More on Cons...

[seawasp]

... So far I'm looking with some interest at Boskone, Arisia, and Lunacon. I notice they're all close together in time (it appears that Arisia is probably not do-able for me because it's right near the end of SBIR crunch time). Any cons meeting my criteria in the other parts of the year?

Comments

[dsrtao]

ReaderCon, generally in July. The joke is that ReaderCon has become WriterCon.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

How about Novacon, in mid-November?

Pros: nice friendly con, a bunch of new fans, I can introduce you to the programming folks. The beer's great and you get to see a new country.

Cons: it's in Nottingham, so you'd need a cheap flight to either one of the London hubs or East Midlands Airport, then a train. (Note: "train" in this context means a futuristic whizzy thing that peaks at about 125mph and runs every 15-30 minutes.)

Note that off-peak trans-Atlantic flights are a lot cheaper than you think.

[seawasp]

You have a rather different scale of cheap.

Cheap: It cost me $30 to go to Albacon. I would suspect that even a dead-cheap flight to the UK would be several hundred dollars. And then there'd be hotels.

And then there'd be the need to find a job and stay in the UK, since after deserting my family for a week I would be well advised never to come back. This is the reason I'm looking for conventions I can commute to (maximum of 4 hours each way, preferably considerably less); I pay only gas prices and possibly food, if the Con has no Green Room food, and I sleep at home and am available in emergencies.

I'd love to go to a few conventions much farther afield, but I'll have to move up at least two or three tax brackets before that is reasonable.

[seawasp]

Looks potentially feasible!

Though if it's mostly writers, what's the chances of being a ghost, er, guest?

[shana.livejournal.com]

I think Rose Fox is working on the convention.

[dsrtao]

Yup. Write to program@readercon ( dot org)

[affreca.livejournal.com]

It's out of date, but NESFA's list of cons (http://www.nesfa.org/necons.html) might have something that meets your qualification.

[hms42]

Maybe Pi-CON in August? They are near Springfield, Mass.

I-CON (Long Island) is just outside your range of travel (just over 4 hours) and will cost a bit more than Lunacon to get to. They are both different types of crowds and tend to not have much overlap from what I have seen other than a few common dealers.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

I asked around and it's likely too short notice for either Arisia or Boskone. Not certain but it is pretty close to the wire for both. Readercon is a more likely suspect so second dsrtao's recommendation.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

I checked with a friend of mine who's a bit deeper into Boston-area-ish cons. Some links, which you probably already have:

http://www.nesfa.org/boskone/
http://2011.arisia.org/
http://www.pi-con.org/index

Also, he knows someone who works Pi Con. Let me know if you're interested in pursuing that.