Odd Con

[sdelmonte]

I had such a strange con experience...

I was enjoying myself at first. The con staff was organized. Dinner came off pretty much without a hitch. My panels went well, and the other panels on comic books were good. Everything seemed fine.

But it wasn't. At first, I was just feeling a little tired. Then, I began to get sensitive to the hall costumes. Specifically, to the ones that revealed a good amount of the person in them. After attending cons for six years, I thought I was used to this, but by Saturday night, I was feeling a good amount of annoyance. I am a prude, which is not a secret, but for some reason my prude hackles were at a high. Now I think that to a degree the revealing costumes were a touch more revealing than usual (and a touch more tacky than tasteful). But this is Lunacon, and this is how some people dress.

I was so grumpy that I left the masquerade once our friend who had entered came on stage. I was not in the mood for very much, and took to briefly roaming the halls with a friend. Slowly, the picture had dawned.

In years past, I was doing a lot of things at the con with friends. This time, everyone was off doing their own thing. Now so was Batya, but she always does this too. That was fine when I had my friends to essentially create a comfort zone. This time, I was on my own. And all the things that I could usually shrug off as just someone else's way of having fun seemed a lot closer to being in my face. (And please, if you are into wild costumes and making noise and roaming the halls in search of the perfect party, I am not telling you to stop. I know that most of you are not seeking to offend, but seeking to express and to have fun. You do cons to get away from prudes telling you how to live, and the day I become that bad, I expect someone to tell me, so that I remember it not MY con, but OURS.)

Add in that most of the filkers and many of the poeple I had met from groups like CUGC at Lunacons past were not there, and I began to feel like something of a stranger. As much as I love cons, I have never felt 100% at home at the big ones. Filk cons? They're small, they're not about costumes or parties, and everyone is so friendly. At Lunacon, it's hard to find a friend sometimes, amidst the small and sometimes offputting crowd in the substandard con suite and when you tend to be keenly aware that the 30something population of the con is nearly invisible.

So by the time the con ended, I had retreated to the safety zone of the filk room, where maybe I should have gone in the first place. Because the new filkers in there were working very hard to fill the void left by the missing filkers. And now I find myself wondering about WorldCon. It's not worth it to spend that kind of money to end up in the same blue funk again (and to risk harming Batya's fun again as well). I can't even say it's worth it to spend that kind of money to spend all of WorldCon in the filk room (even if the filk is great). But there's not any way to turn back the clock to the days when the Dreamer Clan roamed the halls of the Escher Hilton as a group.

So I have some thinking to do. I still enjoy going to cons, but I'm not sure I enjoy going to big cons anymore. And I would also suspect that I will react just as negatively to the inherently un-Orthodox dress code now and again. There are times when I feel comfortable straddling the two worlds I live in. But when I don't, it would be silly to pay good money to increase my discomfort.

And that's why I had such an odd con. Maybe I should just concentrate on the warmer world of the filk con. But in any case, I missed the chance to schmooze with the handful of friends I wanted to see at the con but who were either busy or not there. If you were there, and I didn't say hi, maybe I'll catch you nest time.

Comments

[cadhla.livejournal.com]

We'll always love you in filk, Alex. Because, not despite, of who you are.

Just remember that, 'kay?

Air-hugs from a clone.

[sdelmonte]

Thanks.

(I needed that, especially since I topped off the odd con with a messed-up day at work.)

[bardling.livejournal.com]

Seconded with an "as you are" in place of because or despite of.
As for the lack of friends wanderng with you - I very much suspect I'm the same kind of person and would feel the same kind of lonelyness/adriftness. I suspect I have less issue with other people's dress codes, though I'm not keen on tacky risquee myself as a general rule, but I can understand that with many people basically offering you the opposite of what you'd see as eye-candy how that would make you feel out of place.
*airhug* and/or *hug via Batya*

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... or smaller cons in general? Albacon (about 200 people) is a great con for Good Conversations, often with strangers turned new friends. And while they're trying to build their masquerade there's almost no hall costuming to speak of. Readercon is All Books and Practically No Parties, and has a very high percentage of authors and Very Good Programming. Boscone too has no masquerade and not much non-literary programming. Both of the latter skew older too.

Most of those cons are on the small side and have a jeans and t-shirt asthetic. It doesn't have to be only filk to find to find a con that's got less of what bothers you and more of what you like.

There isn't one this year, but I'd be interested in getting a slightly younger (our age, in other words) New York contingent into going to Readercon if you would like to give it a shot. Of course, the down side is I don't think there's any filk either.

Mer

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I'd definitely second the recommendation for both Boskone and Readercon. Both are less chaotic than Lunacon, and they do skew less to the elements you're finding problematic.

And it would bring lovely folks like you to my neck of the woods, which would be a Very Nice Thing.

[sdelmonte]

A con without filk? Batya would not be very happy. And I would have to do a lot more reading of SF/F to do a Readercon (which isn't a bad thing).

I'd love to try Albacon, but it tends to come out during the fall holidays, and not long before OVFF.

Boskone might be worth thinking about.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about the lack of filk... I've only done Readercon once, and we were staying off-site so I missed the evening stuff. Plus I tend to go to the filking to find you and Batya and LMG and so on, so if you're not there I don't look for it. But we can check once Noreascon is over and Readercon gets going again (they're taking a year break because so many of their people are working on the WorldCon).

One of the best panels I ever went to was at that Readercon, and the author Coffee Klatches were great. I did find that I missed the broader array of perspectives that having some of those other elements of fandom brings, but the sheer intellectual freshness was very very shiny. :)

[mneme]

Readercon is way filk-free.

