Philcon Report Part 1
Friday December 9 2005 1:40 PM
Just after twelve we arrived at Philcon 2005, parked, found the hotel, found people who are with the convention, and Bill made his first enemy, so we feel right at home. ;) I'm joking! Bill and I both laughed later when I phrased it this way. The first person we talked to displayed symptoms of “old-fen mentality,” which did not really piss Bill off, but he calmly noted it and I could see what he meant.
Now we are sitting on the floor in the hotel with Bill and the Lojban-speaker Stephen Weeks, chatting to Philcon attendees about where to find free internet access, and writing an offline blog entry for posting later. All the wireless nodes that we're finding in the Marriott are $9.95 daily paid access.
2:50 PM
Ken Burnside of Attack Vector: Tactical was as surprised to see me here as I was surprised to see him here. He's promoting the variant of his game that is licensed to use the Honor Harrington universe of Philcon's guest of honor David Weber. I was also quite thrilled to discover that Gardner Dozois, James Patrick Kelley and Tom Purdom are here! Unfortunately Philcon's publications, although expensive, do not contain important information such as the locations and opening times of Registration, Ops, Consuite, Dealers Room, Art show, or the Lojan room. Only individual panel events. The tiny maps in the pocket program are apparently unaltered from the ones used by the hotel. There was no signage when we entered the hotel lobby to show where attendees are to register, or even to indicate that Philcon is taking place at all. There is still no direction signage anywhere at this time, except for a large message board stand for parties, which is blank. I was very pleased to meet Filthy Pierre again, from Balticon, whose excellent flyer racks are on display here. I have put out 600 Penguicon flyers. Pierre gave me permission to put his instructions for building the literature racks on the Penguicon wiki.
Several passerby are asking me if I'm using a wireless hotspot. I am now making a deal with them to split the cost of wireless access.
Bill now passes on to me that he heard that the Marriott screwed Philcon over and didn't tell them locations until the publications had already gone to press. This is still no excuse for failing to compensate with abundant signage.
8:00 PM
Bill and I went ahead and bought internet access and I am now online. Lojban's organizer, Robin Lee Powell, had his flight delayed so there has not been much of a Logfest so far, but I went to the head of programming and I stood waiting in the Green Room (which is really a command center) long enough for him to tear himself away from frantic work to even find out what I was there to talk to him about. I found out through the grapevine that hurricane Katrina displaced a lot of professional conventions on the Gulf Coast, and the hotel took them in for this weekend at the last minute. So the hotel wouldn't tell the convention what rooms they were getting until less than a week ago. The director of programming assigned us one of their many unused function space rooms. I'm sitting here alone with a sign announcing the event and saying "free internet access," and talking to passerby about Lojban as if I were running a fan table. It's the most prominent room other than the ones used for art show, dealers room and gaming. The hotel staff just told me they have to break down the setup in this room in five minutes, so clearly we were not really supposed to get it.
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