Octothorpe_117.srt

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 Hi everyone, it's editor John here, just a couple of quick notes before we get into the

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 episode. Firstly, if you took any photographs of me or Alison or Liz or any combination

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 thereof, we would very much appreciate it if you would email them to comment@octorbcast.uk.

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 Secondly, thank you very much to Ian Clark for the beautiful cover art this episode. We

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 invited Ian to do a cover for us when the best fan artists, finalists were announced.

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 We got chatting at Worldcon, he was like, "I'm really sorry I never got back to you."

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 I was super stressed out because I was designing the Hugo base and I was like, "That is absolutely

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 understandable." And then he sent me photographs of the prototypes and with his permission,

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 we are using them as the beautiful cover art this week. Thank you very much everyone and

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 see you on the other side.

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 Hello everyone and welcome to the very 117th episode of Octothorpe, a podcast for Science

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 Fiction and Science Fiction fandom, which is coming to you on the 29th of August 2024.

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 I'm John Coxon, I'm Alison Scott and I'm Liz Batty.

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 And as ever, we start with letters of comment. Thank you very much to everyone who congratulated

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 us after the Hugo's, it was very lovely and it was lovely to see you all.

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 Several of our friends actually wrote their reports and comments on the Worldcon that

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 seeing us with a Hugo was an absolute delight, a particular joy of the Worldcon and that

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 was really nice to see. So thank you. And apparently, and we did not know this, a huge

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 cheer went up in the fad bar when we were announced. That was nice too. That links into

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 our next topic, which is, "We want a Hugo." But you know, it was very nice of everyone

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 to congratulate us on Sunday and Monday, including the security guard at the SEC who

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 had to check my back with a Hugo in congratulating before it. That was nice.

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 That was good.

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 Oh yes, so the security guard at the SEC did congratulate Siva on did Hugo, because he

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 was carrying my Hugo when we went through security.

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 I'd like to take this opportunity to formally congratulate Siva on his Hugo and I invite

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 him to write in and tell us all about it.

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 You'd have to listen to the podcast first, wouldn't you?

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 Yeah, we also heard specifically from Renee. So Renee is from Lady Business.

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 We should say this letter is pre- I was winning the Hugo. This is way back from July because

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 we haven't done letters of comment for a while.

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 We have not done letters of comment for a little bit on a counter how we are bad at

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 podcasting, but also on a counter how there was that time we did the 70 minutes on the

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 business meeting and it turns out there wasn't a lot of extra time in that episode and then

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 we did a live episode and we weren't very focused.

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 So Renee from Lady Business sent us an email on the 21st of July, 2024, which is about six

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 weeks ago when you listened to this. She said she had a thought about our thoughts about

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 recusal.

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 The reason Lady Business recused after our first win for the next year but not the year

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 after was because of Renee's theory of voting momentum. Once you've won a Hugo, it's potentially

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 easier to win again in the next year because of name recognition and familiarity that builds

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 for each consecutive win until you end in a person who has won the award 900 times place.

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 The idea of her was to break up the momentum of the name recognition for a year just in

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 case.

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 And then she goes on to say there's a likely an argument for permanent recusal in some

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 cases. She says she will save her loud opinions on that for another day. Send us your loud

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 opinions Renee. We'd love it. But one year recusal and courage of voters to look elsewhere

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 and past winners can use it as an opportunity to advocate for their peers. Win, win, win.

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 And so we didn't announce this on stage but we will be recusing at least for next year's

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 Hugo Awards. Please go and nominate other fantastic fan casts including but not limited

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 to Hugo Girl who are the best.

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 We will be recommending hopefully highlighting interesting podcasts in this space all year.

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 I have a little bit of form here because Plochter won the Hugo in 2005 and I don't think there

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 was a habit of recusing. There were some people who'd like won whole shelf falls of

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 Hugo's at that point but there wasn't this kind of habit of people recusing in the fan

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 categories. And we won again much to our surprise in Los Angeles in 2006 and I think it is exactly

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 that. It was Hugo Momentum. It was people going, "Oh, I hadn't seen this fanzine. I'll look

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 at it now. I like it. I will vote for it." And if it had been the popular fashion to recuse

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 for a year, we probably would have done that.

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 Yeah, I was going to say Renee as well as being one of the people behind the giant Hugo

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 spreadsheet that we use regularly when we're discussing potentially Hugo-nominating works

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 which we love.

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 It's also going to be on the Stitch and Bit show to talk about the Hugo in 2024 and that

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 is another podcast. Well, I think it's a video podcast which was in the long list for 2024

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 so you can go and start there.

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 We will have a link in the show notes. So Liz and I are in charge of the blue sky and

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 Mastodon respectively. Liz, do you want to say anything about how many new followers we

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 got after we won a Hugo?

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 Some?

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 Yeah, the Mastodon because obviously no one really uses Mastodon which is why I love it.

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 We got multiple new followers and I was like, "Oh, this is that thing where you win a

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 Hugo." And I was like, "Oh, hang on. They must actually be all right then. I should

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 give them a try and I haven't really given them a try up to now." And so, yeah, I think

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 recusing for a year like Renee says, I can see it was really noticeable that the pattern

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 changed. It didn't change loads but there was a noticeable effect. So I found that interesting

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 because I wasn't really expecting it despite the fact if I sat down and thought about it,

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 I probably would have been.

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 If anyone is listening to us for the first time or the second time, if you're welcome,

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 traffic to the plot to website doubled in 2005 after we won the Hugo.

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 It's got a nice...

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 So if you're a new listener, I'm sorry, we're always like this. Sometimes we're worse.

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 Have a look at our Wistful Business Meeting again. So did you say it was our second most

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 downloaded episode ever, John?

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 Yeah.

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 People liked the business meeting content.

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 Some people.

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 Look, right, we're pivoting to the all business meeting, all the time listeners.

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 No, we are not.

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 It's our new brand.

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 Oh, okay, YouTube can and I will go find...

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 We've found Alison's line. I've never found it before but it's here.

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 John can use the previously stored after Alison and Liz quit cover.

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 Our most listened episode is episode 102. I fully comprehend the mysteries and that's

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 where we broke down everything that happened in Chengdu and what was going on and why.

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 Episode 115, I like the way Glasgow did it, has a solid hundred more than our third most

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 downloaded episode.

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 We've got an email from Doug Font and he says, "Since you ordered the show about the

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 upcoming business meeting, I'd like to hear your taken explanation of the results."

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 Thanks, Doug.

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 Now, we will at some point do a very brief summary of the business meeting and how it

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 went.

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 We're going to mention one aspect of it this episode but the minutes are not up yet and

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 we're going to wait for the official minutes before we do it.

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 Keep your eyes and ears peeled, Doug.

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 And for everyone who is like, "I don't want to hear more about the business meeting,"

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 we're really sorry, blame Doug.

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 In a lovely way, thank you, Doug.

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 Okay, and we're going to leave the rest of the letters until later.

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 As Alison says, we're always like this but the live episode will reveal that when we're

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 tired and excited, we're even more like this.

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 I would like to apologise for the fact that Liz maybe got forwards in the entire episode

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 because I'm usually better at making sure but I would do the edit and I was like, "Oh,

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 God, there's not a lot of this in this one."

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 Sorry to all the Liz fans out there.

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 Yeah, I was like, you two were so like, cheery and happy and fun.

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 It's like, I don't want to interject with seriousness but you were very hard to control

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 in any way.

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 It's like, well, it's good.

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 It's like, how do I know I don't have ADHD?

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 [laughter]

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 Exhibits A and B.

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 I was really like, is this going to go in the podcast?

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 And now it's definitely going in the podcast.

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 Okay, brilliant.

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 I should say again that I do not have a diagnosis and I want to respect the people

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 who do have a diagnosis.

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 I merely have some characteristic, I occasionally display some characteristics that are shared

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 by people with ADHD.

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 This is my new way of introducing the three of us which is I have an ADHD diagnosis,

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 Alison does not have an ADHD diagnosis and Liz does not have ADHD which is, I think,

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 factually and accurate and conveys the idea.

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 And you can put that as the subhead of this episode.

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 But we made that joke last time, John.

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 Did we?

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 Excellent.

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 Okay.

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 So, the first thing I want to say is that I have an ADHD diagnosis.

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 I very much enjoyed having the discord up in the live pod.

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 I do think it's fun, but I also want to know if I need to ban you too from looking at

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 it because you cannot.

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 I can't look at it much.

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 You started posting ribbons to the live panel during the episode.

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 Oh no, I only posted a ribbon because I got shamed into having not posted a ribbon by

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 my co-editor.

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 I was not going to do it because I was not looking that closely at the discord because

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 I know what I'm like and John was like, "Oh, was it John or was it just..."

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 No, it was me.

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 It was me.

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 That is what I mean.

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 As I did, I just posted it into the entirely the wrong discord.

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 When I have had more sleep and less excitement, I am a little bit better at thinking about

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 keeping on track and that morning I was not good at it at all and I think it really shows.

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 And I had a lot of fun that morning, but it was not coherent.

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 I'm not sure if you go back and listen to our other live episodes that they are significantly

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 more coherent.

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 Maybe not.

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 Now I don't want to.

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 The one where we had you in a totally different room.

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 It wasn't an interjection from the room.

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 It was my face.

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 You had us in a totally different room?

