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SMOF News, volume 2, issue 38

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SMOF News, volume 2, issue 38

How room parties work, and news in brief.

Petréa Mitchell
May 25, 2023
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SMOF News, volume 2, issue 38

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How to Convention: Room Parties

Some conventions shut down around 5:00 in the evening and expect the attendees to go find other ways to amuse themselves until the next morning. Some hold raves, concerts, and balls to fill up the late hours. And at some conventions, the evening social events are room parties.

Sometimes called “evening get-togethers” or other anodyne names to reassure nervous facilities, these are held in hotel suites and hosted by a variety of professional and volunteer groups. Publishers, conventions, and convention bids may host one for promotional purposes; other parties may happen in honor of a birthday, an obscure anniversary, or just because someone had a bunch of themed decorations they needed to find a use for.

Although they look like independent operations, room parties involve close coordination with the convention. A party coordinator helps arrange bookings for the party suites. If parties can have food and drinks available, that will be because the convention has negotiated a waiver to allow that. The party coordinator will let the hosting groups know what limitations there are on serving food and beverages, both under the waiver and any relevant local regulations, as well as logistical details like when the suites are available, when they need to be cleared out, whether things can be taped to the walls, and whether the furniture can be moved. Party times and themes are announced in the convention’s daily newsletter and/or social media.

Parties can provide an order of magnitude more promotion than a dealer or fan table, but they require a commensurate number of volunteers. A party needs people to put up flyers beforehand, set up the room, keep the food and drink replenished, to check IDs if serving alcohol, to do the actual promotional work of talking up a publisher’s new releases or a convention bid’s host city, to sell books or memberships, and, most importantly, to clean up the whole shebang in the wee hours of the morning.

It’s a lot of work for a few hours of socializing, but, like everything else in the volunteer convention world, it keeps getting done because people enjoy doing it.

In Brief

  • Tampa Bay Comic Convention (Tampa, Florida, July 28-30) has added Danielle Panabaker and Mark Sheppard as guests.

  • Cincinnati Comic Expo (Cincinnati, Ohio, September 22-24) has added Vincent D’Onofrio, Tara Strong, Floyd Norman, Joe Corroney, Jay Fosgitt, Guy Gilchrist, and David Michael Beck as guests.

  • FanX Salt Lake (Salt Lake City, Utah, September 21-13) has added Katee Sackhoff, Jake Abel, Timothy Busfield, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Michael Dorn, and Denise Crosby as guests.

Event Calendar

Weekend of May 26-28

  • Balticon 57, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

  • MisCon 37: Monster Mash-up, Missoula, Montana, USA

  • Satellite 8, Glasgow, UK

  • Fargo CoreCon: Portals to Fantastic Worlds, Fargo, North Dakota, USA

  • Marcon 2023: Save the World, Columbus, Ohio, USA

  • Åcon 12 (relaxacon), Mariehamn, Finland

  • WisCon 46 (feminist sf), Madison, Wisconsin, USA

  • ConFuzzled (anthropomorphic), Birmingham, UK

  • AnthrOhio: To the Fur Flung Regions of Space (anthropomorphic), Columbus, Ohio, USA

