valoise

Memories of my first convention

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 11:20:35 GMT

Earlier this month I realised that it was exactly 20 years since my first convention: Highlander Worldwide 7 in Leeds. It was also my first international trip. I found a welcoming community of friends there and many, many fond memories.

This also reminded me of the film crew that came to make a documentary of the event, directed by David Abramowitz. Driven by a desire to rewatch that (where I'm one of the fans interviewed) I looked through my dusty old collection of DVDs. It had been bonus material on something. A lot of detective work followed and I figured out that it had been part of the 2007 Highlander Best of the Best box set. A box set that I had long ago given to someone. Thanks to eBay I now finally found it and uploaded it to Youtube. After posting on Facebook (the only place I connect to some of my old HL friends) I got a thanks from David A. for posting it.

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Missing Gallifrey One

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 12:22:28 GMT

I've never been to the really huge for-profit conventions. My first exposure to cons was with Highlander Worldwide (HLWW) in 2006 in Leeds. A wonderful fanclub run event. I made so many friends there and this led me to the even smaller events run by the the Peter Wingfield Fan Club (PWFC). Until the start of the pandemic these groups and the friends I met there formed the core of my fandom family, even as the events themselves become less frequent.

From these groups I dipped my toe into a number of regional and larger cons. Worldcons, Vividcon, and Gallifrey One ended up being the ones I attended the most. Vividcon died in 2018 and I miss it a lot. Now that I live on the east coast I've found a couple of cons that I like (Long Island Who and Balticon) but haven't made the kinds of friendships that smaller events like HLWW, PWFC and Vividcon made possible.

This year because of really crappy weather and the likelihood of canceled flights making travel a real shitshow, I canceled on my current fav last weekend, Gallifrey One. The same crew of fans have been running Gally since 1991 and at the closing ceremonies it was announced that 2028 was going to be the last one. All things come to an end, but I'm more determined than ever to make the next three Gallys.

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Fannish 50 #27: Long Island Who convention

Thu, 24 Aug 2023 18:16:13 GMT

Every year I travel to LA for Gallifrey One, a fantastic fan-run Doctor Who convention, but now that I live in Connecticut I wanted to try the Long Island Who convention. There are several ways to get to the convention site, but I decided to drive to Bridgeport, take the ferry across the sound to Port Jefferson, NY with a short drive to the hotel. Most relaxing way to travel, I haven't taken a car ferry since I lived in Seattle over 20 years ago. Definitely recommend it.

As for the convention itself, it was more fun than I'd anticipated. At a new convention, where I don't know the venue or have any friends there, I usually have some social anxiety but it wasn't too bad this time. In the 5 minutes it took to walk in the hotel, check in, get my room key and find the elevator I'd already passed Katy Manning and Paul McGann. As a small convention (I think around 500 people) the guest list was small and so were the meeting rooms. Katy Manning and Frazer Hines were charming, frequent guests at US DW cons but their panels didn't feel stale & they were seemed really happy to be there. Paul McGann and Sacha Dhawan were the highlights, though. At one point Paul took a deep dive into his love of silent film, a passion I share.

There were some great fan-run panels on British TV in 2023, collecting screen used props, and several other topics. I think the main downside was the size of the convention space, which seemed cramped. If they could negotiate the use of at least one other meeting room it would help things flow a bit better. I may add this to my list of annual conventions, but as it's an August con, there may be conflicts with my long-standing attendance at WorldCons.

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Fannish 50 #23: Pemmi-Con, or how not to run a virtual convention

Fri, 21 Jul 2023 18:19:20 GMT

Whenever 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.

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VidUKon

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 10:03:49 GMT

Although I'll probably always be sporadic in posting to DW, I'd like to start posting con reports again. Last weekend I had a virtual membership to the wonderful vidukon_cardiff and surprisingly found the package of convention swag in my mail a couple of days ago. That was really fast UK to US mail service. I watched the Vidding Narrative panel, which was great and some of the Vidder's Choice vidshow on Friday and both were great. For the rest of the weekend I only managed the 2012 Retrospective and Visual Feast vidshows due to some plans to spend time with family, but the swag contained a thumb drive with premieres vids and I plan to watch them as time permits. I had a vid from Tampopo that I made for the 2020 vexercises in the Visual Feast show.