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 No, the one where we put you in a totally different room because you had Covid was a bit

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 more because you couldn't get word in edways.

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 We had to be a bit more coherent then because we had to be very careful to bring you in

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 because obviously if one person is on a link.

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 Can I make a joke about winning my third Hugo now?

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 Yes.

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 So I am fond of three person collaborations.

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 They're very good and I won two previous Hugos with Steve Davis and Mike Scott for

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 Blocktor.

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 So I have a third of a Hugo for each of those and this time I have won a third of a Hugo

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 with John and Liz for Octa Thorpe.

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 So now I have an entire Hugo.

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 No, not over.

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 It's kind of how it works in my head.

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 I mean I respect that.

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 I have an entire Hugo all of my own.

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 I respect that very deeply.

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 I also have three rockets.

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 I don't think the trophy is the thing and I'm kind of, I have a mantelpiece which looks

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 great with two Hugos on it.

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 So I have a plot to Hugo and an octa Thorpe Hugo and now I have another plot to Hugo that's

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 kind of shuffled off to the side and I'm wondering if I should give it to another person who

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 was involved in plotter or auction it for the fan thumbs or flog it on eBay or something

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 of that kind which is kind of weird.

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 I haven't decided definitely yet but I think that's likely to be where it ends up.

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 This is exactly the opposite of all other, like all other cases because basically I think

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 Alison likes stuff more than I do and I'm like no, no stuff, no books, no nothing and

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 then my Hugo, no you will pry that from my cold dead hands.

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 Oh yeah, no that's how I felt about the 2005 one.

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 Never getting rid of the 2005 one.

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 Never getting rid of this one which is the first Hugo I have won for this project even

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 if John might have licked mine.

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 I didn't lick yours.

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 I licked mine.

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 But then at some point we put them all down on a table and then we think we picked up.

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 People kept moving them around and I was like actually it's like when you have a baby

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 right then you kind of want to go home from hospital with the same baby you gave birth

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 to but they keep moving the babies around and it's quite scary.

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 I mean I haven't left my baby on a table in the middle of a party so I have left a baby

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 in the bar famously but that was only once and I got them back fairly quickly.

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 You've got the same one back you can probably tell from conversations with said baby who

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 is now 24.

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 So Liz is Hugo arrived in the post.

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 Liz do you want to talk about your Hugo arriving in the post?

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 My Hugo arrived in the post.

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 I didn't want to carry it back because I already had a lot of luggage and not a very

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 large carry on bag and I was like do I want to put it in my suitcase where it might get

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 squashed or do I want to try and hand carry it through two sets of customs who were going

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 to say why are you carrying this big metal rocket and so I asked the con to ship it the

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 con did ship it it then got stuck in DHL for about 10 days because someone at DHL had

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 written down my phone number on and today it has arrived but they did make me pay duty

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 on it fortunately they have valued a Hugo at 50 pounds so the two two's were not too

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 bad.

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 Good.

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 I mean it's obviously prices but I think actually it's probably worth more than 50 quid.

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 Yeah the rocket must be and I don't know.

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 And I don't know what the rocket is made out of do either of you know I assume this is

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 known.

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 Yeah it's in Pete Western to think about it isn't it.

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 Chromium plated steel isn't it?

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 Yeah someone was asking and I was like is it aluminium and I was like cannot be aluminium

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 it's far too heavy to be aluminium.

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 Chromium plated steel but the exterior is chrome because it is basically a very large

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 good ornament.

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 I think we have mentioned this on the podcast but for new listeners Hugo's are all made

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 in the UK in a factory somewhere near Birmingham which is one of those things which is quite

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 lovely.

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 I can link again to the article about making Hugo's.

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 It never gets less interesting to me.

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 We also wanted to pick up something from the Hugo award live stream which is we read the

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 comments and this one which Alison posted in our group chat.

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 From Ultima Facts so if you're out there Ultima Facts Alison looks exactly like she

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 sounds but lol but John does not.

235
00:13:52,080 --> 00:13:55,120
 I'm curious like what do I sound like?

236
00:13:55,120 --> 00:13:57,560
 We do not understand this at all.

237
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 Do I sound like an old I kind of imagine I sound like a sort of 65 year old BBC presenter

238
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 from the 50s.

239
00:14:07,760 --> 00:14:08,760
 Is that it?

240
00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:13,120
 Oh and you should have a sweater vest and be presenting the 2M Open University things

241
00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:14,760
 about the planet.

242
00:14:14,760 --> 00:14:15,760
 Yeah.

243
00:14:15,760 --> 00:14:16,760
 Yeah exactly.

244
00:14:16,760 --> 00:14:18,840
 Do you mean a tank top?

245
00:14:18,840 --> 00:14:20,440
 No I mean a sweater vest.

246
00:14:20,440 --> 00:14:22,200
 That's a tank top.

247
00:14:22,200 --> 00:14:26,280
 I think in the modern usage of tank top I would not say that it's tonked up.

248
00:14:26,280 --> 00:14:28,280
 Yes no I understand that.

249
00:14:28,280 --> 00:14:32,280
 I believe this but you know if you're talking about the 50s then it was definitely a tank

250
00:14:32,280 --> 00:14:33,280
 top then.

251
00:14:33,280 --> 00:14:36,520
 And also how does Liz stack up with how Liz sounds?

252
00:14:36,520 --> 00:14:38,280
 That's the other thing I want to know.

253
00:14:38,280 --> 00:14:41,000
 How would you tell from listening to the podcast?

254
00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:42,920
 I'm not sure I want to know really.

255
00:14:42,920 --> 00:14:47,920
 Oh god we are so jazzed we need to I need to drink less coffee and chill a bit sorry

256
00:14:47,920 --> 00:14:48,920
 guys.

257
00:14:48,920 --> 00:14:50,480
 That's alright I think we are jazzed.

258
00:14:50,480 --> 00:15:00,240
 So we said we weren't going to go into the business meeting in very much detail this

259
00:15:00,240 --> 00:15:03,480
 episode but there is one thing that I absolutely have to talk about.

260
00:15:03,480 --> 00:15:09,880
 I'm just bursting which is that much against our advice the business meeting decided to

261
00:15:09,880 --> 00:15:16,480
 extend the eligibility for Godzilla minus one because it had been insufficiently distributed

262
00:15:16,480 --> 00:15:21,440
 and it had only limited distribution with their argument and it that passed.

263
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 And then on Sunday night of the Worldcon the long list of Hugo stats came out where it

264
00:15:25,840 --> 00:15:30,160
 turned out that Godzilla minus one had exactly the same number of first preference and

265
00:15:30,160 --> 00:15:33,960
 accommodations as poor things and very nearly made the ballot anyway.

266
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 Following this on the final day of the convention in a business meeting session that often

267
00:15:37,560 --> 00:15:43,200
 doesn't exist the business meeting decided to do a kind of timey wimey suspensiony wench

268
00:15:43,200 --> 00:15:51,080
 and a bit of magic and go back in time to the eligibility discussion and retroactively

269
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 decided it was not eligible after all.

270
00:15:54,080 --> 00:15:58,160
 So Godzilla minus one is not going to get a second vote at the Hugo's which is absolutely

271
00:15:58,160 --> 00:16:01,160
 the right decision and also the one they should have made in the first place without the benefit

272
00:16:01,160 --> 00:16:03,000
 of the stats in my view.

273
00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:07,320
 So there was a lot of discussion in the business meeting channel on the Worldcon Discord about

274
00:16:07,320 --> 00:16:13,000
 how you know maybe some of the nomination stats should be made available earlier or maybe

275
00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:16,920
 the whole stat should be released to the business meeting as a privileged thing so that these

276
00:16:16,920 --> 00:16:22,320
 decisions can be made with the full knowledge of what's happening and a man called John

277
00:16:22,320 --> 00:16:26,640
 Coxon remarked, "If only there was some way we could make decisions about eligibility

278
00:16:26,640 --> 00:16:28,800
 extensions without doing so at the Worldcon."

279
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 Some sort of virtual business meeting and Vice Chair Margarit Smith said, "John I'm

280
00:16:34,800 --> 00:16:38,520
 not sure your staring spoon is long enough shushing face emoji."

281
00:16:38,520 --> 00:16:43,480
 Fair. John there's a much better argument here which is stop making extended eligibility

282
00:16:43,480 --> 00:16:47,600
 arguments for things that made 30 million dollars.

283
00:16:47,600 --> 00:16:51,320
 Like this has never come up before right because normally we nominate something that got three

284
00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:52,320
 screenings.

285
00:16:52,320 --> 00:16:55,680
 Basically if you start extending the eligibility of things we've seen by lots of people then

286
00:16:55,680 --> 00:16:58,000
 this is going to happen so we could just stop doing that.

287
00:16:58,000 --> 00:17:03,120
 I'm going to say do not extend the eligibility of anything where they released it in December

288
00:17:03,120 --> 00:17:05,800
 specifically so it'll catch the award season.

289
00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:11,320
 They don't want the to get an award in 2025, they want to get an award in 2024, let them.

290
00:17:11,320 --> 00:17:15,960
 Right, I think I'm going to say two things there which is Godzilla-1 is a bad example

291
00:17:15,960 --> 00:17:19,240
 of that because of the exclusivity.

