Sounds Like Weird
06 December 2004
At breakfast, I realized that I’d not made sure that James and Kathryn knew about the time change for the upcoming Smofcon presentations, so I gave them a call and met with them in the con suite prior to the first panel. At that point, James Stanley pointed out the flyer incident, covered elsewhere.
I attended the panel on Regional Smof groups, in part because I was there as a representative of many bay area groups.
After that came the bid presentations and voting. Portland gave its presentation (unfortunately, I never got the names of those presenting the bid), then James Stanley gave the presentation for San Francisco. Enough people voted for Portland that James Stanley conceded before the vote for San Francisco was called.
Due to events that had happened, I listened to the presentations for future Smofcon bids, but all I could think was, “Do I really want to come to another Smofcon?” I’d had a day of instant burnout, one where I wasn’t even certain I wanted to have anything to do with conventions, even as a member.
After that, I went to the con suite, skipping the later panels. At that point, I simply cased caring.
Later, I talked with several other people, including one of the panelists from the panel that blew up, who hadn’t realized some of the intricacies of what had happened. When I went into the con suite, other people approached me and I didn’t feel so alone any more, which was a good thing because, by that time, most of the bay area fans I knew had already left. I was actually quite heartened by the show of support.
Still later that day, I realized that there were circumstances in which Smofcon would be useful, so I may attend another one. But next time, I’m going to be prepared for childishness.
So, overall, the events of Sunday made me feel that the convention experience was among the worst I’ve ever had. Which, given the subject matter of the convention (running conventions), is ironic.