Tag Archives: Balticon

Balticon 53

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Table tent and ribbon

As I wrote the post title I was struck by the number. The 53rd convention from BSFS. I know I’m the “new guy” to many, having only really started at Balticon 27 but this convention has always seemed like my ‘home con’ if that could even be such a thing (that’s 26 years for those that don’t want to ‘math’). I’m not joking about the ‘new guy’ thing either. I know at least one person that has gone to every Balticon. Part of my recounting of number of visits to the convention stems from how many people I didn’t see there this year. I came up with a dozen folks off the top of my head that, through various circumstances or choices, simply didn’t make it to the con this year. It felt oddly empty. Logically it wasn’t, but it felt that way.

I will say that I was very impressed with the con team this year. Registration *always* has problems with my wife and daughter. I don’t know why – but the mistress of registration remembered me and it was much smoother this year than in years past. The con added a ribbon option this year for people that wanted to have a clear definition of what pronoun they prefer. I think this was an excellent option for those that were interested in having one or felt they needed it. While I did not use one myself (moving rapidly toward the land of the dinosaur) I did find it useful from time to time. Thankfully I didn’t see anyone abusing it. The art show was bigger than I’ve seen it in some time. There was a lot of great work on display there – and I ended up coming home with two new pieces. Programming was very strong. They got information out early, had the schedule posted ahead of their normal time and were quite active at the con itself… more on that in a minute.

It was an adventure to get to the hotel. The interstate we take to get there was shut down and all traffic diverted off to side roads. We managed to avoid the worst of the traffic, but it sent us off into the wilderness for a while. A longer ride there than normal.

I started the weekend off with 3 panels on Friday night. I felt like the panels were decent and that I contributed without being super awkward or out of place. Writing military campaigns was my weakest of the day. Genre in the age of binge watching was decent, but uneven. Bad movie adaptations could have been better (I’m not a fan of throwing it to the audience right away). On the upside I was told one of my statements / arguments actually inspired a panel for next year.

Saturday brought all kinds of weird with it. At loose ends with no panels for the entire day I could do as I pleased. I took some time to wander the con and check things out. I got to spend a lot of time in the art show. I checked out the vendor tables. I got to sit and chat with my friend Jay and get started on an upcoming project (totally a secret for right now). While we were sitting and working, Jay needed to go and be on a panel. I decided I would be supportive and headed to the panel with him.

I’m not going to recount all the details here, but that particular panel was not good. Jay told me I was ‘not contractually obligated’ to stay, but I felt as if I was abandoning him to a terrible fate. It devolved so quickly that I bailed out after about 15-20 minutes. Apparently my fears were not unfounded. I was told it got worse after I left.

This is the part where I explain how the programming team was active during the convention. I was approached later in the day by the head of programming (after being pointed out by the con safety team and flagged down). I gave my view of the events of the panel. The head of the convention was called over. I was asked to recount my view of things again. The problematic individual was subsequently pulled from all panels for the remainder of the weekend. I’m not going to call that person out. I was a witness and not directly involved with the event in question. I gave my view on matters and that was enough for the incident in question. I’m certain there were lots of hurt feelings over the whole thing. I hope the person in question gives the whole thing some thought and uses it as a learning experience rather than fuel for some kind of grudge.

Quick tips from my point of view about convention panels:

1: Being the moderator of a panel does NOT mean you’re the primary speaker

2: The audience is there for ALL the panelists generally, and sometimes for ONE in particular – and that might not be you

3: There are panelists that know more than you and people that have different experiences than you – let them speak ( please note that the gender of said individual plays no part in that statement)

4: Stay as focused as you can (difficult, I know) on the actual topic of the panel and the stated level of expertise it’s aimed at

5: Panelists are volunteering their time. Being angry at them, talking them down, demanding they defer to the moderator is generally the path to a really bad experience

That list is not all inclusive, but relevant to the past weekend.

Saturday night featured a riot in the streets of Baltimore – in front of the convention hotel. No, I’m not joking. Thankfully I was able to avoid any issues with that, but a handful of other con goers were not so fortunate. To my knowledge, everyone came out the other side OK and relatively unscathed.

My Sunday at the con featured two more panels. I got to talk about traumatizing your characters in your writing (and why you don’t necessarily need to) AND I got to talk about the future of energy. The trauma panel was really interesting and I’m glad I got to be part of it. It was really well moderated and the discussion was far ranging with many different opinions and story telling tidbits.

The future of energy panel was an up and down thing for me. I’m going to do a separate write up for the actual content from my point of view because it was far more interesting than I initially thought it might be. I’m also going to see if I can use some of the notes from my fellow panelist Jim. He had some great points and information. I hope the audience enjoyed the panel as much as I did.

There was also shopping, chatting with friends that were there, games in the game room and a fantastic dinner out with amazing ice cream immediately following.

I had a nice, relaxing weekend. The convention itself felt a little like things might be shifting or changing, but that’s something to think about for next year. This was a really good con.

Balticon!

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It’s that time of year! I’ll be at Balticon again this year – and hopefully I’ll see you there too! My schedule is here:

Friday

Logistics and Tactics: Writing Campaigns

Watertable BC, 5pm – 5:55pm

Writing large scale military campaigns

Genre in the Age of Binge-Watching

Watertable BC, 8pm – 8:55pm


Bad Movie Adaptations

Watertable BC, 9pm – 9:55pm

Sunday

Advancing the Story Without Traumatizing Your Characters

Guilford, 12pm – 12:55pm

Energy Production of the Future

Homeland, 6pm – 6:55pm

Balticon 50

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There it went.