292
00:17:19,240 --> 00:17:23,760
 For those who don't know that American Godzilla films and the Japanese Godzilla films have

293
00:17:23,760 --> 00:17:29,080
 like an agreement where they can't be in cinemas at the same time and so Godzilla-1

294
00:17:29,080 --> 00:17:34,040
 came out of cinemas early to let Godzilla versus Kong be in cinemas.

295
00:17:34,040 --> 00:17:37,800
 I want a massive kaiju fight I am just saying.

296
00:17:37,800 --> 00:17:42,000
 But yeah, I mean I basically just think all of this, all of what we have just said, there's

297
00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:46,160
 no need to do it at the convention, there's no need to change how we release the stats

298
00:17:46,160 --> 00:17:49,520
 in order to make the business meeting happy, there's no need to extend the eligibility

299
00:17:49,520 --> 00:17:53,280
 of films that have made 30 million dollars, there's no need to extend the eligibility

300
00:17:53,280 --> 00:17:55,920
 of films that got wide cinema releases.

301
00:17:55,920 --> 00:17:59,120
 The correct decision was made and a lot of people are saying 'oh we need to change

302
00:17:59,120 --> 00:18:01,000
 how it works' it's like we don't.

303
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:04,400
 I also want to say there were some very strange arguments, well to my goodness I perceive

304
00:18:04,400 --> 00:18:10,000
 a strange about how oh but Godzilla-1 was not in every market so I personally couldn't

305
00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:11,000
 see it.

306
00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:13,800
 Well, welcome to not living in the USA.

307
00:18:13,800 --> 00:18:17,600
 That is all the business meeting for this week listeners, there will probably be more

308
00:18:17,600 --> 00:18:25,600
 in the future at some point.

309
00:18:25,600 --> 00:18:29,160
 This episode we're going to, and probably next episode because we can't record next

310
00:18:29,160 --> 00:18:32,760
 week, so we're going to try and record a double and split up in some sort of thematically

311
00:18:32,760 --> 00:18:33,760
 sensible way.

312
00:18:33,760 --> 00:18:36,720
 But basically this episode we're going to talk about Worldcon.

313
00:18:36,720 --> 00:18:42,200
 So we sort of did talk about Worldcon at the live show but it was as previously mentioned,

314
00:18:42,200 --> 00:18:45,800
 quite a lot less coherent than it might otherwise have been, so we're going to try and have

315
00:18:45,800 --> 00:18:52,720
 some sensible and collected thoughts on how Glasgow 2024, a Worldcon for our futures,

316
00:18:52,720 --> 00:18:53,720
 went.

317
00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:58,400
 I was just about to type in the show notes, can I put a tiny overall thing in at the

318
00:18:58,400 --> 00:18:59,400
 beginning?

319
00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:04,240
 Yeah, do you want to discuss overall, the convention overall at the start and then dive

320
00:19:04,240 --> 00:19:06,800
 into specific themes afterwards?

321
00:19:06,800 --> 00:19:13,160
 Yeah, and as soon as we get into tiny little details, this has to hit us with a Liz Bat

322
00:19:13,160 --> 00:19:15,720
 and we'll go on to the themes.

323
00:19:15,720 --> 00:19:17,680
 No, no, no, no, Liz Bat.

324
00:19:17,680 --> 00:19:23,440
 So I wanted to say something about the Convention overall which is it was very big, it had a

325
00:19:23,440 --> 00:19:28,160
 huge number of people in person and also quite a lot of people online as well.

326
00:19:28,160 --> 00:19:33,000
 I think 600 online members and quite a lot of people who were attending but actually

327
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:36,200
 came in online because they weren't actually at the convention.

328
00:19:36,200 --> 00:19:41,600
 So it was just enormous and I think overall the feeling and the ethos of the convention

329
00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:44,560
 was fabulous in a load of different ways.

330
00:19:44,560 --> 00:19:49,960
 I think Esther, Marguerite and Meg as Chair and Vice Chair did a wonderful job of setting

331
00:19:49,960 --> 00:19:54,880
 the scope of what they wanted the convention to feel like and I think by and large that

332
00:19:54,880 --> 00:19:55,880
 came off.

333
00:19:55,880 --> 00:20:00,360
 So we're going to, because we're a podcast and we commentate, we're going to carpal out

334
00:20:00,360 --> 00:20:05,880
 lots of things but I think we need to keep that in mind that they have 1,300 first time

335
00:20:05,880 --> 00:20:08,720
 world con attendees, 1,300.

336
00:20:08,720 --> 00:20:14,600
 I hope every single one of those, no, I hope 90% of those had a fabulous time and are like,

337
00:20:14,600 --> 00:20:18,040
 "Oh, what more conventions like this can I go to?"

338
00:20:18,040 --> 00:20:22,520
 And then I hope that that didn't work for quite everybody because if you work for everybody,

339
00:20:22,520 --> 00:20:27,480
 it indicates that you're not quite stretching your reach out, you want to encourage people

340
00:20:27,480 --> 00:20:30,480
 to come along who then go, "Oh, well, I've tried it once but it was me and I'm going

341
00:20:30,480 --> 00:20:31,480
 to do something else next."

342
00:20:31,480 --> 00:20:33,560
 That's because that is actually quite good too.

343
00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:36,040
 Oh, so that, so many good things.

344
00:20:36,040 --> 00:20:40,840
 They had so many first time attendees that they ran out of first time attendee ribbons

345
00:20:40,840 --> 00:20:43,240
 which is a good problem to have.

346
00:20:43,240 --> 00:20:45,800
 I think you're completely right.

347
00:20:45,800 --> 00:20:52,600
 I think this convention did a lot to bring people in and was just so, seemed so warm

348
00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:53,600
 and welcoming.

349
00:20:53,600 --> 00:20:58,280
 I don't know, as the convention goes on, it all bubbles to the surface and it's just

350
00:20:58,280 --> 00:21:02,560
 like this lovely, lovely feeling which I felt really good about.

351
00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:07,680
 In a way that I don't think previous world cons have achieved in the same way and I'm

352
00:21:07,680 --> 00:21:12,360
 not sure why but Glasgow definitely felt different to me right from the beginning.

353
00:21:12,360 --> 00:21:15,920
 I'm going to look at a little bit of credit to the Discord here because I think one of

354
00:21:15,920 --> 00:21:21,760
 things the Discord did was make it very clear in its introductions and newbies channel how

355
00:21:21,760 --> 00:21:29,000
 many people were coming from a long way away, were bringing different aspects of science

356
00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:30,560
 fiction fandom together.

357
00:21:30,560 --> 00:21:35,840
 Now, that is always the case at Worldcon but I think the fact that you had an introduction

358
00:21:35,840 --> 00:21:40,480
 page made it very obvious to lots of people including lots of old lags.

359
00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:41,480
 Yes.

360
00:21:41,480 --> 00:21:47,880
 It's a fancy new editor from Finland and here's a SF writer from India and all of that and

361
00:21:47,880 --> 00:21:48,880
 it was great.

362
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:52,600
 Yeah, I don't know if I think it was specifically better than any other.

363
00:21:52,600 --> 00:21:58,120
 I mean, I think Finland had an awful lot of like enthusiastic first time world con goers.

364
00:21:58,120 --> 00:22:00,240
 It's just hard to know exactly how many.

365
00:22:00,240 --> 00:22:07,680
 So I was wondering like obviously we get stats break down for the locations on world con

366
00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:08,680
 pages.

367
00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:14,000
 But do we get stat breakdowns for like first time attendees and by gender and things like

368
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:15,000
 that.

369
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:17,160
 So let's go out of first world con membership, right?

370
00:22:17,160 --> 00:22:18,160
 So that's how you know.

371
00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:21,520
 I mean, one way you know is how many people bought a first world con membership.

372
00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:27,760
 I don't think I can drill down to that on their demographics page though.

373
00:22:27,760 --> 00:22:31,760
 Um, I haven't looked at it recently but I mean they did sell a specific.

374
00:22:31,760 --> 00:22:34,200
 What I will say is like, so we do know the number for Glasgow.

375
00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:37,640
 Like Alison said, it was somewhere in the region in 1300 but I guess it would be nice

376
00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:43,240
 to see world cons regularly break this statistic out so that we know.

377
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:44,240
 I guess is what I'm saying.

378
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:50,000
 Yes, I think the thing though is if you like we know that because there was a specific

379
00:22:50,000 --> 00:22:52,120
 category of membership they bought.

380
00:22:52,120 --> 00:22:55,920
 If you don't have that, then you have to start asking more questions during the membership

381
00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:56,920
 purchase process.

382
00:22:56,920 --> 00:22:58,480
 Yeah, no, that's fair.

383
00:22:58,480 --> 00:23:02,320
 And probably if we collect gender, we have to have some basis for why we are collecting

384
00:23:02,320 --> 00:23:03,720
 stats on people's gender.

385
00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:05,720
 Yeah, no, that's hard.

386
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:07,320
 Which is protected information.

387
00:23:07,320 --> 00:23:12,800
 The age profile of the convention, I think European world cons tend to trend slightly

388
00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:17,040
 lower than US world cons but it felt like the age profile of the convention was quite

389
00:23:17,040 --> 00:23:22,600
 a lot younger than that than Chicon was and I don't suppose we know that either in the

390
00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:23,600
 demographic data.

