I’m “at” the Nebulas this weekend, and have had a very long day, and am exhausted, so apologies for the late open thread — I’m deeply astonished and genuinely overwhelmed by all the incredible volunteer work that’s gone into making a virtual conference feel like the real thing, complete with forgetting to eat on account of being fuelled by a good panel and retreating to privacy in order to get work done and haphazardly returning to exult in finding one’s friends in a quiet corner.
Have you ever been to conventions? Are you attending the Nebulas? Please tell me your best memories of conventions and whether you have any aspirations in their direction — maybe we can recommend some that will suit your needs!
I’m sort of attending the nebulas in the sense that I’m producing the awards ceremony and I am TERRIFIED at the moment that something will go wrong even though my team is absolutely amazing and I have every faith in them. The Nebulas was the first ever convention I attending (just last year!) and it taught me that conventions aren’t just queueing endlessly and pointlessly in a hot convention center while slowly starving to death (this was in fact my entire impression of conventions previous to this). I absolutely adore all the people I’ve been able to meet through SFWA and the Nebs and I look forward to working with them each year now. It’s my favorite way to kick off summer!
My name is Banu and I am an Eastercon addict. (It's the British SF convention in the UK.) I always feel among my people at conventions. It's like a therapy to me. I try to attend to panels, especially on diversity, AI and space. Also BSFA awards. I feel charged with SF. Ready to conquer the genre. :)
My keenest memory of all is a fan-girl one. I was lost in a convention hotel and trying to find my way back to the conference rooms, I came across to Iain M Banks and spent 30 seconds alone in the elevator, trying to make small talk. :)
I flew from California to Maryland in April 2018 to attend my first convention - Malice Domestic, a long-running convention which celebrates the traditional mystery. It was transformational - I am a lifelong reading addict and to be among 500+ authors and fellow readers who share my passion for books and reading - magical. I bonded with a fellow attendee in the lobby over our love of author Louise Penny's books, and we became life-changing friends for each other. We talk every week, and I have visited her in her state across the country (she has the audacity to not live near me!). Oh, and I was briefly in the elevator with Louise Penny, who was the guest of honor at this convention, and I was so flustered that I got off the elevator when the doors opened, failing to realize that it was not even my floor!
As an infrequent con-goer, my favorite moments (and best resulting friendships, I think) have been at very small conventions. Partially, I find it easier to get to know people when we're not both always trying to get to the other side of a large hotel. But also, while any one panel can be brilliant, I've loved the ongoing conversations when the number of parallel panels is small enough that some conversations just keep going. I especially enjoyed Vericon, in Massachusetts, for a few years, for both of those reasons.
Conversely, I attended many Arisias when I was local to it, and enjoyed those because I got to meet up with lots of friends from out of town (and eventually enjoyed watching my child rejoice in the costumes) but I can't remember very many lasting friendships with people I first met at the con. And I've somehow managed to be within a couple of miles of Worldcon at least three times in three different cities without yet making it to one; maybe this year, when the distance is measured in milliseconds, will be the first.
My best convention memories are of SIWC (Surrey International Writer's Conference), when (the first time I went) I somehow succesfully fought my introvertism/social awkwardness and anxiety to simultaneously travel to a conference for the first time, and travel onto Canada for the first time. And promptly discovered SiWC was full of the best wonderfully friendly writers, and best instructors and workshops, and promptly have gone back every year life has allowed me to. (Most of my specific best memories from it are the increasingly-random-late-evening-at-the-hotel-bar conversations with people I'd just met but already felt like good friends with, that I suspect are the best parts of all good events, but are always impossible to describe after the fact why they were so magical)
My main aspirational conventions are that someday I will make it to the Nebulas and Worldcon -- I've gotten close to making it to the latter a couple times now but life keeps throwing last-minute hiccups into those plans. (I also want to attend WisCon someday because I've heard so many good things about it)
I used to love cons before I started getting sick and was SO looking forward to getting back into them. I earned most of my friend base via an industrial music-based con and was a frequent attendee of New York Comic Con before it got so big. I had always intended on starting with ReaderCon, and have now been unable to attend for the 3rd year in a row, holy cow. So this is my first con since 2011, and I couldn't be happier at how it worked out.
I'm partial to our own little ArmadilloCon in Austin, where organizers have in recent years making a real effort toward inclusion, diversity, and general awesomeness. I like a good panel, but meeting people and making connections is so often the best.
I've never attended a proper con (CoNZealand was gonna be my first). I have, however, spent today filming a bunch of stuffed toys holding an opening ceremony for TeddyCon, as proof of concept for what we're doing for the virtual CoNZealand opening ceremony. So, that's a start!
