Albacon -- Schedule and Such

[seawasp]

Last year I couldn't go at all (as Domenica was imminent -- she could have arrived that weekend) and I hadn't had a new book out since 2005. This year it's sort of a double-dose in everything. I have two new books out and the programming people have remembered me well, so I have the most busy convention I have ever gone to.

This is important as it's really the ONLY convention of standard SF that I get to go to (unless I suddenly get rich), and my only opportunity to interact with that group of people in a FTF manner (as opposed to online, where I can annoy them all from thousands of miles away!). I want to make this as worthwhile a use of my time as possible, so any suggestions are welcome.

Below is my schedule for the convention as it currently stands:

Friday
4:00 Friday: Fan Fiction: Stepping Stone?: More and more writers are making the leap from fan fiction to pro status: can fanfic be a writing workshop for you?
Ivey, Jamison, Prellwitz, Sawicki, Spoor

8:00 Friday: Ice Cream Social

Saturday
11:00 AM Saturday: Avatar: Genius or Hype? It's been hailed as a work of genius by the people who want to live in its world, but it's also been dismissed as a retread of old SF ideas with a veneer of shiny tech. Have your say!
Easton (M), Fludd, Lieven, Prellwitz, Sawicki, Spoor, Ventrella

1:00 PM Saturday: Signing. I have books in case they don't, but usually they've got a good supply for these things.

2:00 PM Saturday: Doctor Who: A lively discussion of the long-term series whether you think the latest doctor is a punk kid or you long for the days of Tom Baker
Lieven, Rothman, Schwabach, Spoor

6:00 PM Saturday: Reading by Me. Bring your dinner if you like. :) I'm open to suggestions; if, as it appears, I have an hour, there's a good deal of reading that can be done in that time.

Sunday
It's All Anime, All Day on Sunday for me. I get to sit in the same room and pontificate for THREE HOURS.

11:00 AM Sunday: Anime/Manga Terms You Should Know: Get up to speed on the lingo so you don't have to feel like a newbie
Ivey, Ralston, Spoor

12 Noon Sunday: Anime Space: What does space and space travel look like in anime?
Prellwitz, Ralston, Spoor

1:00 PM Sunday: Vampires in Anime: Do they Sparkle?: The bloodsuckers in anime and manga
Ivey, Ralston, Spoor

Comments

[kjn]

Umm.... that is one crowded schedule. Your programming is more crowded than the one I put on John-Henri Holmberg in the first con I ran programming for, and he mildly admonished me and the chair afterwards that he'd appreciate a little more time of his own at the con. Also, several of the items seems more than a little un-focused to me, and when the same names appear in several of them as well, I'm getting worried about the quality of programming. (The first Finncon is infamous in this regard: three days of Sam J Lundwall and Harry Harrison on panel, since the Swedish and the FInnish organisers both had expected the other group to handle it!)

So my advice: look into dropping one item Sunday and one Saturday, so you can get a little downtime or social time.

Readings are usually popular, and I've usually found them best when the author varies them a bit. Robert Rankin did a one-man cult show, with the audience having to chant "small book - bad book; big book - good book" et c et c, but few authors have that showman flair. My tip if you're going to read: prepare several sequences, which can be done in 10-15 minutes each - of which one should be related to a really new or forthcoming book. Also good to get one funny sequence and one dramatic/suspenseful one, and be ready to talk a bit about the setting and background.

Have a nice time!

[seawasp]

Thanks for the warning, but it doesn't seem crowded to me; only one event on Friday (not counting the social), and enough time for a quick lunch on Saturday, then four free hours between the last panel and my reading on Saturday, then everything's in a single three-hour chunk on Sunday. This is a professional thing; I should be doing work there, so to speak.

Readings I've done a lot of. I'm willing to let the audience dictate or make my own decisions if they're all blank; no problem, I could read for literally hours if people wanted. And talk about setting and background even longer. The problem is never getting me to read or to talk, it's shutting me up. :)

[kjn]

My rule of thumb when doing programming: the GoHs can do two items per day, perhaps with one additional not too onerous thing Saturday or Sunday (kaffeeklatsh, signing or other). Everyone else is limited to two items (for a three-day con), barring last-minute changes. (Granted, Swedish cons seldom do guests beside the GoHs.)

[seawasp]

Interesting. To me, that's an incredibly small number of things to do unless the convention is so huge and packed with guests that you can't fit the same guest into the schedule more than once or twice. My experience is mostly with smaller conventions where filling the schedule is the major problem.

As a GoH I'd expect to be doing a lot of things, but it'd depend on other circumstances. Here, I'm about half an hour from my own house, so I'm just driving to the con, doing my thing, going home. None of the issues of LIVING in a hotel.

[kjn]

My impression is that Swedish cons are run and organised very differently from American ones. If you've been to any British ones, then you might have an idea.

Anyway, Swedish cons are small by international standards. A normal Swedish con runs at 80-150 members. The largest one in modern time (which I ran programming for) had around 270 members (among the GoHs we had Robin Hobb). But Swedish fandom isn't very large, and most of the concoms are working actively in bringing as many people into the programming as possible (a smaller Swedish con might very well have more than a third of the members scheduled for one program item or another).

[seawasp]

Very different.

Albacon is quite small by American standards -- small enough that they're afraid they can't justify keeping it going. But it's going to have several hundred people there at least. And it's quite small, quiet, and limited compared to larger conventions. Heck, I've been to a couple anime conventions (years ago when the fandom was JUST starting to ramp up) which were around 1500-2000 people. The local gaming and anime convention Genericon runs around 500 people and it has a physical limit to how many it can support.

[melchar.livejournal.com]

When I ran programming for FurCon, there were some of the costume-construction folks - and species panel folk who wanted to do 6 panels a day. I have found that 4 panels a day is not overwhelming, as long as the panels are held in the same close region.

Scheduling panels that require a guest to trek across the entire convention venue to get from one to another is right out though.

What works best IMO is to schedule panels in 90 minute slots. Schedule the panels to run 60 minutes, with 30 minutes to get from panel 1 to panel 2. It also allows a panel to run long, so there is less of a harried feeling amongst both participants and audience.

[That said, 3 hours to pontificate about anime is AWESOME!]

[purplekitte.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, the part of the con (seemingly every other hour) when some famous voice actor manages to loose their horde of guest relations people and security and wander around asking random staffers "Where am I supposed to be? And where am I for that matter?", with Ryouga Hibiki in their soul. And then the bands decide to do the same, except they speak not a word of English.

[seawasp]

Insofar as the similar people... well, that's what you get at a small regional convention. And similar panels (like the anime ones) are going to get similar people put on them, probably.

[hms42]

Unfortunately, it looks like I might not be making the convention. :( (Due to lack of a hotel room. The hotel is booked solid. I look forward to seeing you each year at Albacon.)

[seawasp]

Well, that sucks. There are of course other hotels in Albany -- quite a few of them -- but if you don't like doing cons when you're not right in the hotel, you obviously can't come.

I'd like to think it's booked solid because of Albacon but I'll bet that it's probably some other events too.

[hms42]

I contacted the convention and they are saying there are some rooms available and they are looking into it.

The other event is homecoming weekend at SUNY Albany, I think.

It looks like I may make it up there, but I am hoping they can provide me some info about getting from public transport (Amtrak station) to/from the convention hotel. I can't take the day off like I normally would and drive up with a friend (due to attending 2 conventions in Columbus, Ohio 2 weeks post Albacon. (OVFF and World Fantasy).