391
00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:28,160
 But I think, I mean, I'm an old person and I think having lots of young people at the

392
00:23:28,160 --> 00:23:31,600
 world con is really, really good because it gives me hope that there will still be world

393
00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:36,040
 cons for me to go to where I am too old and frail to actually help run them in any way.

394
00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:38,680
 Do we know what the one body count was for Glasgow?

395
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:42,320
 A touch over 7,000.

396
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:47,760
 It is notable that that is bigger than Dublin and bigger than London and probably smaller

397
00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:49,200
 than Helsinki.

398
00:23:49,200 --> 00:23:54,080
 I think because Dublin was a bit more overcrowded, Dublin felt bigger but it's very hard to

399
00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:58,000
 live in between oh, there's 6,000 people in this building versus the 7,000 people in

400
00:23:58,000 --> 00:23:59,000
 this building.

401
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:00,000
 It's a lot of people.

402
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:05,040
 Glasgow never felt crowded because it had a lot of program space which it was putting a

403
00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:07,480
 lot of people into all of the time.

404
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:08,480
 It was very noticeable.

405
00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:09,480
 I was in the dealers room.

406
00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:14,960
 It was very notable that in those 30 minute gaps between program items, the dealers were

407
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:19,200
 filled up and then it went to what Ebbton flowed and that was because lots and lots

408
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:21,240
 and lots of people were in program.

409
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:24,600
 The toilet queues during the half hour changeover were sometimes horrendous.

410
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:28,400
 Yeah, lots of toilets in hall 4 and 5, not so many on the con course.

411
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:31,160
 That's probably not useful information until they do it again.

412
00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:36,520
 My impression is that Helsinki counted slightly differently so I am unsure how their numbers

413
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:41,800
 compare and this is something conventions often do where it can get very difficult to

414
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:44,880
 actually work out the same number for two conventions which is one of those things that

415
00:24:44,880 --> 00:24:50,560
 sounds daft but if you don't deduplicate in the same way you can arrive at different

416
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:51,640
 conclusions.

417
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:56,480
 It is way harder than you think to count this number even for quite small conventions it

418
00:24:56,480 --> 00:25:01,280
 can be quite difficult and for worldcones it's really hard.

419
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:05,000
 I don't think Helsinki did, so there's a note on the long list.

420
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:11,320
 Okay, so no, there is a big long list of conventions, workons and their attendances with lots of

421
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:12,320
 footnotes.

422
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,760
 We will link to it but it is also in your super near book if you have one.

423
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:21,960
 It is also on the website not yet updated past 2021 so whoever is doing the website you

424
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:24,000
 probably want to put some numbers on there.

425
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:28,120
 Anyway it does say for worldcon 75 which was Helsinki, there are a lot of attending membership

426
00:25:28,120 --> 00:25:33,080
 sold at half price which was basically because they had a strong discount for first time

427
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:38,040
 worldcon members and I think Glasgow had the same so I think that is a fair comparison.

428
00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:42,560
 Glasgow has gone through and deduplicated day memberships and the reason I say I think

429
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:46,160
 Helsinki might have done it differently is I don't think Helsinki did that but I might

430
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:47,160
 be wrong.

431
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:51,520
 So Glasgow is deduplicated day memberships because that is quite important because Glasgow

432
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:55,320
 you could buy five day memberships for Glasgow and it would be cheaper than a full attending

433
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:56,320
 membership.

434
00:25:56,320 --> 00:26:00,760
 So yeah I think because the way gaming cons very often do it is they report just the total

435
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:06,400
 number of days sold which is then gets really complicated because if you've got it's basically

436
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:09,200
 just it's basically just a messlessness.

437
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:15,240
 Yes so one of the reasons why people don't think our traditional SF conventions are very

438
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:20,800
 large is that most of our members come for the entire weekend and we then compare ourselves

439
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:26,640
 to gate shows which just count the number of emissions per day and so it looks like it's

440
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:29,880
 for a worldcon it looks like it would be five times as big but of course it's not.

441
00:26:29,880 --> 00:26:32,560
 No it's probably something more like three times as big.

442
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:37,480
 It is also worth noting that some gate shows do try to deduplicate so they will give you

443
00:26:37,480 --> 00:26:43,160
 the number of uniques which would be the equivalent of our attendees.

444
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:45,960
 So where in overall does this sit?

445
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:49,600
 I think it was almost certainly the fourth largest worldcon.

446
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:52,320
 It's still pretty damn good like that's the thing right?

447
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:58,040
 I don't know if I think that it's important to be biggest so I would argue that the number

448
00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:03,000
 of new attendees is more important than the number of total attendees because I think that's

449
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,200
 the number that tells you more about the health of the community like and how we're growing

450
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:07,200
 it.

451
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:12,680
 Do we want to talk a little bit about registration and how it worked and and queues and back checks?

452
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:17,280
 My registration was fine but I did it on Wednesday evening.

453
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:20,960
 There were some queues at some times but I don't think they were massive.

454
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,680
 The big queues were to get into the SEC because of bag checks every morning.

455
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:27,880
 I don't particularly blame the SEC for having bag checks.

456
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:30,600
 We did not have exclusive use of the site.

457
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:32,960
 The badge checkers were always very nice to me.

458
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:36,960
 There was one bag checker who was a bit RC but everyone else was lovely.

459
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:42,080
 And there was at least one convention member that got banned from the SEC by deciding to

460
00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:45,280
 have a bit of a joke with a bag checker in a really daft way.

461
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:47,080
 So don't do that.

462
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:51,360
 If people want to check your bags, if people want to pat you down, it's like the cricket

463
00:27:51,360 --> 00:27:55,360
 right, you know, just understand that bag checks are part of what you do in order to

464
00:27:55,360 --> 00:27:57,680
 go into love, large events in the UK.

465
00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:03,920
 And also like everyone involved knows that they're not stopping anything but you just

466
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:07,400
 don't say so and it's fine.

467
00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:12,600
 Like if they had properly been analyzing what people were bringing in, it would have been

468
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:16,600
 a massive problem and they're not, they're doing it to appear that they are and we just

469
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:20,480
 all need to be okay with that and move on with our lives because complaining about it

470
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:21,840
 doesn't make it quicker.

471
00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:28,160
 They're discouraging people for bringing in beer and also weapons and even if they discourage

472
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:30,920
 people a bit, I think that's fine.

473
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:33,880
 Yeah, they just don't have a courtesy look and then squeeze your bag and if there was

474
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:36,040
 anything particularly solid in it, they'd have a look.

475
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:38,280
 If it's not, then it's like, okay, you've got a jumper in there.

476
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:39,280
 Come on.

477
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:42,240
 There was a life hack where Liz and I discovered towards the end of the convention that if you

478
00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:46,120
 were carrying a very full shoulder bag and a tote bag with a fanzine in it, they would

479
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:50,280
 look in the tote bag, see your fanzine and wave you straight through because that is

480
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:51,280
 secure.

481
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:55,200
 So the number of times I just got through super quickly by carrying my strategically

482
00:28:55,200 --> 00:29:00,880
 loaded tote bag was quite high by the end because I was like, this is a great ways.

483
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:02,640
 But ultimately they're all just trying to do their job.

484
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:03,640
 They're all, they're all there.

485
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:04,640
 They were friendly.

486
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:05,640
 It was fine.

487
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:09,480
 I think it came as a surprise to the convention that there were going to be bag checks.

488
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:11,680
 So I feel a bit sorry for them.

489
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:13,440
 That must have been unpleasant news.

490
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:19,060
 There were clearly a couple of SEC things that surprised the convention at the last

491
00:29:19,060 --> 00:29:20,060
 month.

492
00:29:20,060 --> 00:29:24,520
 Like, for example, they'd planned to chalk the outside route on the ground and they were

493
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:27,420
 told they couldn't do that like on the Wednesday.

494
00:29:27,420 --> 00:29:30,400
 Had to take all the chalking out of the program.

495
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:35,280
 I saw them washing off the chalk and that was a really good idea.

496
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:39,800
 So it was a bit, it seemed a bit silly, but, oh well, good idea on the conventions part,

497
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:40,800
 I think.

498
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:41,800
 Yeah.

499
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:48,360
 Well, I have a couple of very itty bitty tiny criticisms in the way that we do.

500
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:52,320
 Firstly, my badge said England.

501
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:53,520
 I don't mind.

502
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:56,640
 I think of myself as English and British and European.

503
00:29:56,640 --> 00:29:59,240
 There were definitely people I spoke to at the convention at England or their badge who

504
00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:00,800
 do not think of themselves as English.

505
00:30:00,800 --> 00:30:02,560
 And I was a bit like, yeah, okay.

506
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:05,960
 And I was a bit confused because previous World Gons I've been to have had the name of

507
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:06,960
 your city.

508
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:11,680
 Like, so at Chicago, I think my badge said Newcastle, Bonstein, UK.

509
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:13,080
 And I would have preferred that.

510
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:16,800
 So I think previous World Gons I've asked before printing and I think that would have

511
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:17,800
 been good.

512
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:19,720
 But I do also wonder whether.

513
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:27,400
 So I was staff and that meant I had to go to a different desk, which was the solutions

514
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:28,400
 desk.

515
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:32,320
 The solutions desk, which was one person and the person in front of me actually had a

516
00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:33,320
 problem with their membership.

