The con, the economy and NoFF

Tags: Imagicon2 Me Science fiction

The planning of Imagicon 2 was in many ways remarkable. Everything seemed well planned in advance, also as a panel participant, where I got many details in advance about what the panel would be about. One of the panels I participated in had a really good moderator (on the other hand this moderator hadn't prepared questions to go with my prepared answers ...). There were fine microfones, and great name tags, and the panels started and ended on time. And it was a fine detail, that the program had time and place for the dead dog party. I can't see it being much better than that.

(One of the planners was Sten Thaning. His coordinator-for-con-career started with the choice between to different committees, to plan the next con. One committee had time, place, guest of honor and all the rest. The other committee had Sten, and he thought, well, we'll find a time. And a place. And a guest of honor. The committee of Sten won the right to do the con! Then Sten went back to Italy, where he was working that year, and left it others to actually make the con happen, and a very fine con it was apparently. We need more people like that in Denmark! :-) )

On the other hand the con was hit by all the big and small changes, that big an event necessarily is hit by, and there wasn't a plan for how to handle these changes. So. I sat for an hour waiting for the doors of the con to open -- only to discover I sat by the wrong doors. How the heck could I have visited the home page a few days before I left, and missed that big a change? overall it would have been a good idea if big info (like the program) had been given a date, and if you got info with a newer date, you knew the other info was outdated. The supplement could have been a board at the con, where the last changes were put up.

But how important is it? We're amateurs, and a real con has a few glitches. Right?

During the con I had some thoughts. If you place the guest of honor in a panel with a fan, that fan has to be able to talk a lot. If you place the moderator in front of the panel (on the 1st row), instead of next to, the panel will look at the audience all the time. (But then again, should you expect panel-fans and moderators to be treated like "fans like everybody else", and again stick to the amateur spirit?)

One of the panels didn't work for me. The panel about SF on TV ended up being a long recital (these 30 shows are good), where it was hard to follow, if you'd never heard about any of them. These could have been corrected easily, if somebody had stuck to: say 10 words about what this show is about.

Finally I noticed some funny details, I don't think we have in Denmark. An award from fans so a fan -- Alvarpriset. And that the con was opened/closed by a bottle being opened/closed -- this bottle apparently held the spirit of Swecon. (Imagicon 2 is the name of this con, and to a certain degree the group of people planning it, while Swecon is a name wandering between different cons, being held in Sweden.)

176 participants showed up.

Before I'm completely done talking about Imagicon 2, let me also talk about what this con cost me. I didn't really know what to expect before I left. The train ticket to/from Stockholm was about 1150 DKK. I bought 5 books, that have something to do with this, and for me is a part of the con experience, in all 140 DKK. I traveled by bus and train in Stockholm for about 200 DKK, plus a ride in a cab (not planned) for 70 DKK. The dead dog party was at a restaurant, and therefore cost me 170 DKK. All in all about 1830 DKK. Plus you know. On the other hand I was treated like royalty and given free drinks. Swedes are nice people.

(Johan Anglemark and yours truly at dead dog party.
Picture taken by Liftarn.)

Some of my reasons for finding this account important is, that I got 1950 DKK as compensation for being a NoFF.

Yeah? So what's a NoFF?

NoFF is short for Nordic Fan Fund, meaning a fund with the purpose of doing something good for Nordic fans. You get a trip to a Nordic con financed (a con not held in your own country, like), in return for writing a report and collecting the money for next years trip. I am in fact writing a report for Himmelskibet, Novum and Subspace.

How do you become NoFF next year? E.g. by participating here: the Danish NoFF page.

And how do you contribute to next years NoFF? By visiting this page.

Before I am done, let me also mention the books I took home, but haven't read yet:

• Sven Christer Swahn, is he the only Swede writing Sf short stories? 7 x framtiden, Ljuset frÃ¥n Alfa Centauri, Tagning: Framtid
• Memoirs of a master forger (incl. autograf from Graham Joyce)

Created: 29 January, 2010 - Last changed: 29 January, 2010 - Comments (0)