Convention Reports

Orbital 2008 turned out to be great. Now that the dust is settling, if you'd like to share your memories with us, contact us via website@orbital2008.org, and we'll make them available here. We're interested in reports, photo collections, video, etc.

(It'd be helpful whether you'd let us know whether it's okay for us to host our own copy, and how you'd like to be credited.)

Neil Gaiman

Mitch Benn

Concatentation summary

The Concat seasonal upload has a short piece on Orbital.

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Other blogs

Cheresse's con report (from FaceBook, with permission):

Eastercon: SOOOOOOO AMAZING: Thursday and Friday

It started out on Thursday, when we drove to the Radisson Hotel. We were supposed to leave at 1 or 2 PM but we didn't get going until 4 or so, as usual. Kat, Joss and I were driven there by Mike Figg, and for most of the way we listened to the Monkees, which was fine as long as I was sleeping, but when I woke up to "Cuddly Toy," a song that should NEVER ever have been put on the air and seemed to go on forever, I changed my mind. It got worse when Kat said, "That song is stuck in my head!" and proceeded to sing it until I wanted to kick something. Anyone reading this, please do not look up that song. It is horrible. It gets stuck in your head for ages. The Youtube video has funny dancing.

We had a nice buffet dinner to start with. There was no room at the table with the people that Joss and Kat knew (I didn't really know anyone so it didn't matter too much), so we teenage exiles took a table for four. It was set up as a three-course meal, so we headed off to raid the appetizers table, a circular affair with no clear line and a ring of people who all seemed to be after the same things. Once we finally were able to fill our plates we sat down and were later joined by a woman about twice our age who none of us knew. She did not seem to like us much, I think we reminded her of her own children and, to an extent, herself when she was young. The evening consisted of the usual rounds of werewolf, unpacking, exulting about the 5 star room we were sleeping in, and listening to THAT SONG when Jocelyn found a copy of it on Youtube. SERIOUSLY DO NOT LISTEN TO IT. Also, we somehow ended up in the operations room and were convinced to become 'gophers,' volunteers who do base work in exchange for a few privileges and gopher reward tokens, galled GRTs or groats, which could be exchanged like pounds for the duration of the convention at the hotel and some of the places in the dealer's room. I was convinced to join when the head of the gophers, Misha (also called Gopher Mom) told me that I could ensure that some of my books got signed by volunteering at the signing session.

Friday rolled around and we dragged ourselves out of bed to go to breakfast, which conveniently coincided with the end of my Fast. I do not know how it happened, but after breakfast we ended up in the Ops room doing a bit of gopher work. I departed to battle Daleks (I got through the first round but not the second, and now I have the strange desire to go out and buy a little electronic Dalek). After that, more gophering, and we decided to learn about making cards, and although my actual card looks a bit weird I learned how to emboss nice things and I put a pretty silver leaf on my gopher badge. Afterwards Kat and I really wanted to make pig puppets, Kat because she thought they would be cute and me because they were for Neil Gaiman's reading of 'The Wolves in the Walls,' a kid's book. The reading was only supposed to be for kids, but we got talking to a woman named Serena and she agreed to let us make some puppets. It was only later that I found out she was supposed to be leading Neil Gaiman around for the weekend and taking care of the things he needed.

The main event (for me) of the weekend really got started at the pig puppet workshop. A bunch of kids showed up to make the puppets, and Kat and Joss and I wanted to make one as well. Before we had started, however, Serena and Rita turned to us and said, "You girls are smart and creative. Why don't you use the small pig pattern and adjust it to make a big pig?"

"How big?" we asked.

"Oh, as big as you want," Rita replied. I think she may have spent the rest of her weekend regretting that statement.

We stretched the felt out, it was maybe four or five feet across. Then we put each piece of the pig pattern up to a light bulb and adjusted it until it cast a shadow the width of the felt. It took us the entirety of the pigmaking class to adjust and cut out the pig pattern. Then, armed with thread and needles, we took the pig essentials back to our room to work on later, and proceeded to the opening ceremony.

