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Originally posted by cousin ruby:
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Originally posted by Angelus the Vampire:
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Originally posted by cousin ruby:
I am curious about a convention I would go along to see just how the general peeps behave.
It is on my to do list.
Indeedy.
What do you mean "how the general peeps behave"?
In the nicest possible way, I live among friends that like tv but wouldn't dream of going to a convention (for anything for that matter) so I would be going alone. Fact.
I go to the theatre or cinema alone cos nobody shares my taste. Fact.
So you see me there standing alone a a convention with lots of people and it is overwhelming.
If I go to a theatre during the evening, I tend not to hang around. I go home ( i am never out alone in town at the weekends for example at night) What I should have said is the general ambience or aura at the time and place. I know a place isn't totally safe, but are conventions held in a hotel you can stay in?. Can you get there safely without your own transport?. Are they fun to attend etc. Sorry if I offended with that phrase. I didn't mean to.
No offence taken.
I just wondered what you meant.
I too used to go to the theatre on my own - to see Paul Darrow (Kerr Avon from Blakes 7) on stage. If you go to see a play enough times, especially on saturday performances you get to notice other faces from previous times. So you strike up a conversation, which then progresses to emails (or in the time before the internet, phonecalls or snail mail). Before you know you then have theatre going buddies so you`re no longer on your own. I turned up early one time for a saturday matinee. I went to the theatre to make sure I knew where it was. I noticed another girl standing there. She did I was was doing. ie looking around the nearby places. Trying to see if there was a coffee shop/or fast food place. She went one way, and I went the other. 15 mins later we both arrived back at the nearest coffee shop to the theatre. I made some comment about the wet weather and asked if she was waiting for the Theatre to open. she said yes, so we then spent the next hour and half chatting in the coffee shop. We walked into the theatre, she went her way, I went mine. We met up agian at the stage door after the show. Chatted some more, and then we went our seperate ways.
Come further forward in time, now that the internet is fully in place. You make unternet buddies with like minded people who DO share your interests. A convention featuring your mutual faves comes along. You both book tix to go and then agree to meet up. Voila, you are not spending the weekend on your own. Or, you both book tix and book a twin room and share.
Or you could do what my daughter does, we go to conventions together, and share a room. But she attends the discos in the evening, and I do not. She has made a lot of friends on the dance floor who she meets up with at the next convention.
It is possible to stay at the hotel where the convention is held, Infact I`ve only been to two conventions where I made the bookings too late to stay in the convention hotel. But the organisers always have an overflow hotel, which is usually within a couple of hundred yards of the main hotel. And you wouldn`t be the only person staying at the back up hotel, so there`s always tooing and froing between the two by attendees.
I attended a convention years ago in Newcastle, and I was unable to stay in the main hotel. This was the only time where the overflow hotel was a 15 min walk away across the centre of the city. I was booked for 3 nights. When I realised how far away it was, I only satyed there for the friday night, and then checked out. I booked into the convention hotel for the sunday night. But saturday night was fully booked. The convention hotel had secure parking, and so I slept in my car in the hotel carpark for the saturday night. My daughter attended the disco as usual, and crashed out, along with many others around the foyer of the hotel. The hotel knew I was sleeping in the car, so they left the door unlocked between the foyer and the car park (perhaps I wasn`t the only one doing so). But the car park main gates WERE locked to outsiders.
The conventions I have attended most recently, being Buffy, Angel or Serenity/Firefly based have all been organised by Sean Harry and Starfury. He uses The Thistle Heathrow hotel (on occasions the Radison Edwardian also at Heathrow), and there is a Heathrow Shuttle bus that runs from Heathrow airport to all the hotels around the airport. Which obviously connects with the National Express coaches that stop at Heathrow.
For Starfury`s bigger conventions, they are held at the Norbreck Castle which is on the northern promanade at Blackpool beach. Easily get-able via the trams running the length of the promenade. There are also lots of much cheaper hotels immedaitely surrounding the Norbreck should you want to stay in cheaper accomodation.
And the most important part. YES they are fun.
Some attendees spend the whole time in costume (which for a Buffy & Angel convention means anything in black, inc leather!
)Some only attend the discos in costume, especially as the Starfury coventions have themed discos. It is not compulsary to attend in costume. One girl I know attends the disco in a bikini with a light chain mail skirt. In the past I have attended Blakes 7, Star Trek, Doctor Who conventions as well as the more recent Buffy, Angel and Firefly/Serenity conventions.
All conventions I`ve attended tend to have a fancy dress competition prior to the sat night disco, and some of the thought and work that goes into these costumes is awesome.
Only one thing you have to remember when you go to a convention. EVERYONE one there is there because they love the same show that you do. It`s the reason you`re all there. So NO-ONE is unfriendly, so you needn`t be afraid to strike up a conversation with anyone.
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John Smith: So what am I then? Nothing. I`m just a story.
Doctor: You`re an echo. That`s all. A TimeLord is so much more. A sum of knowledge; a code. A shared history. A shared suffering. Only it`s gone now, all of it. Gone forever.
