Con Advice...

[seawasp]

Given that one convention has decided I'm not really someone they want at their convention, and the other local convention is kinda tottering along but weren't sure they'd make it this year (and thus must be questionable for the next couple, anyway), I am now looking for substitutes. The farthest out I can reasonably go would be probably Boston (Boskone, Arisia) because it's BARELY possible for me to do the commute. (there's no way I can afford to go there and pay for a hotel room, etc., ignoring the idea that Kathy would not be able to handle my taking off for two-three days for a convention). So it has to be a convention that would (A) have me as a guest [some big ones are very picky about guests], (B) have enough book-relevant attendance that it would be professionally worth my taking that much time out of my writing and family schedule to attend, and (C) be no farther away than Boston (and probably not in New York; NYC itself is complicated enough to handle that getting in and out of it would add another half hour to two hours to the commute time, at least)

Any suggestions?

Comments

[dalesql.livejournal.com]

I think you would get decent value in meeting your fans at both Boskone and Arisia. This coming year, they are now both at the same hotel, so only one set of driving directions need be learned. Cost of parking at the hotel on saturday can be substantial. Since it is adjacent to the new boston convention center, if there is a show at the BCEC the weekend of the con, all the inexpensive parking will be gone. If there is no show at the BCEC, the street parking meters are free on sundays and holidays, and after 6 or 8 pm other days.

There are inexpensive hotels that are not far away by car. Boston subway and bus system shuts down around midnight if you are not car-enabled. Cheap and abundant parking at a subway satellite lot if you plan on leaving before midnight, plus you avoid the most confusing part of driving to the hotel, that last mile of concrete spaghetti between I90 and the hotel.

Boskone is rather smaller in attendance, but is much more literary oriented. Generally an older crowd. Art show has more pro artists. Not sure if there are more authors and editors around than arisia, but they are a lot easier to find.

Arisia is a younger crowd, lots of teens and 20-somethings, not as much interested in books, but substantially larger attendance.

[zanzjan.livejournal.com]

Boskone has a much higher professional presence than Arisia, but also tends to be distinctly impenetrable when it comes to trying to get on programming. Arisia is much friendlier and open, but not anywhere near as pro-oriented.

Have you thought about Lunacon, which is in New York but not in NYC? I haven't been in years but had a good time when I did go, but that was before I took up writing so I can't claim to have paid nearly as much attention to nuances in programming.

Fails on distance...(sigh)

[rdmasters.livejournal.com]

Otherwise I would recommend Swancon :)

[autopope.livejournal.com]

The convention hotel is just across the road from a Silver Line station. Charlie-Bob sez: find a car park at one of the suburban T stations and ride in.

[dsrtao]

Local pro-tip: Alewife at the end of the Red Line has lots of cheap parking. 128 to Route 2; Alewife has its own exit. Red connects to Silver at South Station.

You could also ask Boston-area people if someone might be willing to put you up overnight. It's entirely plausible.

[seawasp]

I have two unfortunate peculiarities (I have a lot of peculiarities, but these are unfortunate): one is that I will walk through a city for three miles in the rain rather than take any form of mass transit. So I'll have to pay for the parking. :)

One of the subsequent posts touches on my other peculiarity.

[seawasp]

And here's where we touch on my other limitation; a combination of allergies, age, and particular requirements make it virtually impossible for me to sleep in someone else's house. I can tolerate sleeping in a hotel, if it's a decent-to-good hotel. But then we get into that cost thing again. Thus the whole commuting thing.

Re: Fails on distance...(sigh)

[seawasp]

Fails on not just distance but other criteria which I didn't even bother to list, such as "if I DID have to go somewhere farther away it has to be something that I could reach in a reasonable day of driving as I can't take a week off just to go to a convention" and of course "can't cost me much money to go to". Judging from what I've seen from our people who have had to go to Australia for work-related reasons, I'd have to actually take off between one and a half to two weeks if I wanted to be functional at both locations.

Re: Fails on distance...(sigh)

[rdmasters.livejournal.com]

Curse your smashing my unfounded theories with your puny facts!



In other news: Oh well... I can dream...

[autopope.livejournal.com]

What's your problem with mass transit? (Is it the other folks using it? Because if so, my impression of the Boston T is that it's a cross-section of ordinary society; Boston predates automobiles so regular folks use public transport, rather than the poverty-stricken and the insane.)

[seawasp]

It's that there ARE people using it. Lots of people. That I don't know anything about. I *HATE* being in groups of people with which I have no clear common purpose or bond (outside of being in a transport sardine can). This is a legacy of my school days, I suspect, when I was forced into places where groups of people harbored an at best annoyed tolerance and at worst actively hostile attitude towards me and the latter would set out to do me harm in one way or another.

A convention, a play, etc., I can tolerate because I have some purposeful connection with the other people there. Though even then large crowds can get to be a bit much.

Re: Fails on distance...(sigh)

[seawasp]

I'll go to Australia the very minute I get that Rich And Famous contract underway.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

I'd like to meet you in person someday, but the Midwest cons I attend are outside your range. Perhaps our paths will cross, some Worldcon.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

Bummer. I was going to offer to put you up. I don't have pets, but I'm lax about vacuuming.

[meril.livejournal.com]

I was just going to post that you can ask me about Boskone in 2008! That Silver Line stop is not exactly across the street, it's across the street and half a block across a bridge and down some steps and then you stand and wait.

this wouldn't have been so bad except it's the trip in which I completely trashed my knee and serendip had to yell at people on the T to let me sit down.

[seawasp]

I appreciate the thought.

However, as I described the point of the location limit is actually to make it possible for me to NOT stay anywhere, but go home at the end of the day. Which is why 4 hours is the far utter limit.