Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Spent the last weekend at Westercon science fiction convention, which was held this year at the Wigwam Resort in Litchfield Park.
It was probably the least-attended Westercon I've ever been to. I don't think the total membership reached 800, and usually, these things pull in well over a thousand people.
However, there were some interesting panels, an excellent Mexican restaurant right behind my hotel room (Thank GOD; the prices in the restaurant at the hotel were stupid), and the Filk attendees (for those of you who don't know what that is, Filk is sci-fi-based folk music) were plentiful and from many places.
On the down side, the Wigwam's nightly room price ($100+) probably scared a bunch of people away, as did the fact that everybody knows Phoenix is a hell hole in July. Which may explain why places like Portland and Seattle host Westercon every couple of years and I think the last time Phoenix did it was about 16 years ago.
There wasn't even the usual amount of scantily-clad jailbait running around. Very subdued, this con was.
The maquerade contest was pretty good, though.
We did learn something from this convention, though; our dog has gone to his last convention. Everybody likes Dweezil, but he can't be left alone, which means I spent a goodly amount of time walking around with the dog, which left me out of some panels and concerts I wanted to go to. Such is life. You live, you learn, you miss panels.
I did put on a concert on Sunday morning and was quite surprised by the decent turnout. Thanks to all who came!
TT
It was probably the least-attended Westercon I've ever been to. I don't think the total membership reached 800, and usually, these things pull in well over a thousand people.
However, there were some interesting panels, an excellent Mexican restaurant right behind my hotel room (Thank GOD; the prices in the restaurant at the hotel were stupid), and the Filk attendees (for those of you who don't know what that is, Filk is sci-fi-based folk music) were plentiful and from many places.
On the down side, the Wigwam's nightly room price ($100+) probably scared a bunch of people away, as did the fact that everybody knows Phoenix is a hell hole in July. Which may explain why places like Portland and Seattle host Westercon every couple of years and I think the last time Phoenix did it was about 16 years ago.
There wasn't even the usual amount of scantily-clad jailbait running around. Very subdued, this con was.
The maquerade contest was pretty good, though.
We did learn something from this convention, though; our dog has gone to his last convention. Everybody likes Dweezil, but he can't be left alone, which means I spent a goodly amount of time walking around with the dog, which left me out of some panels and concerts I wanted to go to. Such is life. You live, you learn, you miss panels.
I did put on a concert on Sunday morning and was quite surprised by the decent turnout. Thanks to all who came!
TT
Comments:
Tom, interestingly the Westercon bylaws wwere recently amended to allow Australia to bid on the con. (Previously they had stated that Australia could bid in the event it attained US statehood.)
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