It’s now the second day of Smofcon 35 and later today I’ll be appearing on my first panel (Security issues of the non-financial type).
I finally had a chance to meet Regina Kanyu Wang, one of our regular Chinese contributors (it was a pleasure Regina!) and have managed to wave at several others including Dave McCarty and Steven H Silver.
This being my first Smofcon, I attended the Welcome to Smofcon panel on Friday afternoon hosted by Smofcon chairpeople past and present, Laurie Mann, Helen Montgomery and Sharon Sbarsky. They passed on some history and tradition, defined some terms and amusingly danced around the issues the convention was having with the hotel. (It’s not uncommon to have last minute issues and, while I still don’t know the details, it is apparent that Smofcon staff have been dealing with them effectively.)
Later, I had dinner with Kate Hatcher of the Westercon & Utah in 2019 NASFiC Bid and helped set up for their room party (hedging my bets, I’ve purchased a pre-supporting membership to this convention while maintaining my supporting membership of Ireland…interestingly, the Utah bid has opted to schedule their event in a manner that would allow fans to attend both Worldcon and the NASFiC in the same year, with approximately a month between their dates (NASFiC in July, Worldcon in August). Just enough time to recover from one before heading for the other.
The convention is well attended for Smofcons, registration and hospitality were working efficiently the last time I passed through and many interesting conversations have been heard and overheard.
I’m glad I’m here.
