those that weren't possible/good with the orchestral size and mix they had picked, and then it was a matter of finding which ones were actually available and at a reasonable price.

You seem to be saying the David Wake play wasn't original ... that's an interesting comment (not one I've heard before) ... would you be ok to elucidate on that?

Memory book: we're talking about this for both Eastercon 2010 and 2011 ... what is your preference on this? What would you like to see in it? What should be left out?

I'd estimate that £10 of your membership rate (mine too) went to orchestra and "free" bus ... and I didn't see the orchestra or need the free bus (as I was in the Cedar Court) ... so I'm glad that my money was appreciated :-)

[mbernardi]

It's the stuff that we don't know about that is so interesting. Why this program item rather than that one; which required a payment by the con and which was volunteers.

I didn't mean that Dave's play wasn't original, just that A Dave Wake play at Eastercon isn't an original idea, unlike the other big events, which seemed to be the first time such occurrences had appeared at an Eastercon as a main event.

What would I like to see in the Memory book? The same kind of stuff as in a program book but written in the past tense. Program books usually are about what is expected to happen, but are read after the fact. A Memory book can actually record what did happen (with photos)

Without the free bus the con wouldn't have worked for those of us in the overflow, it would have survived a missing orchestra ;-)