SMOF News, volume 1, issue 24

Looking ahead, and a question for readers.

In the Next Trough

No public health expert is willing to talk about an actual end to the pandemic, but the word “lull” is being used more and more for the stage that much of the world is now entering or is about to enter. This means two things for fan conventions.

One is that it’s heartburn time again as cons revisit their health policies and try to guess what conditions will be like months down the road. Will the virus have receded from their area completely, making a demand that all attendees have boosters look like overkill? Will a surprise new variant be driving local hospitalizations higher than ever, making permissive guidelines for acceptable masks look hopelessly naive? Get it too wrong in either direction, and the con will have staff members resigning in protest and guests excoriating it across the internet.

Which is to say, please bear with your local convention if its policy gets adjusted back and forth over the next few months.

For the cautious individual congoer, though, this means a period of widening horizons. Your Local Epidemiologist has a handy chart for judging what’s more or less safe to do depending on your local COVID statistics. The tl;dr for going to conventions is: in the red or orange column, better stick to cons which require all attendees to be masked and vaccinated; at yellow, you can relax a little if you’re not immunocompromised or in regular contact with someone who is; and in the blue column, party almost like it’s 2019.

Remember that if your area does make it to the yellow or blue zone, everyone’s personal risk calculations will still vary. Don’t be the jerk who doesn’t get why everyone doesn’t take off their masks at the same moment you do.

Ask the Readers: Your Convention Bucket List

As we all start thinking about getting out there in person again, I’d like to inagurate an occasional feature by asking you, the readers: What’s on your convention bucket list? This can be anything you don’t normally go to. Maybe you went once a while ago and would dearly love to go again if you had the chance, or maybe you’ve never gone. It doesn’t have to be plausible in terms or budget of time. Send in your responses by next Wednesday and they can be included in the next issue.

My own list is very long, but here are just a few samples to get you thinking:

• The Sitges Film Festival, which claims to be the largest festival of fantastic films in existence, held in Sitges, Spain (near Barcelona) every October.

• Costume-Con, a travelling convention for costumers. Ideally this happens in a year when I have enough spare time to put something together for a contest or two.

• The Chattanooga Rail Gaming Challenge. I love games, I love trains, I’ve got to go sometime.

• HAL-CON, a convention created after the 2007 World Science Fiction Convention in Yokohama for experimenting with ways to improve bilingual events. Having been at that Worldcon, I’d love to see how things have progressed.

• Norwescon and Sakura-Con, two conventions held Easter weekend in the Seattle area. Norwescon, a science fiction convention, is the older by 20 years; Sakura-Con, an anime convention, tried to avoid being scheduled against it, but the inescapable economics of fan conventions eventually forced it to move to Easter. If you like both kinds of convention, it’s not strictly necessary to choose one or the other, especially now that Seattle’s light rail runs within a few blocks of both. I’ve done this double once before, but would like to try it again, adjusting a bit for what worked and didn’t last time.

So, what do you dream of going to?

Event Calendar

Weekend of February 11-13

• Boskone 59, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

• Atlanta Steampunk Expo, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

• ScotiaCon (anthropomorphic), Glasgow, UK

• FurcoNZ 2022 (anthropomorphic), Ōtaki, New Zealand

• ATG Expo (gaming), Waco, Texas, USA

• Game On!, Bellevue, Washington, USA

• Geekway Mini (gaming), St. Louis, Missouri, USA

• Ohayocon 22 (anime), Columbus, Ohio, USA

• Kami-Con Season Thirteen (anime), Birmingham, Alabama, USA

• Anime Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

• Animangapop (anime), Plymouth, UK

• Savannah Animazing Con (anime), Savannah, Georgia, USA

• Brick City Anime Festival, Ocala, Florida, USA

• Animefest 2022, La Jolla, California, USA

• MissouriCon (media), St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Weekend of February 18-20

• Radcon 8B, Pasco, Washington, USA

• Life, the Universe, and Everything (symposium), Provo, Utah, USA

• Anthro New England 2022: Back to the '90s, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

• DunDraCon 45 (gaming), Santa Clara, California, USA

• Con of the North (gaming), Bloomington, Minnesota, USA

• Orccon 2022 (gaming), Los Angeles, California, USA

• Williamsburg Muster (wargaming), Williamsburg, Virginia, USA

• Decepta Con (social deception gaming), Atlanta, Georgia, USA

• Japan Expo Sud (anime), Marseille, France

• ExpOtaku Logroño (anime), San Millán, Spain

• Katsucon 2022 (anime), National Harbor, Maryland, USA

• Zipcon 2022 (anime), Akron, Ohio, USA

• 47th Annual Boston Sci Fi Film Festival, Somerville, Massachusetts, USA

• Con Nooga (media), Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA

• Alaska ComiCon, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA

• Fan Expo Vancouver (media), Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