I have tried to give myself a little time to get past the immediate reaction and allow for more thought. The problem with that is news of a convention gets stale rather quickly. I’ve been going to Balticon for a while, but not as long as quite a few folks. In fact I had a conversation with a man this past weekend who has attended all 50 of the conventions so far. It’s an impressive number.

For me, it was an impressive convention celebrating the 50th anniversary, but probably one of the worst for me personally. That makes it sound worse than it really was. Perhaps it was the level of expectation going in? I’ve got that sort of thing going with books and movies, maybe it was the same thing for the convention. If I go into a movie or a book with crazy high expectations – those expectations are almost never met so it feels like a disappointment, even it the work in question was actually quite good. IF I go with low expectations and get something crappy, I’m good. My expectations were met. If I go with low expectations and get something excellent… you get the picture. I’ve seen a number of folks on social media and other blogs say they had “wonderful”, “awesome” and “fantastic” conventions. My reaction wasn’t as positive.

I have had a lot of great cons over the years. I’ve really loved being a participant and not just an attendee at conventions. Balticon is the one that I consider my “home convention” and is the one I always give preference to. This year had real issues for me. Some of those things were directly related to the convention, some of them were all about me and some of them were outside the realm of things the con could control (and it’s not fair to blame them for those). I was also somebody that friends brought issues to (they know I’ve joined BSFS), presumably so that word would travel with somebody. That made it a struggle. When you’re the staunch defender, what happens when you don’t want to defend anymore? I got really, really tired of trying to help and defend things that I didn’t find defensible.

The hotel was new this year. That was important – the space was needed for a record number of guests. It also made for lots of people not knowing where anything was, long lines at the elevators, confusion about parking and frustration over added expense. Some of that was just the unavoidable nature of change. Some of that was trying to settle in to a new location. Some of that was people not communicating well and having their expectations not met. I could have worked with all that. I expected it.

I know some of the people involved and I know the intent was good. Programming was an unmitigated disaster from my point of view. Double booked rooms, double booked panelists, changes, deletions and random additions that weren’t communicated well just made a hash of things for me. I’m going to emphasize that again – for me. I am the D list person here and I understand that I’m not going to get priority or even a lot of attention. I got nothing for programming. Nothing. When I asked about this the response was a very snappy “well what do you want?” I want these things figured out before Saturday morning of a convention that starts on Friday for starters – and a little less attitude to go with the response. I get the stress. I work cons too. Snapping at me isn’t going to help anyone. It will in fact hurt the process and cause responses that aren’t necessarily deserved. I just stopped trying to fix it right then. There’s nothing I could do that would have made the situation better and anything I said in anger would not help. I stopped defending. I stopped volunteering to help. I walked away and just did my own thing the rest of the weekend.

I was not the only one in a situation like this. For me – a total ‘D’ lister – it’s not such a big deal. I’m sure I’ll get over it. I’ve already received an invitation to another convention asking me about my thoughts for programming. I’m going to hope for better, or at least in advance, there. The problem is I’ve heard from other people that should be the backbone of the convention – the folks you want to return again and again because they’ve got a solid following and some excellent knowledge to share – that they won’t be back. They reached their saturation point with the frustration and problems and have decided to just walk away as well. I was actually saddened by this. Conventions are where I get to hang out with these folks. Some I might not see otherwise. Most of all, I’m concerned for the next convention, and the next one after that. There was, rightfully, a lot of attention paid to the big names that were there, all the big names that were brought back. Those folks got a lot of attention and drew a lot of convention goers, but at what expense? I fear the damage done. Perhaps I just haven’t gone through this from the participant side of the fence before.

I don’t want this to to turn into some kind of doom and gloom sort of thing. There were a lot of fun things that did happen at the convention. There were great times, laughs and fun mixed with the frustration. I was super glad to have helped out with the Liar’s Panel again this year. I was one of the runners that dashed around the audience collecting up the donations for charity. There’s actually a photo and a little more detail over at Mark’s Journal. Raising a few hundred bucks for charity is a great thing and the panelists were really funny.

I also watched the Mr. Poor Choices III comedy show. I howled. It was fun and funny. The show was totally stolen (from my vantage point) by the sign language interpreters. How do you sign “the nut mangler gym shorts” exactly? Their expressions were wonderful. I went and thanked them after the show. It was great fun.

I got to connect with a lot of folks this past weekend. I think that was really what made it all survivable for me. I had dinner with folks I don’t get to see often enough, drinks with others that I was thrilled to sit and chat with and even a teeny amount of time in the game room (even though I can’t hang with the Power Grid guys and totally forgot my t-shirt – sorry John, I’ll get it right eventually).

I expect with time that I’ll gloss over 50 and other Balticons will be better for me. I really want some of the folks I talked to this past weekend to make some good connections. I’m hopeful that some of the connecting I did over the weekend will lead to future projects. I’m also hopeful that folks that said they were done would be persuaded to return. I am hopeful, and if I work hard and am lucky enough maybe I’ll be one of the folks brought back by special invitation for number 75.

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