Posted by jukkahoo
Why am I not at the bar right now? Because I'm too tired to even think about talking with friends, never mind strangers (as I might call the people I've met only a few times before). I've stared my monitor for the longest time, reading Facebook and Twitter and various other places foer all things Finnconish. If there's something to learn from the intertubes and social media, first day of Finncon 2013 was a very nice experience and the programming has been well received. Yay for program participants!
And a HUGE YAY! for all those gophers and other volunteer workers, especially the Info-team, who are busting their joint asses at the location for the common good. So many people are slaving over the con, so that all those thousands of other fen and interested parties might have a really nice and entertaining weekend.
A long weekend. Friday was the first day of programming, but of course we've started things days before. We got the keys on Monday and ever since that day, a number of organizers have more or less lived on site. Kudos to you all!
But what about today? As an organiser, I got to see relatively little of the programming. I was on two panels (Hugos & But Not Forgotten) and was the other host of the Opening ceremony. Of which I really need to apologize. We had wanted to have a proper Opening ceremony, with bells and whistles, but as the days grow shorter (well, longer in reality, but as mixed metaphors go, bear with me) this particular program item got pushed aside because Other Stuff. And then it was the Time - and we had next to nothing to show for.Somebody has to do this properly. I'm looking at you, Jyväskylä 2014.
Ah, the Opening ceremony. Yes, I mucked up a few times, forgot to mention a number of things and asked really stooopid kveshuns instead of the ones I had thought of few days ago. Never got around writing thems down, never do that again. Apologies to all attending.
Hugo-panel was fun, but as one responsible for the programming, I had made couple of errors. First I should've put this at some later slot, as the early hour (1PM) meant that Cheryl had to miss couple of interested sounding Finfar-items. I'm so sorry. The other thing is, that this really ought to be a 2-hour slot. We barely scratched the surface with one hour, only managing to talk about novels and shorts tories, really. Few scattered mentions of other categories, but we'd already run out of time. So, Jyväskylä 2014, do not repeat this age old mistake. Hugo nominees discussion panel - 2 hours!
I spent most of the rest of my day wandering around the place, chatting with various people: fen, dealers, strangers, luminaries, gophers and what have we. And with few members of the Third Reich the Fourth Estate. Apparently YLE will interview me (and a host of others) tomorrow. Anything for the Finncon.
My last programming item of the day was a somber-sounding panel Gone, But Not Forgotten, where a panel of four (Petri Hiltunen, Ben Roimola and Dave McCarty avec moi) talked about the horrific losses the field of SF/F had suffered since the last Finncon. The list of more well-known people with ties to fandom is bad enough (Harry Harrison, Ray Harryhausen, Richard Matheson, Boris Strugatskij, Iain M. Banks, Jack Vance, Gerry Anderson, et al), but the number of fen (Roger Ebert, Richard E. Geis, jan howard finder and then some) amount to something close to a hundred people.
This better stop now.
But the panel was a good one. I believe we managed to have a good mix of irreverence, melancholy, sadness, joy, memories and personal anecdotes that the panel needed, as well as at least a number of good suggestions for things to look for, read and see. Special thanks to the members of the audience who participated.
After that, we headed home, dropped off some stuff, and zombied at home.
As I said, while this was the first day of the actual convention, there has been a flurry of activities done in order to make this happen. For a quite some time now. Soon all this will be over, but the work doesn't stop there. But that's another blog post. Perhaps.
Now I just want to get to bed and schleep. At least that six hours I keep telling people to sleep every night. And I shall shower in the morning. And have a warm meal at some point. That's a promise.
Meanwhile, go check out what Henry has done all day long.
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