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valoiseWhenever the Worldcon is held outside the North American continent a North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFIC) is held somewhere in Canada or the US. Since the Worldcon is being held in China this year, there is a NASFIC, this time in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
I was excited about going to Winnipeg but on the day I was set to leave I woke up sick (some non-COVID bug) and had to cancel the trip. That's okay, I thought. This is going to be a hybrid convention with Zoom panels, they were even selling virtual only memberships. I can at least see some of it.
However, there was no information on how to access the virtual content. Buried in a comment on FB someone gave a list of the 4 meeting rooms that were going to be set up for streaming but this information wasn't on the web page or the twitter feed. Also in a FB comment someone apologized for the glitch in setting up virtual access stating that they were trying to avoid "Zoom bombing". Easy to do: when you don't give anyone the Zoom meeting links no one can attend.
I thought they might post the links in the panel descriptions as each one started. No luck. I thought they might also clarify the situation on the web page or social media. Nope. The first full day of the convention passed a terse apology at the end of the day from someone on concom. Now it is mid-afternoon on the second day, still no zoom access or even instructions on how they planned to run the virtual side of things.
ETA: Just as I was set to post this I got an email with Zoom links. Almost two days gone of a 4-day convention before they got around to sending the email. I suspect the con must be understaffed and overwhelmed.
I was excited about going to Winnipeg but on the day I was set to leave I woke up sick (some non-COVID bug) and had to cancel the trip. That's okay, I thought. This is going to be a hybrid convention with Zoom panels, they were even selling virtual only memberships. I can at least see some of it.
However, there was no information on how to access the virtual content. Buried in a comment on FB someone gave a list of the 4 meeting rooms that were going to be set up for streaming but this information wasn't on the web page or the twitter feed. Also in a FB comment someone apologized for the glitch in setting up virtual access stating that they were trying to avoid "Zoom bombing". Easy to do: when you don't give anyone the Zoom meeting links no one can attend.
I thought they might post the links in the panel descriptions as each one started. No luck. I thought they might also clarify the situation on the web page or social media. Nope. The first full day of the convention passed a terse apology at the end of the day from someone on concom. Now it is mid-afternoon on the second day, still no zoom access or even instructions on how they planned to run the virtual side of things.
ETA: Just as I was set to post this I got an email with Zoom links. Almost two days gone of a 4-day convention before they got around to sending the email. I suspect the con must be understaffed and overwhelmed.