  • NomadiCon (anthropomorphic), Nashville, Tennessee, USA

  • KublaCon 21 (gaming), Burlingame, California, USA

  • ReCon (gaming), Kernersville, North Carolina, USA

  • PrairieCon (gaming), Brandon, Manitoba, Canada

  • Rocky Top Game Con, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

  • Evergreen Tabletop Expo, Renton, Washington, USA

  • Gamex 2023 (gaming), Los Angeles, California, USA

  • TableTopCon '23 (gaming), Southport, Australia

  • BGG.Spring (boardgames), Dallas, Texas, USA

  • Enfilade 2023 (miniatures gaming), Olympia, Washington, USA

  • PaizoCon Online 2023 (Pathfinder/Starfinder RPGs), online

  • Otaku Link 6 (anime), Derby, UK

  • FanimeCon (anime), San Jose, California, USA

  • Thy Geekdom Con (anime), Oaks, Pennsylvania, USA

  • Animazement (anime), Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

  • Mizucon (anime), Miami, Florida, USA

  • AniMinneapolis (anime), Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

  • ExpOtaku A Coruña (anime), A Coruña, Spain

  • Anime Riverside 2023, Riverside, California, USA

  • Chibi-Con 2023 (anime), Winterthur, Switzerland

  • MomoCon 2023 (anime), Atlanta, Georgia, USA

  • Sabaku Con 2023 (anime), Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

  • Naka-Kon 2023 (anime), Overland Park, Kansas, USA

  • FedCon (media), Bonn, Germany

  • MCM London Comic Con, London, UK

  • Cherry Capital Comic Con, Acme, Michigan, USA

Weekend of June 2-4

  • ConCarolinas 2023, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

  • ConQuesT 54, Kansas City, Missouri, USA

  • Fantasticon 2023, Copenhagen, Denmark

  • Oz-Stravaganza 2023: Over the Rainbow to Oz (Wizard of Oz), Chittenango, New York, USA

  • JodiWorld (Chronicles of St. Mary’s/Time Police series), Coventry, UK

  • Cogs & Corsets (steampunk), Bloomington, Illinois, USA

  • FlaMinGoCon 22 (gaming), Delray Beach, Florida, USA

  • UK Games Expo (gaming), Birmingham, UK

  • Y-Con 2023 (gaming), Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada

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

  • DieCon 2023 (gaming), Collinsville, Illinois, USA

  • Zomerspel 2023 (gaming), Merelbeke, Belgium

  • Wellycon 2023 (gaming), Wellington, New Zealand

  • NordCon (gaming), Hamburg, Germany

  • Ultra Gaming Expo (video games), McAllen, Texas, USA

  • North Texas RPG Con (vintage tabletop RPGs), Irving, Texas, USA

  • A-Kon Episode 32 (anime), Irving, Texas, USA

  • My Hero Convention: Alabama (anime), Birmingham, Alabama, USA

  • KimoKawaii (anime), Conroe, Texas, USA

  • Anime Marathon, Königslutter am Elm, Germany

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

  • DoKomi (anime), Düsseldorf, Germany

  • Awesome Con (media), Washington, DC, USA

  • 3 Rivers Comicon, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

  • Austria Comic Con, Wels, Austria

  • Portsmouth Comic Con, Portsmouth, UK

  • Argentina Comic Con, Buenos Aires, Argentina

  • Phoenix Fan Fusion (media), Phoenix, Arizona, USA

  • ColossalCon (media), Sandusky, Ohio, USA

  • North Country Comic Con, Watertown, New York, USA

  • Warsaw Comic Con, Warsaw, Poland

  • Etna Comics 2023 (media), Catania, Italy

  • Sci-Fi-London 23 (film festival), London, UK

  • Whinny City Pony Con 2023: Tropical Getaway (My Little Pony), Schaumburg, Illinois, USA