517
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:38,400
 And I mean, I had to queue for a very long time and I was a bit like, this seems weird

518
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:42,080
 because I understand staff, but I don't understand why staff parties weren't just a separate

519
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:43,080
 pickup.

520
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:44,080
 I don't really don't get that.

521
00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:48,280
 And I don't get why it was merged with a troubleshooting function.

522
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:51,680
 Those are my two very small criticisms of registration.

523
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:55,960
 Liz has said further down, but the info desk needs to be in the concourse, which is where

524
00:30:55,960 --> 00:31:03,480
 it's been for the last two World Gons rather than in Hall 4, because it was in Hall 4,

525
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:07,640
 everyone is going to ask the people who are in the concourse.

526
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:11,360
 I think it needs to have an outpost there during registration because I was doing program

527
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:15,440
 participant package pickup on Thursday.

528
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:18,960
 And basically, if you are a helpful looking desk across from registration, people come

529
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:23,080
 over and ask you all kinds of questions that we cannot answer.

530
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:26,320
 And so we will have a bash at answering them because we are nice people, but a lot of them

531
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:27,320
 were like, we don't know.

532
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:28,560
 And then it was like, where's the info desk?

533
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:30,840
 And that point I was like, actually, I don't know.

534
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:31,920
 Maybe you could look at a map.

535
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:32,920
 There weren't any maps.

536
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:35,160
 So that was another thing we'll get to later.

537
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:36,160
 But that was a bit of a thing.

538
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:37,160
 We really needed a big info.

539
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:39,640
 Then if someone wanders on and goes, well, I'm not registered.

540
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:42,520
 How do I register or how can I do this or whatever?

541
00:31:42,520 --> 00:31:44,200
 There wasn't anywhere obvious them to go.

542
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:46,640
 So they go and stand in like the solutions queue.

543
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:49,000
 And that was really partly for staff.

544
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:50,560
 Patch pickup, which just seems strange.

545
00:31:50,560 --> 00:31:55,240
 I want to say, I thought in general, there were a couple of things I really liked about

546
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:56,240
 registration.

547
00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:59,200
 I very much liked how you picked up your badge and then there were other bits that you went

548
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:00,600
 to for your other bits.

549
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:02,760
 I very much liked that Liz was there.

550
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:05,120
 Then our 10 would have Liz there again.

551
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:06,120
 I was like, Liz.

552
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:10,720
 Yeah, it was so happy when I went to the program desk and it was Liz.

553
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:14,240
 And I don't think that might not have been quite so obvious at the time because I was

554
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:18,440
 kind of stressed and tired and wanting my pins and things.

555
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:19,440
 But yeah.

556
00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:25,320
 Yes, it is also quite tricky to do program participant registration when we have to keep

557
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:26,680
 going out and holding people.

558
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:30,480
 Oh, Liz, did you have to hug too many people, Liz?

559
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:31,480
 Yes.

560
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:33,880
 And by too many people, I mean, jump.

561
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:35,680
 Oh, hang on.

562
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:37,080
 Well, you didn't have to come out for me.

563
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:39,240
 I went round.

564
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:42,960
 I was like, I really want to hug Liz, but I can see that she's working and it would be

565
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:44,800
 like petting a guide dog.

566
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:47,520
 I am not going to do this.

567
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:49,960
 It was just it was very well laid out in general.

568
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:53,280
 I mean, my mind and it pick I mean, the mind and it picks we have about like help desk

569
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:58,120
 and like people looking for information, notwithstanding in general, it felt very good

570
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:01,640
 to me and it felt like a space where you could move forward.

571
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:07,720
 I did not stand in the very large queue, but I saw some of the queue entertainment and

572
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:13,360
 I want to give a shout out to the person and I will put a link to he's got like a page for

573
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:14,680
 his cop late on the internet.

574
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:20,000
 But there was a quest giver who had a yellow exclamation mark above his head and would

575
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:23,680
 give you quests in the queue and he was brilliant.

576
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:30,000
 And if you did the quest, you got like a class and a little book of more quests and like that

577
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:31,760
 was very that was very good.

578
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:36,560
 I believe Cardinal Cox, who is peacocks who runs the Peter of Science Fiction group, I

579
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:39,560
 believe he was reading poems in the queue.

580
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:41,720
 So like, yeah, I think I think the queue entertainment was good.

581
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:43,640
 It looked like the queue was moving quickly.

582
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:44,640
 Toves was in the queue.

583
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:46,280
 I like tobs to know 10 queue.

584
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:48,800
 There were queue ribbons and they were different each day.

585
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:51,720
 They had things like Deja Q if you already had a queue ribbon.

586
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:57,400
 And I didn't queue for apart from like a very brief queue at registration on my first day

587
00:33:57,400 --> 00:33:58,400
 and then bag checks.

588
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:02,400
 I don't think I queued for anything all weekend.

589
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:06,200
 I will say, I mean, I think the queue, it looks like it sounds like the queue entertainment

590
00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:07,200
 was quite good.

591
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:10,280
 I also didn't stand in a big enough queue to get queue entertainment apart from once when

592
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:13,640
 I was standing in a queue to get some soup and it was not very long queue and someone came

593
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:17,120
 along to do queue entertainment and actually delayed people at the front of the queue from

594
00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:20,040
 doing anything because they were still doing the queue entertainment.

595
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:23,920
 So please don't do it if the queue is only like six people were good.

596
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:27,960
 I think in general, I mean, obviously there's going to be some queues.

597
00:34:27,960 --> 00:34:32,120
 There's going to be queues for popular program items, especially popular program items that

598
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:34,040
 are not being streamed.

599
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:37,200
 And there's only so much you could do about that, right?

600
00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:38,440
 So I think they did a good job with it.

601
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:47,440
 I don't think the queues felt much less bad than at Dublin or London to my not very queuing

602
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:48,440
 perception.

603
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:53,000
 Yeah, I mean, I think Helsinki and Dublin were the high watermarks of queuing.

604
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:54,800
 Oh, and Helsinki, yes.

605
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:55,960
 Helsinki was big.

606
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:56,960
 Yeah.

607
00:34:56,960 --> 00:35:01,640
 I did queued Helsinki quite a lot, which considering how little program I go to is startling.

608
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:02,640
 Yeah.

609
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:06,400
 And like, yeah, certainly my perception of queuing was that it was better than Dublin or at

610
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:07,400
 London.

611
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:08,400
 Sorry, I agree with you there.

612
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:10,400
 And I was thinking, sorry, I agree.

613
00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:12,440
 I mean, I do, I will say, I do approve.

614
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:15,840
 I think in London, it kind of caught us all by surprise because we just didn't expect

615
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:19,520
 to see that many queues at least conventions are now like, yes, we might have queues.

616
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:20,520
 We have a plan.

617
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:24,240
 Well, because ultimately if a thousand people rock up and want to speak to five people who

618
00:35:24,240 --> 00:35:28,480
 are sitting behind a desk, there is going to be a problem there because it is difficult

619
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:33,040
 to think of a way of solving that problem without there being some sort of a queue.

620
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:38,080
 So I do think, I do think being realistic about the fact that we are going to need to

621
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:39,920
 deal with the fact that we'll be queued.

622
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:43,680
 Do you, do you want my professional experience on Qbusting?

623
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:47,560
 If you've got a lot of people arriving at once to do something where there are only a few

624
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:50,560
 number of people to do it, there are ways that you can deal with that to not involve

625
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:53,880
 queues or they don't involve people standing in line.

626
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:55,480
 They don't involve that aspect of queues.

627
00:35:55,480 --> 00:35:57,800
 What you do is you give them numbers to come back at a particular time.

628
00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:01,080
 Yeah, but do you think people who arrive at 10am on Thursday morning, I don't want you

629
00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:04,680
 to say here's a ticket to come back in an indefinite amount of time when your queue number

630
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:05,680
 comes up?

631
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:06,680
 Indeed.

632
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:11,040
 But I mean, even so, you can't, but you know, there are, there are many different sorts

633
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:15,280
 of queue busting techniques that can be used to break down a big queue so that it doesn't

634
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:19,880
 look like as large a queue as it is that you use in professional environments where if

635
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:24,080
 you had a queue of a thousand people and five people dealing with them, you would get fights.

636
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:29,480
 I have experienced the model of queue busting that Alison describes when I queued at the

637
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:34,200
 Croydon Home Office for his Banyard's immigration policy and I can confirm I'd much rather

638
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:38,600
 stand in a queue because sitting and panicking is actually worse than standing and panicking

639
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:39,600
 in my experience.

640
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:46,000
 #NotAtAllAblist There was also, it is vital to say, an accessibility, like if you had

641
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:50,000
 access needs, you were bumped to the top of that fucking queue and that is right and proper.

642
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:54,120
 Gotta go, there's a whole thing about some, some people don't know if they've got an

643
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:57,920
 access need or not and I think I would encourage those people to say, yes, you have access

644
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:01,600
 need, like somebody who's just trashed their leg of foreshadowing.

645
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:07,120
 Well, I'm dyspraxic and I'm trying to get better about sitting down on trains because I nearly

646
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:10,720
 fall over a lot and one day I'm actually going to fall over and I'm trying to get better

647
00:37:10,720 --> 00:37:15,840
 about being like, no, you have balance issues, it is silly for you not to take a seat on a

648
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:16,840
 Metro.

