My first (Major) weekend Convention was Rec-Con (1) in August 1989, at the Leeds Hilton Hotel (Still called the Dragonara by some). From what I can remember most of it was fun, although I missed most of the Saturday recovering from chronic alcoholic poisoning (self inflicted). I managed to drink three pints of beer, a half bottle of Château Neuf-du-Pape and four or five Romulan Ales, (A highly lethal cocktail of three spirits and lemonade (I found out later that I could have used soda-water, which would have given the alcohol less sugar to work on!)) all between arriving (3pm) and 3am, when I made the near fatal mistake of Going to Bed! Oh, this also afforded my introduction to Hotel Fire alarms (Midnight Saturday night!), and Filk writing! (My first Filk - The Fire Drill - with my friend D.J.).Conventions attended:
Year 'Minors'
Year 'Majors'
Year Filk
1989/90/91 Ne'a'driar 1989 Rec-con (1) (Trek) 1996 Obliter-8, 1989'90 Elydore 1990 Frontiers (Trek) 1997 Harmon-IX 1991 Touchwood I 1991 Midcon (Trek) 1998 DECadence, 1992 Touchwood II 1994 Assimilation, (Trek/B5) 1999 XI-lophone 1993 Greenwood IV 1995 Lightspeed 95 2000 Digeri-Douze 1995 A.K.F.T. 1 1996 Lightspeed 96 2001 ConThirteena 1996 A.K.F.T. 2 1997 Destination Terrok Nor (Trek) 2001 HarmUni/Eboracon 1997 A.K.F.T. 3 1999 Telefantastique (2) (Media) 2002 Contabile Fortean 1998 A.K.F.T. 4 2003* 2000 A.K.F.T. 5 2001 A.K.F.T. 6 2001 Eboracon 2002 A.K.F.T. 7 2003* A 'Minor' con is usually under 300 people attending, a 'Major' con usually 1000-2000 attendees. In fact at a Ne'a'driar (VI? - At Runymeade) I met my significant other, Fin. (More details on this page).
Digeri-Douze, the twelfth filk convention, in Milton Keynes, which had excellent guests in Urban Tapestry and Brian Biddle, even if the former group did have to fight against the disco in the adjoining hall. But Phoenix soon put a stop to that problem. Well worth the visit, so I advise you to take a look at the details for next years' con.
Cons I have attended most regularly, lately, are the A.K.F.T. Cons. Beginning with AKFT I (The Search for Socks) at the Grand Hotel, Northampton, back in March 1995. A.K.F.T.-II, Same venue, a year later; A.K.F.T.-III, at the Warwick Arms Hotel, Warwick in March 1997 and the same venue, but in September 1998, for A.K.F.T.-IV. A.K.F.T. V, had a new venue (in Plymouth) and a Special Guest - Matt Irvine, who told us some behind the scenes details of Robot Wars, Blake's 7 and other programmes he has worked on. The hotelier got in some real ale from a local brewery, and, as usual, he underestimated, by a full firkin. (Not that it was full for long...)
My last major convention, Telefantastique (2) con 23-25 July 1999, was brilliant, the talks by Mira Furlan, Michael O'Hare and John Rhys-Davies were educational and quite funny, but the Sylvester McCoy talk was hysteria from start to finish. Diane Duane & Peter Morwood gave their usual polished performance as did Jim Swallow and Jane Killick in the Q&A on writing.The 13th Filk Con was held in Eastbourne and had the delight of the audience 'booing' to show their favor. There was a cut-out switch on the power supply linked to a noise level detector in the main hall. Loud shrieks and clapping would have rendered Phoenix 'unplugged' and the tech desk no power with so we booed our appreciation for all of the acts.
More recently, We had another A.K.F.T. con in March, A.K.F.T. VI and our guest was Chris Achilleos, one of the best fantasy artists in the country. His talk was very interesting, especially for the boys, who enjoyed the pictures enormously. (If you don't know Chris' work, why not? Especially if you are male and past puberty...!)
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