Eastercon 2010

[mirrorshard]

mirabehn and I will be at Odyssey 2010, staying in the convention hotel. I'm presenting a talk at 5pm on Sunday, on "Information Decay and Archiving", looking at (among other things) the ways information tries to escape, and the tradeoffs involved. It's clashing with a couple of things I would have wanted to go to, but that's always the way...

The draft programme is up here, thanks to watervole.

Who else will we see there?

[Poll #1533724]

Comments

[ali-in-london.livejournal.com]

[x] laugh hysterically at the mere suggestion that I might have enough free time to go. Also probably on call over Easter weekend.

[makyo.livejournal.com]

I'm involved in three programme items this year. I'm giving a talk on non-Euclidean geometry (subtitled "The angles of the place were all wrong") which (I hope) should be suitable for interested non-mathematicians. I'm also giving a talk on the history of academic robes, which is obviously a bit of a niche topic, and I've got no idea whatsoever how many people are likely to turn up (might be five, might be fifty).

And I'm moderating a panel discussion on organising one's book collection, in which I'll be the least qualified person on the panel, academically (the other two participants are both Professors, whereas I'm merely a Dr) as well as bibliophilically (one of them has at least three times as many books as I do, and the other one probably even more than that). But it should all be fun, I think.

[angelislington.livejournal.com]

I doubt I'll be able to attend the entire con, but your non-euclidian geometry and organizing book collections panels are ones I would attend if I could :D

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

argh - LJ just lost my comment.
1) that talk sounds fascinating, could you send me a synopsis?
2) did you see my reply about Golden Type?
3) googled Odyssey and took ages to figure out that 'membership' is complusory for all attendees, and that the main hotel is booked up. But the sciencey strand looks really interesting so I may go some year. Although the deatils about tickets for teddies and beeblebears and other tweeness give me the fear...

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

1. My raw notes for it so far are here (http://www.eithin.com/wiki/index.php?title=Trithemy) - as always, most of that will go in and so will a lot of other things. I'm currently wrestling with OO.org Impress and trying to remember how to design slides sensibly. I swear I used to know how to do this.

2. Whoops, sorry - I thought I'd replied to that one, but obviously didn't. I shall do that now.

3. Membership & hotel-staying aren't associated - you can always get a day membership and visit. Many of the teddies/beeblebears/etc. are in fact tigers, ravens, or Elder Gods - it's less twee than strange, though I may just be mentally editing out the worse ones.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

As mirrorshard says, you don't have to stay in the con hotel, and you can buy a membership for just one day if you wish.

Membership has to be compulsory - although the con is run entirely by unpaid volunteers, we have to cover the non-trivial cost of running it. The curse of the conrunner - if you make a profit, it either goes to charity or the next convention. If you make a loss it comes out of your own pocket. (No laughing matter. I personally know three committees that made losses of varying amounts.)

Next year's Eastercon will probably be in Birmingham.

Cons

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Oh,I'm not disputing charging - I was mainly checking because for my sins I'm the treasurer and the one who sets the rates for BiCon 2010 which this year includes International BiCon and BiReCon... and every year someone at BiCon goes "Why does BiCon cost X when other cons like Eastercon only cost Y..."

It was the concept of 'membership' as opposed to 'registration' that confused me - BiCon has registration rates, ie cost to attend, either for the whole thing or day rates, plus cost of accommodation. And opportunities to donate, but the idea of being a 'member' or having members that don't attend, isn't something BiCon has ever done.

BiCon surpluses get passed onto the next committee, although in recent years there's been enough donate to relevant causes too. But similarly, if there's a loss greater than the surplus you got, it comes out of the organisers' pockets, as like you we're a totally unicorporated society. Moves to get on a better legal footing are proceeding, albeit glacially.

So far the largest BiCon has had around 300 attendees, which is an inconvenient size for venues, and for the last 15 years has been in uni student accommodation, ie single rooms which solves the roomshare problem but isn't popular with people who want to share or divide room costs. But does enable in-flat socialising and more self-catering than the average hotel...

Can't please them all! [prints out phrase to put on wall and look at regularly until August...]

Re: Cons

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Ah, you have my sympathy. I've been a con treasurer and it's not an easy job.

Membership and registration mean pretty much the same thing. People pay in advance (to give the treasurer an idea of how much money there is to spend) but this always means that there will be some that buy and membership and then can't come. Some of these will sell their membership to someone else, some will ask for a refund (some conventions give refunds, some don't) and some choose to let the convention keep the money.