• Shawicon (media), Shawinigan, Québec, Canada

• Gallifrey One: Thirty-Second to Midnight (Doctor Who), Los Angeles, California, USA

Weekend of February 25-27

• MystiCon, Roanoke, Virginia, USA

• Gamicon Gallium (gaming), Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA

• Total Confusion 36 (gaming), Marlborough, Massachusetts, USA

• CalCon 28 (gaming), Kalmar, Sweden

• Festival International des Jeux (gaming), Cannes, France

• Revelation (gaming), Sheffield, UK

• K2 Convention (gaming), Dungarvan, Ireland

• GenghisCon (gaming), Aurora, Colorado, USA

• Fire and Ice Convention (gaming), Manitowoc, Wisconsin, USA

• TantrumCon (boardgames), Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

• PrezCon 2022/RevCon (boardgames), Charlottesville, Virginia, USA

• Intercon U: Ultraviolet (LARPs), Warwick, Rhode Island, USA

• LVL UP EXPO (video games), Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

• SoCal Gaming Expo (video games), Ontario, California, USA

• Kawacon (anime), San Antonio, Texas, USA

• ZipCon 2022 (anime), Akron, Ohio, USA

• Anime Crossroads 2022, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

• Farpoint 29 (media), Hunt Valley, Maryland, USA

• Cult Classic Convention (media), Bastrop, Texas, USA

• Nerd Fest (media), Swedesboro, New Jersey, USA

• Armageddon Expo Tauranga (media), Tauranga, New Zealand

Weekend of March 4-6

• CoastCon 44, Biloxi, Mississippi, USA

• Cleveland ConCoction 8, Aurora, Ohio, USA

• Wild Wild West Steampunk Convention 10: Over the Rainbow, Tucson, Arizona, USA

• Llamedos Holiday Camp 2022 – Dragon Trials (Discworld), Llanelli, UK

• VancouFur 2022: EvfurQuest (anthropomorphic), Surrey, British Columbia, Canada

• Fur the ‘More 2022 (anthropomorphic), Arlington, Virginia, USA

• Cardboard*Con (cardboard sf costuming), Atlanta, Georgia, USA

• BashCon 36 (gaming), Toledo, Ohio, USA

• Tennessee Game Days XV, Franklin, Tennessee, USA

• Gary Con XIV (gaming), Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, USA

• Dice Tower West (gaming), Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

• SaltCON Spring (gaming), Layton, Utah, USA

• 1d4Con 2022 (gaming), online (usually Shepherdstown, West Virginia, USA)

• Evercon 2022 (gaming), Rothschild, Wisconsin, USA

• Prolog (LARPs), online (usually Västerås, Sweden)

• Animeverse Fest (anime), Pasadena, California, USA

• PeoriaCon (media), Peoria, Illinois, USA

• Hill Country Comicon, New Braunfels, Texas, USA

• Middle East Film & Comic Con, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

• Hall of Heroes Comic Con 2022, Elkhart, Indiana, USA

Weekend of March 11-13

• MarsCon 2022, Bloomington, Minnesota, USA

• Foolscap, online (usually Seattle, Washington, USA)

• MACE West (gaming), Asheville, North Carolina, USA

• ChillerCon UK (horror), Scarborough, UK

• Pulp Fiction Central, Dania, Florida, USA

• Blue Ridge Furfare (anthropomorphic), Asheville, North Carolina, USA

• Fur Out West 5: FoWassic Park (anthropomorphic), Scarborough, Western Australia, Australia

• Marmalade Dog 25 (gaming), Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA

• AireCon (gaming), Harrogate, UK

• Granite Game Summit, Nashua, New Hampshire, USA

• Stumptown Game Summit, virtual

• Arizona Game Fair, Mesa, Arizona, USA

• Fargo GameFest, Fargo, North Dakota, USA

• GADCon 2022 (gaming), Aberdeen, Maryland, USA

• MidWinter ‘22 (gaming), Haugesund, Norway

• Protospiel Knoxville (games in development), Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

• Louisville Arcade Expo, Louisville, Kentucky, USA

• MinamiCon 27 (anime), Southampton, UK

• All-Con (media), Dallas, Texas, USA

• Wintercon (media), Jamaica, New York, USA

• TFcon (Transformers), Burbank, California, USA

Coda

• AI-generated panel titles (Jared Shurin, Twitter)

Thank you for reading! Send tips, corrections, press releases, and letters of comment to: smofnews@gmx.com.