649
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:20,720
 The beginning of my leg story started with about four months ago, my Apple Watch started

650
00:37:20,720 --> 00:37:23,520
 saying, you appear to have some balance problems.

651
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:24,520
 Oh no.

652
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:27,400
 Since well, I've fallen over a lot, including all the Thursday of Worldcon.

653
00:37:27,400 --> 00:37:29,800
 Though, I mean, I did trip over a massive thing.

654
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:35,360
 So I spent a lot of the early part of Worldcon in huge pain listeners, which was not fun

655
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:44,360
 but gave me lots of interesting endorphins.

656
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:46,680
 Let's talk about the actual program that was here.

657
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:47,680
 Yeah, okay.

658
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:51,680
 So we mentioned this earlier, half an hour gaps are good.

659
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:57,040
 I like, I am now of the opinion that if you are a convention and you are putting 60 minute

660
00:37:57,040 --> 00:38:03,000
 items in 60 minutes lots or even 45 minute items in 60 minutes lots, you, I just think

661
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:05,600
 I can get in the sea now.

662
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:11,900
 I am full on the 60 minute in a 90 minute slot train and I am welcoming all comers to

663
00:38:11,900 --> 00:38:13,200
 buy tickets and join me.

664
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:14,200
 You get a funny hat.

665
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:19,080
 I feel like if you're running a single stream program with a single stream in a bar or a

666
00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:22,000
 single stream in a workshop in a bar, I think you're probably all right.

667
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,920
 Still, still have your program items in 60 minutes lots actually.

668
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:31,280
 I think it's Eastercon and above size where you need to give people space to get around,

669
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:32,600
 get a drink water.

670
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:34,480
 But newer people to the community.

671
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:40,360
 I started going to Eastcon in 2007 and this has been an innovation that has kind of become

672
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:42,960
 more and more prevalent during my time in fandom.

673
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:48,480
 I think the first time I saw it was 2011 Eastercon where no offense to anyone involved with

674
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:49,480
 that Eastercon.

675
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:52,160
 But I think the problem was they did not have enough program to do 60 minute items in 60

676
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:53,160
 minutes lots.

677
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:55,040
 So they did 90 minutes lots to make it look a bit better.

678
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:59,320
 But actually, I think every time I have seen it, it has measurably improved my experience

679
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:00,320
 of a convention.

680
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:05,680
 So I am glad that this is an innovation that has happened over the last 15 years.

681
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:09,880
 I feel like the more people you know and the more people who are going to catch you

682
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:15,280
 between program items to say, "Oh, John, let's have a quick chat about something."

683
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:19,720
 The more you like this innovation, I suspect that if I was at my not so much the world

684
00:39:19,720 --> 00:39:23,520
 come where I'm getting around as useful and long queues for the toilet and everything.

685
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:26,960
 But at Eastercon, I feel like if I was at my very first convention, I would be like,

686
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:28,200
 "What are all these gaps?"

687
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:29,560
 So it's not any.

688
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:31,960
 If you're new writing, I like them.

689
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:33,240
 I think they're good.

690
00:39:33,240 --> 00:39:35,760
 But then as you know, Bob, I would like that to be less programmed.

691
00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:39,160
 So 30 minute gaps is part of their being less programmed.

692
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:40,560
 So I'm a forward for it.

693
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:44,520
 Yeah, I mean, I don't think you would have wanted to see class go with less program.

694
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:46,400
 That was exactly what I was going to say.

695
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:50,240
 Because then those half hour busy slots would be, you know, the half an hour that were

696
00:39:50,240 --> 00:39:52,760
 busy in the dealer's room would be all the time.

697
00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:54,680
 I have no problem with that.

698
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:58,880
 Speaking of somebody who had tables in the dealer's room, a foreshadowing across which

699
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:02,480
 we took a great deal of money, more people in the dealer's room would have been great.

700
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:06,440
 Yeah, but it's more people in the dealer's room, it's more people in the concourse.

701
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:11,000
 There was a massive difference between the queues for like food during panels and between

702
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:12,000
 them.

703
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:14,120
 So I think that kind of kept things a bit more manageable.

704
00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:17,680
 I mean, I think we're smaller con, you can still do 75 in a 90 slot.

705
00:40:17,680 --> 00:40:18,680
 That works okay.

706
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:23,320
 And I think it was nine worlds who used to do 75 in an hour and 15 minute slot.

707
00:40:23,320 --> 00:40:28,480
 Sorry, 75 in an hour and 45 minutes slot, which I don't like because I can't do maths

708
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:29,760
 with quarter hours.

709
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:34,560
 Now that seems like the worst of all possible worlds to me and that can also get in the

710
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:35,560
 sea.

711
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:37,880
 Also very long program items.

712
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:42,760
 Quite a lot of panels actually work better if they are tight 50 minute panels, but you

713
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:43,760
 know, it's okay.

714
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:49,360
 So, and I did want to say I was sort of keeping vague track of this through the week.

715
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:56,160
 And I think every program I was in was more full than it was empty and it was often sort

716
00:40:56,160 --> 00:40:58,400
 of 80 or 90% full.

717
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:01,880
 So and there were a couple which were extremely full.

718
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:08,400
 The other thing I think is it is not clear to me if you make their be less program, I

719
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:12,640
 don't think what happens is people are like, Oh, I will be quite happy because I'll just

720
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:13,640
 be in the dealer's room.

721
00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:17,400
 I think what people do is try and go to the program that is don't get in and then complain.

722
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:21,560
 And so I think you probably have a lot more ill feeling and then the people complaining

723
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:24,640
 are going around the dealers being grumpy and they're not spending all their money because

724
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:25,640
 they're grumpy.

725
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:29,720
 And I think what you want is happy people more than you want lots of people.

726
00:41:29,720 --> 00:41:30,720
 So I did go to it.

727
00:41:30,720 --> 00:41:33,880
 I was on a couple of program items that did not attract a lot of people.

728
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:40,560
 And I think we could maybe have done more to surface, you know, the fan program and why

729
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:41,720
 you might care.

730
00:41:41,720 --> 00:41:43,080
 I mean, two people care.

731
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:44,280
 I guess never really cares.

732
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:46,040
 I mean, I guess that's a question.

733
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:50,080
 What there were two items of fanzies at this entire convention and neither of them got

734
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:54,280
 very many people to them because all the people who really liked fanzies were in the bar.

735
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:59,560
 So you know, but in fact, one of the things we did with fanzies was to have an instant

736
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:05,920
 fanzine workshop, which was like, Oh, the very definition of a of a cursed program item

737
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:08,480
 that was very difficult to get together.

738
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:11,800
 And in the end, we just kind of sat in the fancy lounge and said, right guys, right,

739
00:42:11,800 --> 00:42:14,040
 fanzies stick to this discord, we'll put it to the thing.

740
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:18,360
 And it ended up as an actual fanzied and woof, which is not bad in places.

741
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:20,760
 And I think that's that's evidence that you.

742
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:23,160
 And so some people were like, Oh, no, this is great.

743
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:28,040
 So maybe the way to get people into fancy fandom is what is a time in tiny workshops.

744
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:33,320
 I mean, I was going to say imagine that the rooms in the SEC in the grandplow is an extol

745
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:34,320
 one more modular.

746
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:35,320
 You could join more of them together.

747
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:37,000
 You could have a different set.

748
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:41,040
 I think it's you use like you could put a fancy item in a bigger room.

749
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:44,160
 And I think you're still not going to get a giant audience for it in 2024.

750
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:45,160
 So that's the thing.

751
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:48,560
 So it's like, there are certain things that you can't, certain things you kind of can't

752
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:52,520
 cut from the program despite them having kind of extremely niche appeal.

753
00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:55,440
 Like if there were no items on fanzines, I guarantee someone would have been, why they

754
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:58,200
 know items on fanzines at this world, calm.

755
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:01,640
 And if we had said that's because no one comes to the items on fanzines.

756
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:05,120
 So putting in an item on something which is vastly more popular, that's maybe not the

757
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:06,280
 way to be doing it.

758
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:10,880
 I'm just saying if we did cut the program down, then it may not turn into a smaller program

759
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:13,400
 of items that appeal to Alison.

760
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:16,680
 This is an argument we've had before on the podcast.

761
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:20,840
 But yes, I keep coming back to I think Alison wants the program to be smaller.

762
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:24,720
 And I think all the things I would cut first would make her punch me.

763
00:43:24,720 --> 00:43:28,760
 And this is a real tension with this argument because I quite like that we have the fanzine

764
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:29,760
 panels.

765
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:33,840
 But if you put a gun to my head and said reduce the program, I would get rid of the fanzine

766
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:37,560
 panels and that I love fanzines.

767
00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:41,520
 But we were part of the problem guys because we were a fan-ish program.

768
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:43,080
 We were a fan-ish program.

769
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:46,160
 But we were streamed and recorded unlike much fan-ish program.

770
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:50,840
 What you need to do Alison is start a fanzine history podcast.

771
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:56,120
 No, I think Joe and Edie have done a very, very good job of that with the fanac.org

772
00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:57,400
 YouTube channel.

773
00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:04,240
 And I think probably in the very next episode, I need to plug the fact that one of the upcoming

774
00:44:04,240 --> 00:44:06,840
 things is the secret history of Plochter.