Have Bicon looked at the Britannia hotel in Coventry? It's a bit of a dump in some ways, but it's city centre, takes 300 people almost exactly and because it's not flashy, you can get very good rates. The last Redemption convention used it (because their membership is around 300) and they're going back there next year. The great thing about having around 300 people is that you can block book the entire hotel as long as you know you're going to fill it. That would solve your room share problem and give you a good range of function rooms for free. (they'll do a deal on free function space if you sell all the bedrooms. Or a very low rate, I forget which , but I think it was free) I can put you in touch with some of the Redemption people if you want to pick their brains.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

A Steampunk ceilidh probably should have a clockwork automaton as the caller. ;)

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

It would at least be good at keeping time ;)

[angoel.livejournal.com]

I'll be turning up and talking knowledgeably about 'The History of Board Games', and considerably less knowledgeably about 'London as an SF/F Setting for Books, Comics and TV'.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

The London panel is very definitely on my list.

[keira-online.livejournal.com]

It looks great fun, but I can't find any details about buying tickets for a day or how/if one needs to sign up for particular things.
Could you point me in the right direction? Not knowing the costs invovled (or even if tickets are still available) makes it difficult to make any decisions.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

Sorry - the website is here (http://www.odyssey2010.org/), and the membership prices (it's a weird terminology thing - many con-type fans get sniffy if you say "ticket") are under "join". Memberships, unlike hotel rooms, are in infinite supply. Once you have your membership, all the programme items are open, except a few things (I think only the kaffeeklatsches) which have to be signed up for in advance since they're in high demand with very few slots.

Short version: £20-25 for a day, exclusive of food-travel-etc.

I also commented on Elly's page, as I saw it first *G*

[angelislington.livejournal.com]

Do you think if I offered to volunteer for the entire con I could get in for free? ;-)

I can't believe how many panels I want to attend, booooooo. And naturally the proposed blogger meetup day is the one with the least interesting (in general) to me events. :/ Friday and monday sound fantastic, with panels on Verne and Homer and singing and all kinds of fun things! I can't believe there's also a poly meetup scheduled, this is a surprisingly progressive con... *chuckles*

I really want to attend the Steampunk panel that discusses whether it's a literary or a fashion aesthetic, I think I would have rather a lot to say on the subject. *grins* And all the Arthur/Homer/Mythic ones. And a bunch of other stuff. LE SIGH. ;-)

Re: I also commented on Elly's page, as I saw it first *G*

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

IIRC, the only people who get free memberships for any reason are the GOHs ;)

That's the mark of a good con: more things scheduled than you have time to attend! Have people been discussing a time/place for blogger meeting-up?

Re: I also commented on Elly's page, as I saw it first *G*

[angelislington.livejournal.com]

I've never been an Eastercon so I had no idea what to expect in terms of programming, and to be honest the website wasn't exactly leaving me intrigued. But the panel list is fantastic! It seems a lot more like a small fan run convention, instead of the biggest one in the UK (right?).

I haven't been on Twitter in a week (am I really that unnoticable ;-) as I'm trying to cut down on my typing to try and lessen the pain in my hands, and once I actually look at it I'll want to stay and talk to people for 24 hours straight. So I don't know if anything's been decided yet. I hope not, I'd like to try and convince people to go on friday instead....*grins*

Re: I also commented on Elly's page, as I saw it first *G*

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

There's nearly 1100 members on the list at the moment, and I'd expect to end up with 1250-1300 in the end. It's certainly fan run - the fannishness of the organizers has been thoroughly verified ;) And yes, it's the biggest in the UK AFAIK.

Re: pain in the hands - if you haven't already, fix your ergonomics! I did that (getting proper wrist support) at Cranfield, and it made a huge difference to me.

Re: I also commented on Elly's page, as I saw it first *G*

[crazyscot.livejournal.com]

Volunteers have to be members. They are usually "paid" in the form of groats which can be used for food/drink in the hotel and sometimes in the dealers room. Mostly, we help out because we enjoy doing so :-)

Re: I also commented on Elly's page, as I saw it first *G*

[angelislington.livejournal.com]

I know, I was being facetious :-P

I've been to many conventions before, and know how they work.

[owlfish]

I'm not expecting anyone in particular need stay around for the panel I'm on as it's on Monday evening.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

We will quite possibly be still around then, having only a few miles to go from the hotel, and the subject looks rather interesting.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

My panel items as far as I'm aware:

"Gender in Space Opera"

"Disability and Villains"

"Clanger Symposium - Study of a Knitted Alien Race"

"What makes a Feminist Heroine?"

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

"What makes a Feminist Heroine?" is programmed against the talk I'm giving, which I'm really disappointed about. If I can make "Disability and Villains" I certainly want to.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

It would be good to see you there. Sorry I'll be missing your talk, though.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

Aha, it turns out that I do get to see "What makes a Feminist Heroine?" after all. For values of "see" which, er, equal "being on".

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Shall look forward to seeing you there, in that case.