As we were gophering for the opening ceremony, Kat and I were assigned to the double doors through which all the con-goers were supposed to go through. Unfortunately, manning the doors and directing hoards of people meant that we missed the opening act of the ceremony, but we danced in the hall to the Star Wars Cantina song. After the opening ceremony there was werewolf, and Kat flirting with boys, and a little bit of food somewhere in there as well as the dispensation of hard-earned groats. Then back to the room and listening to THAT STUPID STUPID SONG DON'T EVER LISTEN TO IT and we danced the funny dance that is in the video.

Eastercon: Saturday

Saturday started off with breakfast ("Get out of bed, Joss." "Mmmmphond." "Get out of bed." "Mmmhph." "Come on Joss, we have to go to breakfast or we'll miss it. "Mompjr." "Okay, I'm off to breakfast--" "Wait, Cheresse, wait for me!"). I have to say, an English breakfast is mostly fried fat if you do not like mushrooms or baked beans. They did nice apple turnovers though.

I gophered for China Mieville's guest of honour speech. I hadn't read any of his stuff at that time but his speech was so interesting and empassioned that I am really looking forward to doing so. I'm a good part through Un Lun Dun, and it's quite entertaining.

I didn't end up gophering for Tanith Lee's talk, and I didn't stay for it either, so I pottered around with Kat for some time before we went up to the dragon-making class (again, for children.) Unfortunately it was cancelled and the woman responsible was ill, so we didn't do that either but we did get to work on The Great Pig. After that we had volunteered to work at the signing, and I was allowed to stay behind Neil Gaiman and Charles Stross. It was a bit ridiculous but we were put in the dining hall, so we were required to vacate by the time dinner started. This meant that a bunch of people got turned away from the signing, which was probably disappointed them, but all the authors generously went over their time to continue signing.

Neil's line was the largest. It seemed that everyone wanted something signed by him. Many people wanted something signed by ONLY him. I felt bad especially for Charles Stross and Tanith Lee, who had the smallest signing lines. I took my blue hippo Iggy to the signing, which provoked a reaction from Tanith and Neil, both of whom thought he was cute. Tanith especially liked him and we spoke for a little bit. Charles and China talked for a while, but Charles did take some time out to notice the long line for Neil and state (a little huffily) that if he were in America, he'd be the one with signing lines that long. Neil did hear him, for he laughed about it the next day and pointed out that Charles Stross has been touring the British Convention circuit for 24 years and everyone had already GOT all his books signed.

After the signing was over, I talked a little more to Tanith, and asked Neil to sign my books. When he said, "haul them out," I did so with the intention of choosing three books for him to sign, as I had seven and thought it would have been a bit ridiculous to ask him to sign them all. Before I had time to separate them out, however, he pulled all of them to him and started signing. Extremely, extremely generous. I had left my China book in my room but Charles Stross and Tanith both signed my book, and Joss hauled Lisa upstairs to talk to Tanith, which was nice because Tanith got the opportunity to hear what Neil had been hearing all day, which was basically that she was Lisa's favourite author and she was absolutely wonderful.

After the signing was finished, we rushed back to the room to finish sewing on The Pig, then took him down to ops where the bag full of polystyrene balls were waiting for the express purpose of stuffing piglets.

A tip for anyone who ever wants to stuff a giant pig: DO NOT USE POLYSTYRENE BALLS. They get everywhere, as we discovered, and they are extremely impossible to pick up with your hands. Most of the time, they just cling to you. They got inside my pockets, my boots, they got into my hair, and naturally they got all over the ops room which did not please anyone else IN the ops room, least of all the large Scottish man who was in charge and had to ask us every five minutes or so to PLEASE quiet down. We were able to finish before the Cabaret, however, which we had been cajoled into doing by a man named SMS (pronounced Smuzz). Our Cabaret act was adapted from "We're going on a Bear Hunt," a children's story that apparently everyone in the UK knows (I had never heard of it). This version was, "We're going on a Beer Hunt." SMS told us that all we had to do was act progressively drunker. This was not as easy as it may seem, as neither Joss nor I drink so we don't really know what we were supposed to be doing or how to do it. Rest assured, Lauren, if you're reading this, I did not go around pointing and saying, "You know why? You know why? You know why? BECAUSE HE HAS CURLY HAIR!" It was tempting, though. I was allowed to wear the Death of Rats Hat, which will be coming back to Swansea with us.