I've never attended a literary convention, but I want to hit Worldcon and the Nebulas as soon as the stars align for it. My only convention experience is Otacon, the summer anime convention in Baltimore, which I attended in 2001 and 2007. My impression from the accounts of others is that literary conventions are much less stressful and much better groomed and bathed.
This is my first time "at" the Nebulas, and it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't online. I try to make it to two cons a year, StokerCon and CancerCon, and between monetary costs and the physical toll it takes on me, that's usually all I can manage. I've wanted to go to the Nebulas for a long time, so I was soooo excited when I saw it was going to be online!
Best con memories! The 2017 StokerCon took place in The Queen Mary ship. I was suffering from severe fatigue due to undiagnosed cancer, and so kept using the ONE, SINGLE, TIIIIINNYYYYYY elevator to get around, because the stairs left me super winded. One day, during a particularly busy period, I finally got on the elevator with a bunch of other people.
It went up a level. Stopped. The doors opened, and the guest of honor that year was waiting to board on.
He waved us on and said he'd wait for the next one, but everyone in my elevator crammed themselves into the corners and sides and insisted he come on up.
He did. It was awkward and stuffy and there was barely room to breathe. Then someone made it even more awkward by saying, "I'm sorry, but can I shake your hand??"
He shook their hand. And then another hand appeared. And then another.
That kept happening until our guest of honor spun around in a tiny circle, shaking everyone's hand on this tiny, cramped elevator.
It was delightfully awkward and I still chuckle about it. :)
I have told this before, but it bears repeating. Your Steven Universe -panel at Worldcon 75. As a co-area head of media programme, it brought me such a tremendous joy to see a panel come together so beautifully! Other best memories revolve around singing: I had my birthday during Finncon 2016 and when I was on the stage as part of the concom during closing ceremonies, everyone sang me happy birthday. Later that evening during dead dog, all the Finnish ladies present at the moment, sang a Finnish children program's jingle to Cat Valente in a sauna, and then we went for a swim in the lake. And all those terrifying moments of being part of singing dedicated filks to Finncon GOH's and getting hugs afterward!
I dipped into the Nebulas briefly today and hope to do more tomorrow when not juggling the day job--I am so impressed with all the work that has gone into this and making it, as you say, feel like the real thing! I dipped into the Varkosigan Suite for what I thought would be a 20 minute saying-hello and wound up staying catching up with people for over two hours. Really lovely.
My favorite convention memories all seem to center around WisCon--quiet breakfasts in the governor's club with friends, sunning in the Saturday farmer's market between panels, dancing and dancing and dancing at the Floomp, making flower crowns at the Carl Brandon Society party, my first POC dinner when I was so shy and didn't know anyone but by the end of the night felt so welcomed. Last weekend felt so strange not being in Madison!
I’m sort of attending the nebulas in the sense that I’m producing the awards ceremony and I am TERRIFIED at the moment that something will go wrong even though my team is absolutely amazing and I have every faith in them. The Nebulas was the first ever convention I attending (just last year!) and it taught me that conventions aren’t just queueing endlessly and pointlessly in a hot convention center while slowly starving to death (this was in fact my entire impression of conventions previous to this). I absolutely adore all the people I’ve been able to meet through SFWA and the Nebs and I look forward to working with them each year now. It’s my favorite way to kick off summer!
My name is Banu and I am an Eastercon addict. (It's the British SF convention in the UK.) I always feel among my people at conventions. It's like a therapy to me. I try to attend to panels, especially on diversity, AI and space. Also BSFA awards. I feel charged with SF. Ready to conquer the genre. :)
My keenest memory of all is a fan-girl one. I was lost in a convention hotel and trying to find my way back to the conference rooms, I came across to Iain M Banks and spent 30 seconds alone in the elevator, trying to make small talk. :)
I flew from California to Maryland in April 2018 to attend my first convention - Malice Domestic, a long-running convention which celebrates the traditional mystery. It was transformational - I am a lifelong reading addict and to be among 500+ authors and fellow readers who share my passion for books and reading - magical. I bonded with a fellow attendee in the lobby over our love of author Louise Penny's books, and we became life-changing friends for each other. We talk every week, and I have visited her in her state across the country (she has the audacity to not live near me!). Oh, and I was briefly in the elevator with Louise Penny, who was the guest of honor at this convention, and I was so flustered that I got off the elevator when the doors opened, failing to realize that it was not even my floor!
As an infrequent con-goer, my favorite moments (and best resulting friendships, I think) have been at very small conventions. Partially, I find it easier to get to know people when we're not both always trying to get to the other side of a large hotel. But also, while any one panel can be brilliant, I've loved the ongoing conversations when the number of parallel panels is small enough that some conversations just keep going. I especially enjoyed Vericon, in Massachusetts, for a few years, for both of those reasons.