775
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:09,960
 Basically, somebody has that covered and they're doing it very, very well.

776
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:13,400
 Joe, Zichlurry and Edie Stern for those who are not familiar.

777
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:19,080
 I have fanac.org and they are mostly, I think the podcasts are mostly Edie's work, but I

778
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:21,280
 wouldn't like to say that for definite.

779
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:25,960
 And it's a YouTube channel which means it is eligible for your fan cast vote people.

780
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:27,200
 And indeed was in the longest.

781
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:30,560
 Okay, we've recommended two this episode.

782
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:37,680
 On the subject of program, we did a table talk and I thought that was quite nice.

783
00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:41,600
 I don't know what percentage of the program was table talks.

784
00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:45,080
 Yeah, so there were a thousand items, but quite a lot of them were things like table

785
00:44:45,080 --> 00:44:46,080
 talks.

786
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:49,520
 150 table talks out of 1000 basically, so 15%.

787
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:54,400
 So they offered John a table talk and then he said no, let's do an octa thought one and

788
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:55,400
 it was great.

789
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:56,400
 We were oversubscribed.

790
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:59,760
 We loved talking to the people who came to it.

791
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:01,160
 We said this on the live.

792
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:04,400
 But I think like it is tricky, isn't it?

793
00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:10,960
 Because I would, I think next time, I really liked doing the table talk and it was really

794
00:45:10,960 --> 00:45:12,920
 lovely to me, everyone who came.

795
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:18,640
 They were eight people table talks, which means if there are three of you, they're five

796
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:24,920
 listener table talks, but table talks are normally 10 and they can sometimes go to 12

797
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:29,360
 and we would have been perfectly happy with a 12 person table talk in which case we probably

798
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:30,960
 wouldn't have been oversubscribed.

799
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:31,960
 So hmm.

800
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:36,280
 Although then we might have had one of the people who said I will go to any table talk

801
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:39,760
 that's undersubscribed, randomly turning up and being very confused, which would have

802
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:40,760
 been quite fun.

803
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:44,360
 But it's okay, we just appointed them at our WUSFUS business meeting special and then

804
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:45,360
 they'd be assaulted.

805
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:52,240
 Yeah, so table talks or cafe clatches or literary beers or all of those things are kind of complicated

806
00:45:52,240 --> 00:45:56,160
 because you, most conventions have a few people who will get hundreds of people coming to

807
00:45:56,160 --> 00:46:02,080
 them and then a load of people who will get, not for many people coming to them and actually

808
00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:05,320
 managing that balance is invariably quite difficult.

809
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:07,280
 I think Glasgow did a great job of it.

810
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:12,680
 I think the thing where they said, oh people can get random, can go to a random table talk

811
00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:15,960
 in this time slot was great and I hope that the people who did that had some extremely

812
00:46:15,960 --> 00:46:18,040
 interesting conversations as I bet they did.

813
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:20,560
 If you did some of that right in, because I'm really interested.

814
00:46:20,560 --> 00:46:24,200
 There were something like a thousand, we're going to keep using the number of thousand

815
00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:26,800
 programs I think there were actually something like 960.

816
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:33,200
 Liz has noted that about 250 of those were table talk signings, tours, strolls and meetups.

817
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:37,520
 That means there are about 750 panels, talks, etc.

818
00:46:37,520 --> 00:46:42,000
 And of those, about a third are available for replay.

819
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:49,200
 And that corresponds to EasterCon where I think about 85% of their program was available

820
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:51,680
 for catch up after the convention.

821
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:55,800
 But it's quite a lot lower than levitation.

822
00:46:55,800 --> 00:47:00,240
 I think this is tricky because on the one hand, obviously I was at the convention and

823
00:47:00,240 --> 00:47:01,240
 I could have gone to things.

824
00:47:01,240 --> 00:47:04,360
 But on the other hand, there were things I did not get to see because I was busy that

825
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:07,360
 have not been streamed and I am sad about.

826
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:10,680
 And I do think, I don't know, there's like a couple of things where I'm like, why was

827
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:11,680
 that not streamed?

828
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:15,360
 And I sympathize with, obviously, there will be people who do not want to be streamed,

829
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:19,480
 but I cannot help but suspect that part of it is that nothing in the crown plaza was

830
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:21,440
 being streamed at all.

831
00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:29,520
 And I do think that it is a shame that not more was able to be streamed because I suspect

832
00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:35,240
 that my suspicion is that it's a lot more to do with how much they were able to stream

833
00:47:35,240 --> 00:47:37,040
 rather than how much people opted out of.

834
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:38,040
 Does that make sense?

835
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:39,040
 Have I said that well?

836
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:41,360
 I think it's a mixture of those two, isn't it?

837
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:45,840
 So partly it's that some rooms weren't streamed and therefore weren't recorded and therefore

838
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:47,720
 weren't on replay.

839
00:47:47,720 --> 00:47:56,400
 And the other thing is that the permissions for streaming and recording were very much

840
00:47:56,400 --> 00:48:00,880
 opt in rather than opt out.

841
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:06,960
 I mean, opting in is fine, but I think it was possible to go through the programming system

842
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:12,400
 without ever being confronted by a box saying we're intending to stream all this, please

843
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:14,040
 say yes.

844
00:48:14,040 --> 00:48:19,040
 And I think so they ended up having to send providers to people saying make sure you've

845
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:22,320
 checked your streaming preferences in your profile.

846
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:28,840
 If people didn't do that, they were noted as not streaming.

847
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:30,960
 So both of those things I think led to it.

848
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:35,360
 I think you are leaning much too high on the people opted out to streaming rather than

849
00:48:35,360 --> 00:48:40,000
 whole rooms were not streamed because I think nothing was streamed in the crown plaza and

850
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:41,880
 the crown plaza had a lot of small rooms.

851
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:45,760
 So I think also maybe they didn't stream forth and Garl are the ones in that armadillo.

852
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:46,960
 I'm not sure about that.

853
00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:51,320
 Well they didn't stream die and I can't, given the panel, I can't imagine any of them

854
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:52,320
 would have opted out.

855
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:56,320
 Yeah, I mean, if you want to figure this out, you can figure this out by essentially you

856
00:48:56,320 --> 00:49:02,880
 filter on replay and room and you could figure all this out, right?

857
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:05,240
 There's nothing streamed from Castle.

858
00:49:05,240 --> 00:49:07,400
 There's nothing streamed from forth.

859
00:49:07,400 --> 00:49:08,960
 There's nothing streamed from Garl are sorry.

860
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:13,040
 If you weren't there, these are all the different rooms like there, whereas like a lot of the

861
00:49:13,040 --> 00:49:14,480
 ones from the SEC are streamed.

862
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:21,120
 And I also was one of the people who went through and made sure replay was off for people who

863
00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:22,360
 were requested not to.

864
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:24,320
 And that was not a huge number.

865
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:29,160
 I think it is very much more that because of the room sizes, even though the ones in

866
00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:33,200
 the crown plaza were smaller and maybe were kind of low attendance panels, they ended up

867
00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:37,600
 not being streamed, whereas the bigger rooms that probably in the SEC did get streamed.

868
00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:41,480
 I mean, this is a slight side point, but what I also think is it's amazing how fast we

869
00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:46,880
 have gone from nothing at World Cons is ever streamed or recorded apart from the Hugos to

870
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:52,880
 we are now expecting like everything and when it's only 30, 40% of program items available

871
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:55,720
 for catch up later, we're like, well, why isn't all of them?

872
00:49:55,720 --> 00:49:57,240
 So it's a big shift.

873
00:49:57,240 --> 00:50:01,440
 Okay, so in a few years where people are like, what do COVID ever do for us?

874
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:02,600
 Just remember this.

875
00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:04,120
 I think we've said that before, right?

876
00:50:04,120 --> 00:50:09,280
 I think one of the there's not many silver linings to the pandemic, but remote working

877
00:50:09,280 --> 00:50:14,320
 and things being available online much more freely, like are definitely two of them.

878
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:16,760
 At this point, I'm going to say no, it's amazing.

879
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:20,960
 The fact that we've got 252 items available for replay is fabulous.

880
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:22,360
 It is thrilling.

881
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:28,560
 I am just looking slightly sadly at the fact that we designed a model for conversation.

882
00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:33,600
 You know, we had a vision and then JT designed it and implemented it and then ran it at

883
00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:38,960
 levitation using RC specifically knowing that it could for what is actually quite a small

884
00:50:38,960 --> 00:50:44,360
 proportion of a World Cons total budget be rolled out to almost every piece of formal

885
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:50,480
 programming in every room, including the crampypaster and armadillo rooms for not an enormous amount

886
00:50:50,480 --> 00:50:51,480
 of money.

887
00:50:51,480 --> 00:50:56,760
 And obviously they did put streaming into the village for the business meeting, but using

888
00:50:56,760 --> 00:50:58,240
 that model.

889
00:50:58,240 --> 00:51:01,040
 And the World Cons decided not to run with that option.

890
00:51:01,040 --> 00:51:03,640
 But I think that is a bit of a shame.

891
00:51:03,640 --> 00:51:05,480
 I just want everything and I want it now.

892
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:06,960
 Please have a pretty day to Darwin's.

893
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:07,960
 That's me.

