kate_nepveu | Readercon report

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cons: readercon: 2009

Readercon report

I treated Readercon as a vacation, meaning I came out Thursday, went to only the panels I really wanted to, and generally was not in the mood to deal with annoying things because hey, vacation.

As other people have said, the programming seemed to assume that everyone was treating it like a vacation, scheduling a ton of stuff on Friday (including no dinner break) and much more lightly on the actual weekend days. Since this was not a long weekend, this seemed peculiarly suboptimal. The programming content also seemed to have some peculiarities (well-qualified people who asked to be on relevant panels not put on panels in favor of people who seemed much less well qualified; highly gendered assignments on two of the panels I attended, and possibly more I didn't).

As for the venue, the panel rooms were indeed freezing cold, and I seem to have been the only person who had no trouble with the hotel wireless.

I went to six program items: three panels, two talks, and one reading. Notes on the first two sets forthcoming or already posted. The reading was David Anthony Durham's; he read the Prologue from The Other Lands, the sequel to Acacia (which I am almost done reviewing, honest!), which was from the point-of-view of one of the children taken in the Quota. Also an unofficial item, readings from recent issues of Sybil's Garage, which prompted me to buy issue no. 6; though, looking at the tables of contents, I should also have bought issue no. 5 since I was very impressed with Veronica Schanoes's ferocious reading of her story "Lost in the Supermarket" (which quite dissuaded me from the idea of mentioning that my favorite version of that is the Afghan Whigs' cover, or that I think someone should vid Harry Potter to it (probably the original version, there)).

I had lovely conversations with lots of people I'd met before (including one blast from my early Internet past) and some I hadn't; I'm not going to do the namecheck thing because I find that awkward, but if we talked and I might not know how to find you now, feel free to leave your LJ name or blog address in comments. I also was patronized by a white man old enough to be my father and had a younger white man hit two race-discussion bingo squares in two sentences; but since that last came after I'd brought up racism in fandom at a talk and the other people who spoke to me about it were positive, well, it could be worse. (More on that later. And sexism too, whee!)

Alas, the flyer for next year's Readercon is deeply unpromising: no guests of honor, single-track programming, and a tagline: "This IS your father's Readercon." Apparently Readercon has no qualms about the graying of fandom or excluding women for the sake of a punchline! And I am very dubious about the idea of single-track programming a con of several hundred people, full of people who desparately want to be on programming: to paraphrase someone else, it seems likely that the loudest and most institutional people will end up on panels. I'd be tempted to just take advantage of the con rate for the hotel and camp out in the lobby to see people, but you know, the hotel is not actually that nice or convenient. Stop me before I volunteer to run a counter-con (Arisia for the vanilla!), because I so do not have time.

ETA: ericmvan has now called the tagline a mistake; further information may be found scattered through those comments, though a clear statement of intentions for next year has been strongly urged.

Link roundups will be over at readercon as usual; also I'm taking suggestions on what I should do about all the Twitter posts about the con.

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Stop me before I volunteer to run a counter-con (Arisia for the vanilla!)

Does that imply that Arisia itself is not for the vanilla? I mean, I know it's kink-friendly, but when I was there this year I don't recall anything that would squick out a vanilla person that wasn't part of a clearly marked kink-related event...

The programming thing seems to be happening a lot lately--apparently some internecine warfare in Programming Ops at Baycon led to some issues of similar form. (I say "apparently" because, as a non-local, I didn't know firsthand.)

I am curious to hear about the racism/sexism issues...your influence, I'm sure.

And yes, that sounds like a disappointing Readercon 2010.

Well, there was the year that the "Vanilla Monogamy Meet and Greet" was scheduled into the con suite, and wound up being a few people hanging out just outside the actual con suite....

Okay, I've never actually been to Arisia so that flip comment might have been too flip. But I have received the impression, possibly exaggerated, that the community norms for dress include a fair amount of skin and kink-related or -suggestive outfits, and I am an old fogey who would feel a bit awkward in that situation--my issue, not a judgment, etc.

FWIW, Arisia tends to run to extremes. There are those who go for a lot of kink-heavy outfits, but there are those who dress in t-shirts or button-downs and are fine (and it's an incredibly kid-oriented con even as it's also got a huge adult-oriented aspect).

yes to the extremes in outfits. I think the vast majority are wearing t-shirts/jeans/comfy outfits. The "wacky" con only outfits and hall costumes tend to be a bit....zesty.