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At long last - Highlander WorldWide is holding another convention

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 20:56:26 GMT

HLWW is the reason I started going to cons, I made lifelong friends at these conventions. I was driven to learn to vid because of these conventions. I toured Highlander filming locations in Vancouver with HLWW. And the last con (back in 2009) I did a panel on the history of Highlander vids, I got to interview producer Ken Gord for a HL fanzine, made or selected vids to open each of the actor panels, and basically had the time of my life.

Am I excited? Hell, yeah!

www.highlanderworldwide.com/2017/02/15/the-gathering-annoucement/

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Old white male sf fans can be jerks

Fri, 27 May 2016 23:25:16 GMT

I was going to rant about this on FB, but reconsidered, thinking that my journal would be more private. Last year I attended ConQuesT (an annual science fiction convention in Kansas City) for the first time, mainly because George RR Martin was one of the guests of honor. Mark Oshiro was the fan guest of honor. I'd seen them both on panels at Worldcons and thought it would be great to see them closer to home. I had an okay, but not great time, but sat in a couple of panels where the paternalistic subtle racist homophobia seemed a little close to the surface.

I hadn't planned on coming back this year, but they had Seanan McGuire and Nnedi Okorafor coming and I love their writing, so I went ahead and registered and made my hotel reservations. Later I found out that Mark Oshiro, a gay fan of color, was treated poorly by the 2015 con com and by fellow panelists on one of his panels.

Nnedi and Seanan had a panel together this afternoon. The moderator was well meaning but not particularly good at stimulating dialogue. He also had a bit of that mainsplainy attitude that obviously frustrated both women on the panel. I say obviously, but he was oblivious to it. The worst thing, though, was from the fourth member of the panel, an older white guy who had been part of the problematic panel last year with Mark Oshiro. He showed up late, apologizing but using the interruption to draw attention to himself. There were two empty seats at the table next to Nnedi, but instead of sitting next to the black woman he dragged a chair to the side of the table so he could sit next to the moderator, the only guy. Then the late panelist persisted in pronouncing Seanan's name wrong until the moderator finally corrected him. It was a generally uncomfortable experience capped off by the jerk taking a left turn into Christian theology, wedging it into the conversation where it didn't fit at all.

I met Seanan in the hall later and told her I was sorry for the crappy panel but hoped the rest of the con went better for her. She was accompanied by a member of con staff who said that this was definitely going to be her last year working on the con. I won't be coming back either, I don't care what writers they bring in.

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At VVC

Fri, 07 Aug 2015 12:35:56 GMT

I arrived last night and was musing about how I feel both connected and disconnected to the VVC community. This is probably due to: 1) I only make it to VVC about every other year 2)Club Vivid is just totally not my thing (absolutely not a party/dancing person) and 3) I'm a bit shy about just walking up to people and starting a conversation.

But don't think that any of that means I won't have a fantastic time. The vidshows can be fun but what I always look forward to the most are panels and premieres. Every time I come to VVC I get more inspiration on how to improve either my technical or my creative vidding process and it is so energizing. And Premieres! The energy is so great, especially in the overflow room where I like to sit through the show.

I'm glad this year that I was able to get a flight back late enough on Sunday that I should be able to make it all the way through Vid Review. Although this can be a little stressful when my vid comes up for review, it is also like listening to a giant beta session, with everyone analyzing how the premieres vids either did or didn't work. Years ago at my first VVC I was really nervous about Vid Review, but it turned out to be a great experience.

Unfortunately I won't be able to stay for In Depth Review or Challenge or the Auction vids. At least I'll be able to catch those on the dvd, but there's nothing like watching new vids in a room full of avid vidders and vid-lovers.

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Where did the summer go?

Thu, 31 Jul 2014 20:16:41 GMT

In a little over a week I pack my bags and head off to London for Loncon3, this year's Worldcon. Only one month left of summer and a lot of that will be eaten up with travel and there's so much that I wanted to get done.

For instance, the con report I kept putting off for the Peter Wingfield Fan Club Manchester Road Trip. Is it weird to keep having conventions for an actor who doesn't act anymore? Maybe, but it's a great chance to get together with friends and Peter still likes it, so sure, as long as it will fit into his schedule I bet we will keep doing them. Several times during the convention Peter kept making references to next time, so maybe in a couple of years when he's doing his residency we can sneak in another one.

