UnConventional

[kerravonsen]

It has just been driven home to me that I really don't go to conventions for the guests, but to see friends -- because I just discovered that Neil Gaiman is in Melbourne, at a convention, this very weekend, and I didn't care. Well, not after the $90-a-day at-the-door day-membership fees, anyway. And the fact that I am so out of touch with local fandom (not having gone to a local con or meeting for years) that anyone I do meet that I happen to recognise, is going to probably ensue with a rather awkward, stilted conversation.

Mind you, if Lois McMaster Bujold had been one of the Guests, that probably would have been worth $90 to me. But considering that I haven't read any of Gaiman's recent work, and haven't been tempted to, either, it would be a waste.

Except that half of me is saying that I'm stupid to turn my back on a local con, considering that I'm no longer going to be jaunting off to overseas cons any more. But, really, the two main things that one can only do at cons are (a) costumes and (b) filking, and Australian cons don't seem to go in for filking anyway.

So instead, I rang up watervole, to wish her a happy anniversary. Now that was money well-spent.

Comments

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Oh definitely, I go to see friends - and if a guest turns out to be good value, that's a bonus (it's often not the guest I'd have gone for if that had been my primary reason for signing up in the first place).

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

've only been to one con here (and that was more a collectors' thing) but it was for the opposite reasons: it was just to see Robert Picardo, Anthony Simcoe, and Mira Furlan and attend their panels (which were well worth lining up for hours and braving crowds of teenage boys there for the wrestling and the card-swapping).

OTOH there's been a proper con here since then with good guests (actors and authors) though no one I was really keen to see, and lots of things to do (acting and writing workshops) but I didn't get up the energy to go. I think it's because I'd hardly know anyone. I knew a lot of people at Star One, even if I hadn't met them yet, so that one scored on both fronts.

[kerravonsen]

Oh, I'd probably go to a con for the guests if they were guests I really wanted to see (such as the abovementioned Lois McMaster Bujold) but it is hard to get up the energy to go to a con when you know you won't know people there.

It seems strange to me, now that I think about it, that there don't seem to be any local fen in any of the internet places I hang out. I wonder why. No overlapping interests? I just haven't been looking in the right places?

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I can't help; I have the same problem. I'm on an Auckland SF mailing list but I rarely go to any meetings or social occasions and don't even have that much in common with many of them. Those who know B7 seem to have drifted away from it years before I fell for it. :-( I love a lot of other series but I don't have the need to write for them or to meet others to discuss them. [shrug] I suppose that's what happens with small fandoms.

andrastewhite is in Australia but I have no idea where.

[kerravonsen]

(does some investigation) Hey, she appears to live in Melbourne! (friends)

I know that lizbee lives in Brisbane and sallym lives in Sydney, but that might as well be the moon...