If I ever go again, I'll be tempted (probably not tempted enough, but tempted) to hold a garage filk in my room. :)

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Readercon is filkfree - it only has litrelated programming. It's even hard to find parties. But it has an auction and the Kirk Poland contest to take their places.

I thought Albacon was one of those college cons where you have to sleep off-site and take a bus in (as well as always conflicting with Sukkot.)

a few factors

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

There was an odd feeling to this con, especially in the evenings. G got tired much earlier than usual (he's usually a night person) so we were asleep by midnight both(?) nights, and I know we weren't the only ones turning in early.

Also, a lot of the NY clan just weren't at the con this year (and neither were some of the out-of-town fen I'd been hoping to spend time with).

There was also better/more-than-previous-years programming, which might have helped contribute to less-than-previous-years socialness. I know we saw you and some of the other clan members briefly in the hall on our/your way to something, but there seemed to be less unscheduled time than in past years (at least on Saturday).

And then there was the dearth of open parties this year. I think there were 2 (including con suite) listed for Friday night and 4 (again including con suite) for Saturday.

[dragonbear82.livejournal.com]

you know yair and I are usually in the game room, although with Lunacon's game room being so crappy, I spent more time with Lauren wandering around. I think the increase in volume of programming made a big difference too. last year they 300 hours of programing, and the year before they had 150 hours, this year they had 350 hours, (you'd know too if you went to the gripe session) and a total attendance this year of 1211. As for worldcon, there will be many more people there you are already freinds with and there's no reason you can't plan your con at dinner. I.e "who's doing what when" that way you can be among freinds too.

[jonbaker.livejournal.com]

I felt a bit odd, too. A lot of the NYUSFS fans either weren't there, or kept themselves scarce. We haven't been going to Lunacon much lately - the last time was 3 years ago, and then 2 or 3 years before that - twice we were in Israel, once it was my parents' 36th anniversary, and once or twice we just didn't bother.

We didn't stay for the gripe session, either, which we usually do, because we had a previous engagement in the City that evening. Only 1211 warm bodies, eh? There were a few visible holes in the management: an unattended cashbox in one location, the lack of publication of opening hours for standing Con functions in the pocket program or program grid (nowhere did it state that Book Raffle ticket sales closed at 12 on Sunday). I also wondered at the rather thin attendance at a lot of the panels. Panels booked into Grand North or Westchester C-D with 30-40 people in them. Even most of the panels in the Transdimensional Corridor rooms were kinda thin. And a lot of panelists didn't appear for their panels. Debbie sat in as an Emergency Holographic Panelist in "The Year in Fanfiction" because two out of three panelists didn't appear.

How does Lunacon set up its program? Arisia sends out letters to registered program participants asking for ideas for panels. They collate those, send them out again, and ask people to volunteer for as many as they'd be interested in. If they get enough people signed up to do a panel, they'll generally hold it, space/time permitting. It involves three mailings (ask for ideas, send out collated list, send out final assignments), but it does seem to ensure that people will get interesting program items.

In general, we had a good con, though.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Another small, friendly con you might consider is Confluence (http://trfn.clpgh.org/parsec/conflu/). Though this year it's in the 9 days (http://www.njop.org/html/9days.html) (= Jewish lent), as it has occasionally been in the past, and I don't know how you'd feel about that. Personally, I plan to attend, and to filk on Shabbat, but not on Saturday night or Sunday. I don't have a problem with attending other programming, gaming, or hanging out in the con suite (though I'm still considering whether to attend next year's Worldcon, which seems much more inappropriate).

We're getting older, and hopefully wiser......

[poltr1]

Could it be that.....you're (*gasp*) outgrowing mainstream fandom? That's kind of how I've felt at the last few Marcons I've gone to. (Marcon is a big con held in Columbus, Ohio in May.) I'm guessing that Lucacon is about the same size as Marcon -- about 2500-3000 guests.

I can easily feel lost in a sea of people at large cons. Nearly everyone has their "con blinders" on, seeing only what's in front of them, not paying any attention to the periphery, and focused on getting to where they want to go next.

Years ago, I didn't mind so much, since I was single, unattached, and part of a local club. Back then the priority is "Go to the panels and other programming events!" While those of us in the club all did different things during the con, we'd get together for dinner either on Saturday or Sunday evening.

Now I'm married, with a kid in tow, and no longer part of the aforementioned club. (Long story; will mention elsetime.) And when I go to cons, my priority these days is "Touch base with the con friends!" I really don't care for the Klingon in-persona schenanigans or the drunken room parties anymore.

That's the #1 reason why I prefer the smaller cons over big cons these days. And since most of my con friends are in the filk community, I now tend to gravitate towards the filk cons or the filk areas of cons. It may not completely be "my pack", but it's the closest to one right now.

Now if OVFF can last a week, and not just a weekend, so we can all get to schmooze and catch up on each other's lives......

[mneme]

Hmm. It's an interesting question; setup.

It does sound like you need to make sure you're doing Lunacon (or Worldon) with a group when you can, organizing one around you when you don't have one yet -- you certainly know enough people to be able to glom when your "usual" group is scattered (and we most certainly do -not- mind having you around, you know).

I've noticed that, having oscillated a -lot- over my years (um. 13 of them. Yow) in Fandom, that I tend to go through a lot of different modes...but usually seem to bounce between groups, hanging out with a cluster of freinds for a long while, and maybe at some point peeling off to hang with a different cluster, but not really wandering around alone for all that long, given a choice. Certainly, my Lunacon writeup (now complete through Saturday Night; still working on Sunday; should send off the first two parts) shows this.

Readercon

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Readercon is a fun con, but there's one catch -- it's very hard to get to without a car. We'd done rent-a-vehicle plans in the past, but drivers are hard to come by.