For whatever it's worth, I've never been bothered by the outfits/costuming at Arisia, and I'm about as vanilla as they come. On the other hand, my first "fandom" was the Society for Creative Anachronism, and my first actual sf con was a Philcon back in the late seventies, so my mental illustrated-dictionary entry for "sf convention" is fairly heavy on hall costumes and related weirdness. Readercon, much as I enjoy its programming most of the time, always strikes me as being fairly far out on the sercon/stuffy end of the spectrum.

Readercon was almost indistinguishable from people at the mall.

The mall would have had a more diverse -- if on the whole less sf/fantasy literate -- population.

I was referring only to clothing, but yes, quite accurate on the larger point.

Hm. Based on your responses and others', I'm willing to accept that I'm wrong, or my scales are miscalibrated, or it's changed, or I just didn't notice. (I was rather drunk Saturday night, and that probably would have been the worst of it, I suppose...*grin*)

Shows what I know, anyway.

Disclaimer: I am the Events DivHead for Arisia this year.

Arisia bills itself as, "The largest and most diverse regional SF/F convention in New England" and so you can be sure there will be people of all stripes there, from Kink to Vanilla With Kids. We try pretty hard to provide space and content for everyone; unfortunately, the hotel situation is less than optimal, to be sure.

If you want to let me know what, if anything, you think would make you uncomfortable at Arisia, I'll make sure the information gets back to the conChair (with or without attribution as you request); we're always looking for ways to make the con more friendly!

Thank you for commenting. I appreciate it.

Arisia is not practical for me in 2010; though I am becoming disenchanted with Boskone, I will be going because Tom Shippey is a guest, and they're too close together for me to travel out for both.

I may well be considering it for 2011 and later, however, and will be looking for more information about it in that case.

Have you posted about your disenchantment? I'm certainly interested in your thoughts.

No.

I'm becoming less enthused about the programming and the membership.

I may well be considering it for 2011 and later, however, and will be looking for more information about it in that case.

While I cannot stay what, if anything, I'll be doing for Arisia in 2011, I'll still be happy to give you any information you may want and convey any suggestions back to the conChair as you may have. :-)

I'm not comfortable at Arisia. I think I would be better about it if it were not coincidentally Claustrophobiacon (awkward hotel, crowded, narrow halls), but the one time I attended in its previous location I was still not comfortable with many of the costumes. It was riiiight on the border of bystander consent, and I don't like being that close to the border.

(Some dealers' materials are similarly borderliney, although that was my own fault -- individual dealers are in individual rooms, so I could just have not walked into that one.)

I found my first Arisia ... unsettling. It was one of the high-kink quotient ones (nadir: the young woman in pvc offering to flog random passersby in the elevator lobby), but none of the subsequent ones have made me uncomfortable.

Other than being crowded and having serious elevator problems (more at the Hyatt Ziggerat than at the Park Plaza) and poor space planning (which has a lot to do with the physical layout of the HZ).

I have this theory that the problem is that the people aren't actually part of the kink community, so much as wearing kinky costumes. Some good socialization in "what is appropriate conduct in non kink spaces" would improve matters. And hopefully make them feel less of a need to be SHOCKING and EDGY all public.

Ah, that makes a great deal of sense to me.

Since I'm involved in Arisia this year, I'm offering to funnel any suggestions (either with or without attribution) to the convention committee. This can include things like panels on how to dress in public, as it were, as well as bits in the newsletter saying that, while one's kink might be okay, others might not appreciate seeing one dressed for it.

That would be kind of you, thanks. Aside from the basic "Oh noes! Narrow escalator and people with capes! Someone will be strangled!!" issue -- which I presume the hotel just has lots and lots of insurance for -- the one thing that completely scared me away from Arisia was people wearing leashes (held by a different person) in public.

That was a total dealbreaker for me: they were involving me in something I couldn't bear, and I felt I had no right to ask them to stop.

Someone did get their cape caught in the escalator the first year in the Hyatt; after that, there were signs and things in the newsletter quoting "Emma Mode." :-)

I'll be happy to pass these comments along; do you want attribution or would you prefer them to be anonymous*?

*Granted, they are posted here with your name on them so they aren't really anonymous but I don't have to say where they came from if you'd prefer I didn't

I don't mind attribution.

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Readercon report

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