After the Cabaret Act, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed, Lisa rushed us back to her room to get us ready for the disco, which involved wearing lots of corsets and a large amount of skirt. I found the whole affair embarrassing to the extreme until we actually got to the dance, and then I enjoyed myself. Also, it is weird when 40 year old men are hitting on you. Fortunately, most of this hitting on happened around Kat so I was saved from the brunt of it. Afterwards dancing occurred. It is difficult to say whether the Doctor Who song is more annoying once it gets stuck in your head, or Cuddly Toy (actually, Cuddly Toy is more annoying by far, even though the only words to the Doctor Who song are "Doctor Whoooooooooooooooo, Doctor Who"). More werewolf afterwards, then bed and Cuddly Toy, much to my screams and protestations.

Eastercon: Sunday

A few hours later, I woke up and it was 9:40. So I missed the panel I was supposed to go to at ten in favour of breakfast, accompanied by Mike and Kat. Mike had appeared some time Saturday in order to collect his phone. He and I ate breakfast quite happily while Kat sort of watched us in half-disgust--clearly not a morning person, not that I am. Hung around till 2, then gophered Neil Gaiman's Guest of Honour speech. He read an awesome short story that I hadn't heard before called "Orange," then read part of "The Graveyard Book," which is going to be so completely awesome I really can't wait for it to come out.

At six Kat and I rushed to get the pig. We were joined by our friends Gavin Knighton and Mike Hobbs, who we affectionately call Chippy, as we paraded the pig first to the atrium, which was in full view of everyone (they all gave us strange looks), but the perfect place to hide it from Neil because he would naturally attempt to avoid getting mobbed on his way to talk to kids. We sat around until John (nicknamed Gaspode) came running and told us we needed to take the pig in. Kat picked up the right side, I the left, and we walked in.

When we entered, Neil was drawing a wolf on one of those large hotel paper pads that they use for presentations. His back was turned and he did not notice us. All the kids, however, did, and despite the shouts of "Pig!" and "Big Pig!" he did not turn around and it was not until he had finished his wolf drawing that he saw the Great Sow coming toward him. He leaned as far away from it as he could without falling over and his mouth fell open, and he asked, "Who MADE that?"

"We did," Kat and I said.

"You're MAD," he cried. "Well, mad in a good way, but still mad." He stared at The Pig in a 'My God, I have no idea how to ship this across the Atlantic' kind of way, then proceeded to talk to the kids about his book, and read to them both his book and a poem that had not yet been published, entitled 'Crazy Hair.' It was quite adorable.

After he read his book, he was surrounded by the parents of the children who had 'come to monitor them' but really just wanted to see Neil Gaiman and get more books signed. As soon as they were unmonitored, the children stage rushed the pig. Both Kat and I knew exactly how well the pig was stitched together (which, admittedly, wasn't THAT well), and watched with our hearts in our throats until one of the kids actually jumped on our pig, at which point we saw a need to rescue it before it burst and let forth a shower of polystyrene balls that would remain on the floor forever. Later Neil said that one of his favourite parts of the convention was seeing the kids mobbing the pig. Kat and I neglected to tell him that it was, bar none, the most terrifying part of the Con.

