Post-Con Comments

[sinanju]

Oyrcon 25 is now history. Read more, if it pleases you.



snippy, Twoson, Oneson (and friend) and I all attended the con, and we all had a good time, I think. We got two rooms in the hotel (one for Snippy and I, one for the kids) as usual, despite the fact that the con happens here in Portland. Having a place to park the stuff you buy, to stash food and drink, to hang around and rest, and of course a place to sleep at night without having to go out to your car (or home) is well worth the cost. At least it has been in the past.

Despite having some real fun, Snippy and I, and a number of our friends all discussed at length the fact that Orycon doesn't seem to be as much fun as it once was. Is it that we're jaded? I've been attending Orycon for almost ten years now. That might have something to do with it. But also, it isn't the same con it used to be. It was once a far more writer- and writing-focused convention than it is now. There were panel "tracks" devoted to the mechanics of writing, as well as to the art and science of getting manuscripts into the hands of editors and agents. Editors and agents attended in fairly large numbers. Writers attended in large numbers.

Now? Not so much. There are less than half a dozen writing panels. Few real science panels. Lots more filking--which has grown from something that went on around the periphery of the con in odd empty rooms or late at night, into an actual programming track. The percentage of con-goers in costume is waaay up; this isn't in itself a bad thing, but it hints at a change in who is attended, or at least in why they're attending.

But it isn't really a media con, either. They don't get new movies, or trailers for movies, there's no real tv/film presence, either. Fans, yes; shills for new productions, no. The panels that get presented seem to have no real rhyme or reason. If someone can jump thru enugh hoops with a suggested panel (whatever it's merits), it gets done; and lots of the panels are rehashes of the same topics year after year.

I visited the art show and very quickly looked it over, seeing a handful of pieces that caught my eye--but none that I would have wanted to take home. The ones that caught my eye had marginally clever concepts (but would grow familiar and uninteresting very quickly), or were noticeable for an example of technical skill...but not much else.

The gaming rooms were popular, though. Gaming has been thru the doldrums in years past, but improved attention to reducing the (justifiably infamous) "stench of gaming" in yeasr past seems to have stuck. And the gaming area is being run pretty much independently by a local gaming club, who provide tons of board/card games for people to play, and who organize RPG games and frequently arrange for games sponsored by various game companies, complete with prizes.

Hospitality was...Hospitality. An endless supply of soft drinks from the fountains in the corner; beer on tap for $0.50/glass for those who like that sort of thing (and were 21+), chips, peanuts, M&Ms, various veggies, breads, etc. More substantial foods periodically at meal times (but, as usual, quickly reduced to picked-over bones by the locustlike swarms of fans).

Fan lounge--didn't visit it.

Masquerade? Uh, sorry, the "Masked Ball"... Didn't go. (And a masked ball involves lots of people in masks and costumes dancing. Preferably to ballroom-type music. Not masked and costumed people being introduced one by one and given 30 seconds to preen onstage before the next costumed person(s) are announced. That's a Masquerade. If you're gonna hold a Masquerade anyhow, don't call it a Masked Ball. And set it up like a Masquerade instead of a ball--set the chairs up for a large audience, rather than the table and chairs scattered around the edge of hte dance floor. Grump, grump, grump.)

Room parties? Didn't attend any. They're not my cup of tea.

The dance on Saturday night was a good one. Better music choices than in years past (less techno-crap, more danceable music; and it wasn't so damn dark--they had enough light that you could see something besides the disco lighting flashing around the edges of the dance floor. The traditional midnight selections ("Time Warp" from Rocky Horror and "Rasputin") didn't happen til about 20 after midnight, but they happened.

snippy spent a lot of time at the "bar panel" drinking pina coladas and the occasional something else, talking with friends (some local, some who she sees only at the con). I spent a fair amount of time there myself, drinking manly strawberry daquiris. Four, maybe five of them, over the course of the weekend. More booze than I've drunk in the entire past twelve months. snippy also sipped some Ardbeg and some kind of brandy that a friend ours brought to the con. I tried the brandy concoction because he thought I might like it, it being very sweet (according to him). Alas, it tasted just as vile as any other form of alcohol in which the taste of the alcohol isn't entirely concealed by sugar and fruit. In other words, gaaah!
So he and Snippy ruefully shook their heads at my lack of discernment and enjoyed it themselves.

So, anyhow, despite it's drawbacks, the con was still fun--but just not nearly as much fun as it used to be. Will we go back next year? Almost certainly. It's not like there is a lot of competition. And we do tend to see friends there that we don't see at any other time or place. We talked about making other plans, but Orycon gives us a focus that would be lacking in trying to arrange time together ourselves. You can postpone personal plans--but Orycon happens on a given weekend. You either make it or you don't. You might miss it, but you can't keep putting it off if your life is hectic (as all of ours and the lives of the friends we don't see very often tend to be). So we'll probably be there again next year.

Comments

[bruceb.livejournal.com]

I gave it a miss this year, but then a fair chunk of that was a) the unavailability of friends who come from afar some years and b) my general state of exhaustion and stuff. The programming does seem tired, and it seems tired not just in the sense of retreading topics but in retreating from the future. There's a lot more Viewing With Alarm than there was when I started going, less engagement in exciting possibilities and consideration of present and future conditions without an implicit or explicit unfavorable comparison to what was imagined by certain subcultures of the '50s-'70s.

There are some noteworthy exceptions, and some perennial topics are good to keep revisiting. But there seems to be a general undercurrent of disbelief in worthwhile change. And I can be gloomy on my own dime. (Really good apocalypses are worthwhile, but there didn't seem to be much of that, either.)