Post 2938 - Saturday

Hello.

It is nearly 11:30. We just finished watching this week's "Orphan Black", followed by the "After the Black" discussion show on the Space channel.

Been another day of not that much being done. I washed the dishes this afternoon and washed some towels. The dryer is still on the fritz so we will take them to the laundromat in the morning.

There is a small comic convention in town this weekend. It is housed right next door to my work, and is called Geequinox. Never heard of it before Friday morning, and I try to keep up on those things. A mini convention, a small riposte to Hal Con, held in the fall, which in just a few editions has grown so large that there is no place in Halifax big enough to accommodate it comfortably. The new convention centre will be useful after all. But I digress.

Geequinox features local vendors and local guests who work in the SF/fantasy milieu. I had no idea there were so many, until I perused the guest list. And I had no idea there were so many vendors who would be interested in selling stuff at a smaller convention.

I didn't go today and I won't go tomorrow. We didn't go to Hal Con in 2014 and would like to this year, in some kind of volunteer capacity. We got wires crossed last year and ended up not being accepted, which disappointed us. C'est la vie.

It makes me wonder: if Halifax is large enough to support two sf-related conventions in one year, does this mean there will be other cons in the province sprouting up? Tatamagouche has a one-day horror-based convention. It is well attended considering its location. I think the South Shore has something going on, and maybe even Sydney has something. But what I would really like to see again is a con in the Annapolis Valley. Wolf Con, which started at Acadia University and ended up being housed at the Old Orchard Inn, was great fun for us all those years ago. I would love to see something like that again. There was even a second Valley-based con for a year or two. I recall that Frederik Pohl was a guest one year. I wish I had gone.

Why stop at SF-related cons? There is a great deal of interest in mystery and detective fiction out there. There are numerous cons in the States, and likely a few in Canada. The biggest one in the world is probably Bouchercon, which is so well organized they are already booking guests for their 2018 convention.

It is fun to think about these things, but quite another to get off one's arse and start up a genre-based convention. The folks at Hal Con took a few years raising money every which way they could, getting their name out there every which way they could, before they brought back Hal Con in... 2011 I think it was. If I wanted to start a convention of my own, it would take me several years of my life with laser-like determination to do so, and to what end? Easier to just go to those things.

But, gee, a convention devoted to "Alf", or the 1980's drama "Riptide" or the 1995 series "Strange Luck"? Let's get it on!

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy