lostcarpark | Convention Thingy (Reply)

This was going to be a convention report, but I suspect it will be far too vague for that...

The Longish Version

Friday: Bundled everything into bag. Threw bag in car with

madangie and Jack's bags that had been neatly packed days earlier. Shoved old vacuum cleaner

jamesb wanted for some unknown purpose with them. Drove to port. Tried to keep Jack entertained for four hour crossing (assisted by on-board magician). Drove from Liverpool to Blackpool. Found hotel. Lost hotel looking for parking. Found hotel again. Parked on double-yellow-line. Unloaded car and found parking. Went for a walk down the sea front and had dinner in KFC. Went back to hotel and put Jack to bed. Left Angie with Jack and went to Winter Gardens for a drink. Found Winter Gardens, but got lost looking for con. Found con and caught end of Have I Got News for You panel. Enjoyed Bohemian Rhapsody accompanied by swanee whistle. Had drinks with various people and headed back to hotel.

Saturday: Woke up and ran around to put money in parking meter. Had breakfast and headed out to convention. Got distracted by shops on the way. Found discounted Lego in toyshop, and various other nice things. Went back to hotel to drop off shopping. Headed out for convention again. Got registered and explored some of the convention rooms. Found Chaos Costume Workshop and ended up creating bizarre costumes. Got turned into wolf by Angie and Jessie. Jack became a lamb and Angie Mother Nature. Went back and volunteered to help at Ops. Checked Jack into creche. Got to a couple of other program items. Picked up Jack and headed for seafront. Found donkeys. Put Jack on donkey back. Walked down central pier. Put Jack on various rides. Had pizza for dinner. Went back to Winter Gardens and Sharon and Jon-Jo's disco. Jack danced his little socks off. Back to hotel to bed.

Sunday: Got up fairly early and went down to breakfast. Nice hotel people had left Easter Bunny in Jack's place. Went to masquerade rehearsal. Dropped Jack off at creche. Wandered around dealer room. Went to help out in ops. Get sent to find prizes for masquerade. Found lots of rock. Had great difficulty finding Easter eggs. Went to some other panels. Snuck back to hotel for a while. Picked Jack up from creche and went to get ready for masquerade. Watched some of award ceremony. Well done

bluedevi for winning the James White Award. Did our bit for masquerade. Won "most dysfunctional family" award. Took Jack down pier again. Did some more fairground rides. Had fish and chips for dinner. Took tram back to hotel. Left Angie putting Jack to bed and went back to Winter Gardens to say goodbyes.

Monday: Overslept slightly. Ran around to get ready, departing shortly after 6am. Zoomed down to Liverpool. Got on wrong road and drove around like headless chicken trying to find way. Arrived at port in reasonable time. Got on boat. Entertained Jack with Lego, face painter and Finding Nemo on video. Arrived in Dublin and drove home.

The Shortish Version

Good points:

Blackpool is a fun town I've never visited before. I enjoyed seeing it all.

The creche was a brilliant idea and very well run. Jack had a great time there. It probably won't be possible for most cons to do that way, but for us it was a big success.

The committee all seemed to know what they were doing, and held everything together very well.

The masquerade was a bit impromptu, but it was good that it happened. The white rabbit was rather good, and a deserving winner.

Nice, sunny weather. Well done to the committee for organising that.

Bad points:

Having the con in a town like blackpool means that half the attendees will be out doing other things at any given time, meaning the place always looked a bit empty.

The Winter Gardens is a nice venue, but it is very spread out, making it hard to find things and easy to forget to go to events in another part of the venue.

The problem of not having a main convention hotel meant people were spread all over the town, which meant there couldn't be so much of the usual antics like room parties.