Conversely, I attended many Arisias when I was local to it, and enjoyed those because I got to meet up with lots of friends from out of town (and eventually enjoyed watching my child rejoice in the costumes) but I can't remember very many lasting friendships with people I first met at the con. And I've somehow managed to be within a couple of miles of Worldcon at least three times in three different cities without yet making it to one; maybe this year, when the distance is measured in milliseconds, will be the first.
My best convention memories are of SIWC (Surrey International Writer's Conference), when (the first time I went) I somehow succesfully fought my introvertism/social awkwardness and anxiety to simultaneously travel to a conference for the first time, and travel onto Canada for the first time. And promptly discovered SiWC was full of the best wonderfully friendly writers, and best instructors and workshops, and promptly have gone back every year life has allowed me to. (Most of my specific best memories from it are the increasingly-random-late-evening-at-the-hotel-bar conversations with people I'd just met but already felt like good friends with, that I suspect are the best parts of all good events, but are always impossible to describe after the fact why they were so magical)
My main aspirational conventions are that someday I will make it to the Nebulas and Worldcon -- I've gotten close to making it to the latter a couple times now but life keeps throwing last-minute hiccups into those plans. (I also want to attend WisCon someday because I've heard so many good things about it)
My Hamilton party at CONvergence, filled with so much joy. I miss those days.
I used to love cons before I started getting sick and was SO looking forward to getting back into them. I earned most of my friend base via an industrial music-based con and was a frequent attendee of New York Comic Con before it got so big. I had always intended on starting with ReaderCon, and have now been unable to attend for the 3rd year in a row, holy cow. So this is my first con since 2011, and I couldn't be happier at how it worked out.
I'm partial to our own little ArmadilloCon in Austin, where organizers have in recent years making a real effort toward inclusion, diversity, and general awesomeness. I like a good panel, but meeting people and making connections is so often the best.
I've never attended a proper con (CoNZealand was gonna be my first). I have, however, spent today filming a bunch of stuffed toys holding an opening ceremony for TeddyCon, as proof of concept for what we're doing for the virtual CoNZealand opening ceremony. So, that's a start!
I've never attended a literary convention, but I want to hit Worldcon and the Nebulas as soon as the stars align for it. My only convention experience is Otacon, the summer anime convention in Baltimore, which I attended in 2001 and 2007. My impression from the accounts of others is that literary conventions are much less stressful and much better groomed and bathed.
This is my first time "at" the Nebulas, and it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't online. I try to make it to two cons a year, StokerCon and CancerCon, and between monetary costs and the physical toll it takes on me, that's usually all I can manage. I've wanted to go to the Nebulas for a long time, so I was soooo excited when I saw it was going to be online!
Best con memories! The 2017 StokerCon took place in The Queen Mary ship. I was suffering from severe fatigue due to undiagnosed cancer, and so kept using the ONE, SINGLE, TIIIIINNYYYYYY elevator to get around, because the stairs left me super winded. One day, during a particularly busy period, I finally got on the elevator with a bunch of other people.
It went up a level. Stopped. The doors opened, and the guest of honor that year was waiting to board on.
He waved us on and said he'd wait for the next one, but everyone in my elevator crammed themselves into the corners and sides and insisted he come on up.
He did. It was awkward and stuffy and there was barely room to breathe. Then someone made it even more awkward by saying, "I'm sorry, but can I shake your hand??"
He shook their hand. And then another hand appeared. And then another.
That kept happening until our guest of honor spun around in a tiny circle, shaking everyone's hand on this tiny, cramped elevator.
It was delightfully awkward and I still chuckle about it. :)
I have told this before, but it bears repeating. Your Steven Universe -panel at Worldcon 75. As a co-area head of media programme, it brought me such a tremendous joy to see a panel come together so beautifully! Other best memories revolve around singing: I had my birthday during Finncon 2016 and when I was on the stage as part of the concom during closing ceremonies, everyone sang me happy birthday. Later that evening during dead dog, all the Finnish ladies present at the moment, sang a Finnish children program's jingle to Cat Valente in a sauna, and then we went for a swim in the lake. And all those terrifying moments of being part of singing dedicated filks to Finncon GOH's and getting hugs afterward!
I dipped into the Nebulas briefly today and hope to do more tomorrow when not juggling the day job--I am so impressed with all the work that has gone into this and making it, as you say, feel like the real thing! I dipped into the Varkosigan Suite for what I thought would be a 20 minute saying-hello and wound up staying catching up with people for over two hours. Really lovely.
My favorite convention memories all seem to center around WisCon--quiet breakfasts in the governor's club with friends, sunning in the Saturday farmer's market between panels, dancing and dancing and dancing at the Floomp, making flower crowns at the Carl Brandon Society party, my first POC dinner when I was so shy and didn't know anyone but by the end of the night felt so welcomed. Last weekend felt so strange not being in Madison!