• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Afictionado - fiction by Colin Alexander logo

Afictionado

Fiction by Colin Alexander

  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • BOOKS
    • ACCIDENTAL WARRIOR
    • MY LIFE
    • LADY OF ICE AND FIRE
    • GOD’S ADAMANTINE FATE
    • STARMAN’S SAGA
    • COMPLICATED
    • PRINCESS OF SHADOWS
    • MURDER UNDER ANOTHER SUN
    • THE LUCKY STARMAN
  • The AFICTIONADO® Blog
  • CONTACT

Conventions and conferences in the age of COVID

I was at Boskone 59 in Boston two weeks ago, in person.  Let me say, first, that it was a great convention.  The organizers did a terrific job to put on a hybrid con.  Everything (to my eye) ran well.  I enjoyed the panels and the kaffeeklatsches.  All of that said, I would put the in-person attendance – and this is only my estimate from what I saw – at about 500.  Maybe a little less.  That’s lower than the attendance pre-pandemic.  I don’t know how many were online but I am willing to bet it was a lot more.  So, where are we going with conventions?  There is a great attraction to the online (or hybrid in-person + online) model even if, in the future, we no longer need to consider COVID.  You don’t have to travel, with all the cost and inconvenience involved.  The number of attendees can go up substantially.  On the downside, however, a hybrid convention is challenging for the organizers from a technical perspective.  Discord and Zoom are not the same as being able to meet spontaneously and have conversations with people you have never met before.  It does not work well for Author’s Alley tables and (I don’t think) for dealers and artists because the foot traffic is down.  Which brings me back to the question: where are we going?

Heliosphere – this year in Parsippany NJ, will be in-person March 25 – 27.  I will be there.  The Nebulas in May will be virtual only.  I believe that Worldcon in Chicago and World Fantasy in New Orleans, both in the fall, will be hybrid.  Against this backdrop, the Wesleyan Writer’s Conference, which I have enjoyed in the past, has been canceled for the third year in a row.  I don’t have a handle, now, on how all of this will come out.  I do think, by the end of this year, we will know.  I’m hoping  that in-person events don’t fade away.  We’ll see.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • The Lucky Starman is now available
  • A new book and a coming convention
  • It’s been a while
  • Mid-week Maunder 3 March 2021
  • Complicated is available!

Categories

  • Featured
  • Leif the Lucky
  • Uncategorized

Archives

  • February 2023
  • August 2022
  • June 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019

Copyright © 2015–2023 AFICTIONADO®. All rights reserved. ® and “AFICTIONADO”® are registered trademarks.

site by iknow