Forty-seven years ago, a few hundred Northwest SF/F fans trundled off to what was then the Seattle-Tacoma Airport (it’s now a municipality called SeaTac) for a new convention, called Norwescon, headed by Greg Bennett. I was there, along with my late best friend Jon Gustafson; we were relatively new to the “actifan” ranks, having gone to our first convention in 1975 (OakLaCon, or Westercon 28 in Oakland, California, if anyone’s interested), although I believe we’d been to one other before; it gets a bit fuzzy after the first 45 years. The con was held at the airport Hilton; the guest I remember was Alan E. Nourse, but Theodore Sturgeon may have been there too.
I attended the first 9 Norwescons and at least one “.5” con; then I moved to Canada and my attendance became somewhat more spotty, but I’m sure I’ve attended at least 40 of them. I did intend to attend more panels this year, but instead spent most of my time in the bar, the restaurant, the art show, the halls, and the dealer room. Make of that what you will. I tried photographing the opening ceremonies, but some dope had pointed an orange spotlight on the ceiling back at the audience, and that washed out my phone’s camera. (By the way, if any of my photos here look fuzzy to you, welcome to my world. My eyesight is declining, dang it.) The convention had numerous tracks of really interesting programming, but I missed it all (except the opening ceremony). There was always a friend I needed to talk to after a year or more of not seeing them, or a meal or something. (Well, I did join Paul Carpentier’s trivia team; we came in third out of eight or nine teams.)
Figure 3 is one side of an 11”x17” programming sheet; Thursday and Friday were on different sides of one sheet; Saturday and Sunday on another. The pocket program, with descriptions of the panels, was similarly divided: one 75-page (plus) for Thursday and Friday; another 75-page (plus) booklet for Saturday and Sunday. The “Souvenir Program” shown in Figure 1 (Front cover by Wayne Barlowe, AGOH (Figure 2), from Keith Laumer’s “Retief” series; the back was an alien animal painting by Barlowe) contained There was more than enough information available about what was happening at the con. The Souvenir Program contains pictures and bios of the GoHs, professional attendees and speakers, full-colour artwork, “In Memoriam,” and so on. A professional job for sure. As well, the hotel had a special food menu in both bar and restaurant; usually, the con will have a special bar menu, but this year it was the same both places (Figure 4).
Other amenities provided by the con that I think are unusual are things like “Kidcon,” specially put on inside Norwescon for young fans; there was a “Shire” inside Kidcon for older young’uns.
For us older kids there was again, a pinball and video game area (Figure 5), with five or so pinball machines and three or maybe four video games, the latter ranging from the classic Asteroids to a shoot-em-up called “Area 51, where you had to use a plastic pistol to destroy baddies. Believe it or not, I saw a full-size (6’ tall) Dalek playing the Dr. Who pinball machine!
The board and RPG gamers had literally their own wing of the hotel, which some didn’t leave for the duration of the con, sending out for pizza and the like. There was even an SF vending machine with books and board games (Figure 6). This machine was owned and provided by SistahSciFi, the first black-owned genre bookstore in the country. The art show (Figure 7, shows showrunner Doug Booze with his back to us) is well known among con-goers, comprising dozens of artists with 2D and 3D art, including originals and prints, even from the Art Guest of Honour (AGOH), Wayne Barlowe (Figure 2).
Outside the dealer room was a hall full of writers, and inside the dealer room were more writers selling lines of their art; there were artists ranging from younger anime-oriented art to more traditional SF/F—and several punsters (mostly with cat puns, like “Edgar Allan Paw,” ouch! Some dealers were selling clothing, weapons and jewelry, not to mention many-sided dice; Chris and Jackie Nilsson had a booth full of stuffed “Oddpetz” animals. There was almost literally something for everyone at this convention; attendance, I heard, was between 1500 and 2000, down from last year. (Part of that I believe was tariffs and the economy; another part was the lack of out-of-country fans due to the aforementioned tariffs and political situation.)
But a lot of folks, as is usual at most cons, gravitated toward the bar: Figure 8 shows a typical table with fans and writers like Steven Barnes, Amy Thomson, Paul Carpentier, Dave O’Neill (who ran the aforementioned trivia contest) and Vivian Perry. Figures 9 through 11 show various friends, like writer/musician Dr. Mark Rounds (Figure 9), banjo wizard John Hedtke (Figure 10), and me (Figure 11). We arrived at the con Thursday morning at 11 a.m. (you have to, if you want a parking spot) after driving about 150 miles, and left broke but happy on Sunday afternoon.
If you want to say something about this column, you can comment here or on Facebook, or even by email (stevefah at hotmail dot com). All comments are welcome as long as they’re reasonably polite. My opinion is, as always, my own, and doesn’t necessarily reflect the views of Amazing Stories or its owner, editor, publisher or other columnists. See you next time!
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