The con is over -- really over. Although programming and official events ended, well, officially Sunday afternoon, there were still plenty of fans to be found in the hotel, and plenty of that collegial con feeling still to go around. The con suite -- which is a kind of hospitality suite and ground zero for hanging out, grabbing some snacks or a can of soda, finding someone interesting to talk to -- was still going strong on Sunday night, when Bonnie and I returned from dinner with a friend in Laguna Beach. Since we were hosting room parties, our room was on the party floor, just down the hall from the con suite, so we had constant reminders of the nonstop five-day party going on all around us, like the fun signage directing fans around, which featured retro rockets:
And then there were the signs directing sentient beings of all excretory needs to the restrooms:
The Starbucks in the Hilton hotel lobby got into the spirit, too:
But by Monday night, when we returned from dinner with other friends in Glendale, the cleanup was all but complete, and the only evidence that could be found that 6,500 science fiction fans had been in attendance was one sad, solitary crushed M&M near the erstwhile con suite:
*sigh* The end of a con is always bittersweet, for lots of reasons. Being at a con is living in a bubble for a few days, one in which everyone gets all your dorky jokes, even your obscure references to, oh, Blake’s 7 or Thunderbirds or Land of the Lost. Some folks are superstrange, it’s true, but mostly people at cons are not only smart but creative and generous and engaged with the world at large -- exactly the opposite of the stereotype of the nerdy fan who never leaves his parents’ basement. (There were, for instance, multiple charity-type events happening over the course of the con, from blood drives to book raffles for Reading Is Fundamental and the Los Angeles Public Library.)
Cons are great for catching up with friends, too. Here’s me with film critic Dan Kimmel, my pal from Boston SF conventions:
(Dan’s the author of The Fourth Network: How FOX Broke the Rules and Reinvented Television; his new book, The Dream Team: The Rise and Fall of DreamWorks: Lessons from the New Hollywood, will be out in October.)
And me with my fan/stalker, blogger extraordinaire and SF author John Scalzi:
(John just won, here at Worldcon, the prestigious John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer for his terrific novel Old Man’s War; I just snagged an autographed copy of the sequel, The Ghost Brigades, to read on the plane on the flight home. He’s wearing his Campbell tiara in the pic.)
I’ve got tons more pictures to share, as well as thoughts on the panels I was on about film and TV. I thought I’d have more time to blog about all that during the convention itself, but as usual, I’m totally delusional about how much time I’ll have and how long everything will take. I’ll be spending most of Wednesday traveling home, but look for more con coverage and reaction over the next few days.
(Technorati tags: Worldcon)
