To Con or Not to Con? February 25, 2022 Want to be in a place where you can meet new people who share your enthusiasms and love the things you love? Want to have interesting conversations and make life-long friendships? Want to be in a place where you can browse a wide selection of beautiful merchandise for reasonable prices? Want to hear interesting speakers and the authors you admire banter back and forth with sparkling wit and keen insight, and then be invited into the conversation? Want to travel to new cities and try out local cuisines and breathe unfamiliar air? Then you should go to a SFF convention. Want to be in a place where you meet people who are wrong about obvious, fundamental facts and who shouldn't be allowed within a mile of your favorite things? Want to have pointless, heated arguments about minutiae and brusque, awkward interactions with people you would rather never see again? Want to be in a place where there are endless rows of crap on display, but nothing you'd be willing to part with your hard-earned cash for--even at a tenth of the listed price? Want to waste an hour of your life listening to a group of people you don't know bicker in public without ever getting to the topic at hand, discover that your favorite author is rude bore, then listen to a half hour's worth of pointless rambling by people on the other side of the room as you wave your arm slowly back and forth yet never get to ask your incisive question? Want to struggle to reach some end-of-the-earth berg where the cab drivers rip you off and eat strange food that might give you food poisoning? Want to catch the crud that naturally seems to go around places where people gather? Then go to a SFF convention. Two simultaneous, antithetical descriptions--a veritable Schrodinger's Cat. Both are wrong. Both are true. Both are accurate descriptions of a SFF convention. The easy, pat answer would be to say that which convention you attend depends on the attitude you bring to it. If you're welcoming and adventurous, you'll end up at the first convention; if you're rigid and inflexible, you arrive at the second. And while this is true to a large extent--you attitude determines your experience--it isn't the whole story. The fact of the matter is that with anything so large, run by unpaid volunteers, and with large numbers of attendees, there are bound to be mistakes and problems. Last-minute changes which mean the only person you wanted to see at a panel is now not coming. An internet connection that goes down at absolutely the wrong time and mars a virtual experience. An audience member that wants to make a "statement" rather than ask a real question. The person who reaches around you to pick up the only remaining t-shirt you were about to buy. These sorts of things are going to happen, and you'll have to roll with the punches day-to-day and hour-to-hour as the convention happens. So for a good con experience, I suggest you keep the attitude that creates, hopes for and enjoys the first sort of convention, while realizing that some events from the second convention are bound to intrude. Have a great (and interesting) time! (c) 2022 by Andrew Gudgel email: contact [at] andrewgudgel.com