Weekend of June 9-11

  • Konflikt, the 2023 European Science Fiction Convention, Uppsala, Sweden

  • 2023 Metropolis Superman Celebration, Metropolis, Illinois, USA

  • Heroes, Villains, and Blerds (art), Winter Park, Florida, USA

  • áyA Con (indigenous comics and art), Denver, Colorado, USA

  • Airikas Traum XVII (music), Erbach, Germany

  • Bayou Wars 2023 31 (miniatures gaming), D’Iberville, Mississippi, USA

  • AnimeCon 2023, Rijswijk, Netherlands

  • Wie.MAI.KAI (anime), Flörsheim am Main, Germany

  • Rocket City Anime Convention, Huntsville, Alabama, USA

  • JAFAX 2023 (anime), Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA

  • OMG!con 2023: Magical Girls (anime), Owensboro, Kentucky, USA

  • Space Coast Comic Con, Cocoa, Florida, USA

  • Oz Comic-Con: Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

  • SWFL SpaceCon (media), Cape Coral, Florida, USA

  • Sci-Fi Valley Con (media), Altoona, Pennsylvania, USA

  • Fan Expo Dallas (media), Dallas, Texas, USA

  • Comic Con Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia

  • The Bride of FrankenCon (horror media), Alcoa, Tennessee, USA

Weekend of June 16-18

  • YetiCon, The Blue Mountains, Ontario, Canada

  • Pyrkon, Poznań, Poland

  • 4th Street Fantasy, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

  • StokerCon 2023 (horror), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

  • International Steampunk Symposium: Steampunk Under the Big Top, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

  • CastleCon 12 (anthropomorphic), Horb, Germany

  • StratosFur (anthropomorphic), Houston, Texas, USA

  • Arcon 39: Drager og Demoner (gaming), Oslo, Norway

  • Congress of Gamers Summer Session, Rockville, Maryland, USA

  • Q-Con 2023 (gaming), Belfast, UK

  • Board Game Fest, Chavdar, Bulgaria

  • Gaming Istanbul (video games), Istanbul, Turkey

  • AnimeCon UK, Birmingham, UK

  • Anime Onsen, Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

  • Cosplacon 2023: Onward to Battle (anime), Jefferson City, Missouri, USA

  • Desucon 2023 (anime), Lahti, Finland

  • AnimeNEXT 2023, Atlantic City, NJ

  • Anime Festival Orlando 2023, Orlando, Florida, USA

  • ExpOtaku Zaragoza 2023 (anime), Zaragoza, Spain

  • Heroes Convention (comics), Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

  • Rail City Fan Fest (media), Saint Albans, Vermont, USA

  • Contropolis Massachusetts (media), Marlborough, Massachusetts, USA

  • Awesome Con (media), Washington, DC, USA

Weekend of June 23-25

  • LibertyCon 35 / DeepSouthCon 61, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA

  • PortConMaine: Year of the Yokai, Portland, Maine, USA

  • Narrativity 2023 (storytelling in literary sf), Plymouth, Minnesota, USA

  • Cosplay America, Cary, North Carolina, USA

  • The Town That Never Was (steampunk), Telford, UK

  • Aurawra (anthropomorphic), Sydney, Australia

  • Origins Game Fair 2023, Columbus, Ohio, USA

  • Nexus Game Fair, Brookfield, Wisconsin, USA

  • Magic City Con (gaming), Birmingham, Alabama, USA

  • Game Con Canada, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

  • GeeklyCon 2023 (gaming), Rochester, New York, USA

  • Too Many Games (video gaming), Oaks, Pennsylvania, USA

  • Neo Anime Oasis:02, Boise, Idaho, USA

  • SunnyCon Anime Expo, St. James Park, UK

  • Black Hills Con (anime), Rapid City, South Dakota, USA

  • Anime Ohio, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

  • Bold Matsuri (anime), Jacksonville, Florida, USA

  • Anime Sekai, Abilene, Texas, USA

  • Finn-Con@MDC (anime), Miami, Florida, USA

  • Anime Festival Wichita, Wichita, Kansas, USA

  • Kyokai Con (anime), Mission, Texas, USA

  • AnimeSHOW 2023, Bratislava, Slovakia

  • Forest City Comicon, London, Ontario, Canada

  • Mississippi Comic Convention, Jackson, Mississippi, USA

  • Smallville Comic Con, Smallville, Kansas, USA

  • Lewisburg Comic-Con, Lewisburg, Ohio, USA

  • Greater Austin Comic Convention, Cedar Park, Texas, USA

  • TrekFest 38: Quark's Bar (Star Trek), Riverside, Iowa, USA

Coda

  • Zombie bird drones… for science! (Reuters)

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

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