I needed something to test the ActivityPub plugin that I just added to my site, so I figured that I’d also do a quick write-up of thoughts post-FE.
I started staffing the convention as Business Director after FE 2018, though only had two in-person events under my belt (FE 2019 and FE 2022 – FE 2020 was cancelled in the 11th hour, and FE 2021 didn’t happen due to COVID-19 too) before I stepped down. So this was my first year as a regular attendee since the first time I’d attended the convention, back at FE 2017 – when I still lived back in the Vancouver area (and hadn’t even been contemplating a move out to Toronto then)
Personally I felt this year was a little disappointing for me due to a number of factors.
First, a couple of good friends who had planned to come out had (for good and personal reasons) backed out. This meant that my ‘hangout group’ was now quite a bit smaller than I’d planned, and I had been hoping to do more since I was no longer staffing.
Second, for personal reasons of my own, I just wasn’t feeling particular enthusiastic about going to the convention in the weeks leading up. Barely a hint of excitement, very little planning of what to do, and so on.
Lastly was the at-event experience. This year in particular I felt that it was very difficult to actually find other people to talk to and hang out with. I’m putting this down to a general lack of hang out space in the hotel and convention centre. The mezzanine (convention) level of the hotel has a long hallway with south (lake) facing windows which – when the hotel is not holding an event – has a number of comfortable seats. Starting from FE 2022, almost half of these seats got re-deployed into ‘Quiet Rooms’, to provide a refuge for people who might be feeling somewhat overwhelmed to retreat to. Then, there was no ‘Zoo’ (lounge) area where people could congregate and just hang out. This also went away in FE 2022 due to making the Dealer’s Room larger to give more opportunity for social distancing, letting that area expand from 2/3 of the Metro Ballroom to all of it. There were tables in the Gaming Room as well as a small handful in the Dealer’s Room, but it kind of felt ‘wrong’ to use those as chill/hang out spots. As for the hotel lobby, there were no real seating areas down there, other than the bar – of which you really had to be eating/drinking to make use of.
So I felt that I was wandering the hotel and convention centre just looking for people to talk with, and when I didn’t find anyone I knew I’d just end up retreating back to my room. Then in the evenings, I’d wander down and the lobby area (except the bar) would have a handful of people, the same in that long south-facing hallway on the mezzanine level, and it seemed that everyone else was in the main stage area for the dance. I can only assume that if you weren’t a fan of excessively loud music and/or dancing, you were hiding in your own or someone else’s hotel room.
That even made going out in costume difficult, because other than the a handful of costumers on the bridge from the hotel to the convention centre, there just seemed to be rather few people out. I went down in Tseatah mk.IV one afternoon and was only out for 30 minutes because there was so few people out and about.
For a convention that had over 3,300 people, it sure didn’t feel like that many people were there.
Hopefully I’ll have a better time this summer at AnthroCon, as at least then the weather will be such that people can socialize outside the hotel and convention centre.