894
00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:11,160
 So on a personal note, there are panels that I did not get to that I really wish had been

895
00:51:11,160 --> 00:51:13,080
 streamed and like that's selfish.

896
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:14,800
 That's a selfish reason to be annoyed.

897
00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:18,160
 But like there was one on gods and faith in fantasy, which I really wanted to see, which

898
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:23,320
 didn't get to decolonizing games, which I didn't get to see.

899
00:51:23,320 --> 00:51:25,360
 I don't think that's on replay.

900
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:28,720
 But because obviously it was in a like it was not on replay.

901
00:51:28,720 --> 00:51:33,560
 I was on a panel on safety tools and RPGs, which I thought was really good.

902
00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:36,160
 And like about half of the audience had never used safety tools.

903
00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:39,080
 So like it was actually really nice to see how much interest there wasn't learning.

904
00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:40,440
 But that's not on replay.

905
00:51:40,440 --> 00:51:43,080
 And I would have loved to have been able to point people at that.

906
00:51:43,080 --> 00:51:47,000
 Claire and Españez panel on first time World Con attendees isn't there.

907
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:50,080
 And I really wouldn't have minded rewatching that because I loved it.

908
00:51:50,080 --> 00:51:54,440
 And then also the die panel that I saw and picked last episode isn't.

909
00:51:54,440 --> 00:51:56,720
 It's probably indicative of psychology, right?

910
00:51:56,720 --> 00:51:59,960
 Because it's very easy to see the things you're missing out on or not.

911
00:51:59,960 --> 00:52:01,560
 See the things that you're getting.

912
00:52:01,560 --> 00:52:05,760
 And I think you are right that we have done a lot better than we did at any point pre-pandemic.

913
00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:08,840
 There's kind of two things here, which is firstly I wish I was able to see all these

914
00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:09,840
 things.

915
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:12,960
 And secondly I wish a British World Con had been like, no, this is how you do it.

916
00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:13,960
 Come on.

917
00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:18,560
 But no, but I am mindful of the fact that as Liz says, like it is still astounding that

918
00:52:18,560 --> 00:52:25,280
 there's effectively one could say there's enough panels on replay that you could run

919
00:52:25,280 --> 00:52:28,200
 a whole nother convention with them.

920
00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:30,120
 So we've got something to announce.

921
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:31,120
 We have a project.

922
00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:32,320
 You have something to announce.

923
00:52:32,320 --> 00:52:34,520
 Do not wrote me into your project.

924
00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:36,480
 We are running a small convention.

925
00:52:36,480 --> 00:52:41,120
 It is called Glasgow 2024 back to our futures.

926
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:46,000
 And it will be on the 1st of November and it is online and we will have no program whatsoever

927
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:52,440
 because the entire program will be provided by the 252 items on Glasgow replay.

928
00:52:52,440 --> 00:52:56,880
 You have to be a Glasgow member to come to this and attending member of Glasgow.

929
00:52:56,880 --> 00:53:03,400
 All attendees 16 and over are welcome and you sign up through the Glasgow portal and at

930
00:53:03,400 --> 00:53:05,840
 the moment it's just an expression of interest.

931
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:09,760
 At some point there will be an actual link in the portal that will get you into the convention.

932
00:53:09,760 --> 00:53:15,360
 As well as the replay we are also going to have a Discord where you can chat and some

933
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:21,360
 Zoom rooms where you can hang out in bars and do little things like parties and meetups

934
00:53:21,360 --> 00:53:22,360
 and stuff like that.

935
00:53:22,360 --> 00:53:27,960
 "Team is me and John and not Liz because I only asked her three times."

936
00:53:27,960 --> 00:53:32,360
 And she said no very firmly each time because this has good boundaries and was like this

937
00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:35,280
 doesn't sound like any fun at all so I want to cover log and kavech.

938
00:53:35,280 --> 00:53:36,520
 Is that right Liz?

939
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:41,840
 No, I think I said it sounds fun but if the idea is to all watch replays together then

940
00:53:41,840 --> 00:53:45,960
 I am seven hours out of sync with you so I'm not going to do a lot of it and also I don't

941
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:49,440
 want to do any work but I did say I would come in sitting in your Discord and back channel

942
00:53:49,440 --> 00:53:50,840
 which is entirely correct.

943
00:53:50,840 --> 00:53:51,840
 Sounds good.

944
00:53:51,840 --> 00:53:53,080
 Would you like to be the official back channeler?

945
00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:55,360
 I mean if I can't hit his role, yes.

946
00:53:55,360 --> 00:54:01,400
 So John and me and Klebrali and we have Andrew January and Emily January who between them

947
00:54:01,400 --> 00:54:06,280
 know probably more about convention discourse at this point than anybody else on the planet

948
00:54:06,280 --> 00:54:09,200
 and so we think they'll be able to help us with this one.

949
00:54:09,200 --> 00:54:12,680
 And Meg MacDonald who is an actual vice chair of the convention.

950
00:54:12,680 --> 00:54:19,760
 I would like to say to Andrew and Emily and Meg if you need lessons in saying no to Allison

951
00:54:19,760 --> 00:54:20,760
 I will provide.

952
00:54:20,760 --> 00:54:28,880
 I mean I think you could curtail that sentence for certain people in that advertisement.

953
00:54:28,880 --> 00:54:31,920
 I mean if you need lessons in saying no in general but you did a lot of work for the

954
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:33,720
 convention you can have a rest.

955
00:54:33,720 --> 00:54:38,280
 Okay I think this will, I hope, I mean it's being a bit frenetic at the moment because

956
00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:42,960
 we are launching in between the point where we record this podcast and the point where

957
00:54:42,960 --> 00:54:46,600
 the podcast goes out which is why we're doing this thing now.

958
00:54:46,600 --> 00:54:52,600
 It has been quite frenetic for the last few days but I don't think it will, I'm not expecting

959
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:56,960
 this to be a huge amount of work because we are not having a program.

960
00:54:56,960 --> 00:55:02,680
 My role on this team is to repeatedly say we could do that but it sounds like effort.

961
00:55:02,680 --> 00:55:06,840
 Did you notice that I've done that a couple of times already because I have learnt my lesson?

962
00:55:06,840 --> 00:55:08,480
 Yeah no I'm proud of you.

963
00:55:08,480 --> 00:55:14,240
 The idea behind this convention is to deliver huge fun at not much effort prices.

964
00:55:14,240 --> 00:55:15,240
 That.

965
00:55:15,240 --> 00:55:26,800
 I think it's a good idea because obviously what happens is I intend to watch lots of

966
00:55:26,800 --> 00:55:31,520
 replay and on New Year's Eve I'll be like oh fuck I watched no replay and this will

967
00:55:31,520 --> 00:55:33,920
 actually encourage me to watch some.

968
00:55:33,920 --> 00:55:35,080
 So I'm excited.

969
00:55:35,080 --> 00:55:37,520
 I have watched a couple of bits.

970
00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:43,280
 I watched the Chris Priest Memorial which was very beautiful but I haven't watched a lot

971
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:44,280
 else.

972
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:49,800
 I suspect it will encourage me to watch replay but not on the weekend of the first to third

973
00:55:49,800 --> 00:55:55,280
 of November because I expect him to be a bit dizzy that weekend hanging out in the bar

974
00:55:55,280 --> 00:55:56,280
 with people.

975
00:55:56,280 --> 00:55:59,240
 But hopefully I'll get some replay done before that though I haven't started yet because

976
00:55:59,240 --> 00:56:02,360
 apparently I've been really busy ever since welcome which is not how it's supposed to

977
00:56:02,360 --> 00:56:04,640
 work I was supposed to be wrestling.

978
00:56:04,640 --> 00:56:11,200
 And we will see you at back to our futures but for now that was the Octa.podcast and

979
00:56:11,200 --> 00:56:12,480
 it's goodbye from me.

980
00:56:12,480 --> 00:56:35,760
 It's goodbye from me and it's goodbye from me.

981
00:56:35,760 --> 00:56:41,320
 I had a lovely rest and sent Alison a message saying I'm on holiday.

982
00:56:41,320 --> 00:56:42,320
 Please get back to me later.

983
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:45,920
 But I did also then drop an episode of Octa thought without actually asking Liz and Alison

984
00:56:45,920 --> 00:56:49,880
 whether it was okay so you know it wasn't a perfect experience for everyone.

985
00:56:49,880 --> 00:56:50,880
 Sorry peeps.

986
00:56:50,880 --> 00:56:53,720
 I mean I thought yeah I thought you were on holiday it was like yeah it's fine John you

987
00:56:53,720 --> 00:56:57,920
 don't need to edit podcast you can have holiday and then I was like wait John why is the episode

988
00:56:57,920 --> 00:56:59,760
 like 45 minutes long.

989
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:02,160
 I was like oh yeah I've done an episode.

990
00:57:02,160 --> 00:57:06,080
 There was one I did and there was also something where I would probably have asked you to take

991
00:57:06,080 --> 00:57:08,440
 a tap but it's a bit like now.

992
00:57:08,440 --> 00:57:14,080
 The theme music for this episode was Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod in Competec.com

993
00:57:14,080 --> 00:57:18,440
 used under a Creative Commons attribution 4.0 license.

994
00:57:18,440 --> 00:57:21,320
 This podcast will end at the beep.

995
00:57:21,320 --> 00:57:31,320
 [BLANK_AUDIO]