At this con Valentine Pelka joined us and read passages from a novel he's working on. Writer Adam Whitlach is putting the final touches on a novelization of War of the World: Goliath, an animiated film in which Peter voices the lead. He and Peter read a bit of it and it sounds very good. We also had Skype calls with Mark Deklin (Peter's co-star from Riverworld, the club has sort of adopted him) and Eric Small who is the writer/producer/director of the 10,000 Days, a web series in which Peter played a pivotal role. There was so much going on, but in lieu of a real con report, I'll just leave this here.

I would like try to take pictures and write brief con reports from London, but what will probably happen is a few camera shots posted to Facebook and more detailed stuff when I get back.

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Fannish endeavours for the summer

Mon, 26 May 2014 23:19:08 GMT

I've had to bow out of Britishfest, but I should be posting con reports for the little PWFC con in Manchester, New Hampshire in June and for Loncon3 in August. I've actually offered to be on panels at Loncon3 relating to vidding and other fan remix activities and they followed up by asking me for best times and so forth, so it looks like that's a go. I also offered to put together an sf-themed vidshow, but haven't heard back on that.

Even though I've got two vids for Vividcon, I won't be making this year. Too many cons and not enough time or money. I've got a vid plotted out for Sleepy Hollow that I hope to get done before the new season starts, but we'll see.

The two non-convention, non-vidding fannish things I really want to do this summer are to plunge into tumblr and to add my vids to AO3. I know that's where I usually go these days to prowl for fanfic and, sometimes, vids, so it just makes sense. So far I only have a couple up,
Stuff is Way , the Memento vid I premiered last year at VVC, and I'm British , the Sleepy Hollow vid I did for Festivids this year.

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Hugos, Hugos, Hugos (and some panels)

Mon, 09 Sep 2013 00:04:43 GMT

One of the biggest reasons I love Worldcon is the Hugo Award ceremony. I love reading through the nominated works. I love the suspense of voting and checking my list of choices against the winners. And I love the ceremony itself where you see seasoned veteran writers and new, young writers all get recognition.

( Sadly, my last day of panels )

And then I went back to the hotel to get ready for the Hugos. I always feel like I should at least make an effort to get out of jeans for the ceremonies. For the most part, my top picks all came in at least second. At least this year there were no winners that I strongly disliked, which has happened in the past. In case you're curious, here are the Hugo winners and picture of this year's winning base design.

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LoneStarCon day 3, or working to indoctrinate the next generation

Thu, 05 Sep 2013 22:58:26 GMT

Saturdays panels featured poking at the flaws in Star Wars, bemoaning the lack of respect for knowledge in general media and culture, reveling in obscure cinema, and an exploration of history and myth in fantasy and sf. Top that off with too much time in the dealers' room, a fan fund auction and the masquerade, and it was a full day.

( First the panels )

I bid, but didn't buy anything at the auction to support DUFF: The Down Under Fan Fund and The TransAtlantic Fan Fund , but maybe I'll do better next year. Both are worthy causes, but I was trying to stick to a very strict budget in order to save up for next year's cons.

After dinner I got in line early for the Masquerade. I know they have big screens on either side of the stage, but I still like to sit as close as possible. In line next to me was a high school age girl from Seattle who was attending her first con ever and having the time of her life. I showed her where to find out about GeekGirlCon and Norwescon in her home city and she is itching to join the Seattle con scene.

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Archives, Bujold, London, Spinrad, GRRM and more: Day 2 of LoneStarCon

Wed, 04 Sep 2013 22:30:21 GMT

The second full day at LoneStarCon and took in seven panels and strongly resisted temptation at the art show. There were some prints I liked a a couple of paintings that were tempting, but since I'm saving up for London next year, I resisted.

( the eclectic panels of day 2 )

This was the one day I thought I'd make time for hitting some of the bid parties, but I was so tired after SF Squeecast that I just went out to dinner and had a quiet evening reading. I know, sounds lame, but sometimes vacation means kicking back and being lazy.

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First day of Worldcon (LoneStarCon3)

Tue, 03 Sep 2013 23:33:36 GMT

While many of my friends were busy at Dragon Con, I headed toward San Antonio instead and managed to take in four days of LoneStarCon3, the 71st World Con. This was only my 3rd Worldcon and once again there was just not enough time for everything. There were media-related panels, panels on writing, panels on all aspects of sf and fantasy, interviews with authors, filk, film festival, science, and lots of lots of real NASA content - it was Texas, after all. I really had planned on taking in some films, but never got around to it. I also meant to take in some bid parties at night, but also didn't make it. Next year, I vow to party.

( On to the panels )

And that's it for day one.

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