The End of the WorldCon

WorldCon is over and I had a blast. Got to hang out with some old friends, made some new friends and saw a lot of people that I haven’t seen in quite a while. For me, conventions have always been about the sense of community. A chance to be around people of my own ilk. I have always thought SF fans are some of the best people around.

Great example: I dropped my sunglasses in one the meeting halls in one of the most crowded and popular panels and didn’t realize it until about a half hour later. I went back to the room I lost them in and they, of course, were gone. Thinking I was mistaken of where I dropped them and retraced my steps. No luck. After several minutes of cursing (mostly at myself), I went to the information desk to see to leave my name in case they were found, thinking at the time that it was a long shot given that I didn’t have my name on them and they are, frankly, cool shades. When I stated that I lost my sunglasses, the response I got was "You mean these?" And there they were. I was grateful and very happy to be among those that would take the time to bring someone else’s property from one place to another that was quite a distance from each other.

And the parties were wonderful. There were parties with a couple of guys jamming in the corner of the room singing Dylan tunes, there were parties that had huge chocolate bars shaped like Godzilla, and, of course, a lot of parties that had a lot of alcohol. And with all that alcohol flowing, there was no fighting, no degradation and no destruction of property (at least from where I saw). The Boston Star Trek Association (BSTA) had a "reunion" party that was a joy to be part of and reminded me of the best times I had going to their cons when they ran them.

My favorite part of WorldCon? After the masquerade, there was a performance by an actor named Charles Ross, who does a One Man Star Wars. Basically it’s one man, no props, doing (almost) all the characters of all 3 original trilogy films in one hour. If he ever gets to your neck of the woods, RUN and see this performance. It is unbelievable.

The worse part of WorldCon? The film program. I cannot lay blame on some of the problems on the con itself as things happened that were beyond there control, but just seemed to be that the whole thing in general seemed to been treated as an afterthought. Most of the films were shown in a place away from the rest of the con, with none of them shown in the main auditorium. Films were cancelled, the 70MM festival (a treat inside or outside of a con) was not even advertised in the main program and there were no updates in any progress reports on anything. Of course I’m not saying that this should have been the con’s main focus, but it was so disorganized that it was almost comical.

Despite the above rant I still had a wonderful time. Let’s hope that Boston can get another WorldCon soon.

Hell, I’ll even join the film committee.