Afterwards we went to help set up for a play, then back to the Neil Gaiman stalking for another session of signing, this time for the people who were handicapped and some of the people who were turned away from the first signing. That took a while and I was able to get my book signed by China Mieville, which was exciting. Afterwards we went to see Mitch Benns (I think that's how you spell his name). He was hilarious and he told lots of jokes that were very sci-fi specific, which caused him then to explain to us how many other people just didn't get the joke. My favourite joke of his was probably a description of what he did when changing his child's nappies in a public place--he said the way for a man to make it really fun was to take the kid into the toilet where the changing table was, pull the table down, strap the baby to it so that it wouldn't flip back up, then stand back and say, "No, Mister Bond, I expect you to DIE."

After that we had more werewolf, went to a 'Dark Fantasy Disco' where they played the Doctor Who song again. Kat and Joss abandoned Mike and me for a while, then we went back to play MORE werewolf.

Quick digression: I think at some point on Sunday I ran around with Kat and a guy Kat was flirting with, looking for a guitar the guy could play. The man quickly became my nemesis, as he was taking my KAT away from me. In our quest for a guitar, we asked around and we heard from a lot of people, "Oh, you should talk to the Filkers about that, they'll have guitars."

"What is Filking?" we would ask.

The best answer we got was, "Filking....is something that some fans do and if you DO Filk then you think it's a wonderful thing...everyone else thinks it's really weird." And this was at a Sci Fi convention, people. You can't raise the weirdness bar that much from there. All the same, at the prospect of a guitar for my new nemesis to play, we ran around looking for these elusive filkers. Finally the program revealed that they would be in the Tetworth room, playing through to the early hours of the morn. We wandered down to Tetworth and snuck in the back. A man was sitting up front with a guitar, talking about a song that he had composed. Everyone there was rather old, and they all seemed to be good friends--they kept correcting him about his facts. When he actually started playing the song, Kat and Nemesis and I looked at each other. "Should we stay?" Kat asked.

"Sure," I replied. "It's a bit weird, but we'll stay for this song and leave in a minute." One song. How bad could it be?

Then they got to the chorus. And everyone was swaying. And everyone was singing along. And I got the incredibly strong feeling that we had wandered into a cult meeting and if we weren't careful we would be abducted and taken into a strange, cut off community where they sat around campfires all day and sang about flying pigs and other....weird....things. We left.

Werewolf again. For some reason whenever I am the werewolf, I win the game or very nearly win the game each time, but when I'm a villager I am killed off. It is even more amusing to play with the group I played with there, for there were a lot of people who used logic in the game. A hint: using logic doesn't work, because people are illogical, and they know how they can screw with your head if they know that you're going to be uber-logical. So I died a lot.

Eastercon: MondayTuesday

Monday morning. Enjoyed breakfast quite a bit, then went to the dealers room and convinced myself into getting a very nice earcuff. I have been wearing it each day in an attempt to get my ear used to it. I think I have adjusted it so that it fits my ear properly now, but sometimes I am still scared that it will just fall off.

Hung around for a panel about dark fiction that was quite interesting, then gophered for the last time for the closing ceremony. Our pig was featured in it, and declared a God. Also, kicked by the master of ceremonies. At that point Kat and I leapt to our feet and shouted at him until Gaspode said, "Shh!" very pointedly. Later he apologized with chocolate.

After the closing ceremony, we finally got a picture of Neil with our pig, and then Neil with our pig and us, which was way way cool. Then there was the dead dog party, basically for anyone who hadn't left already. We watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More With Feeling, which was the musical episode and the only episode of Buffy that my sister convinced me I should be interested in. They were both entertaining, but I got that cult feeling again when people gathered in and sang a lot, and sometimes sang the harmonies.

And after--WEREWOLF. What a surprise. And eventually, bed.

Tuesday--we ate breakfast, then tried to pack, then helped take down the art show, then tried to leave, then looked for Joss' badger, then tried to leave, then got conned into taking apart Ikea furniture. That was quite fun, actually, and I think I spent more time getting carried around like some sack of flour by one of the boys responsible for technical stuff during the Con than I did taking apart furniture, and we were having a lot of fun, but everything ends and we had to drive home.

While waiting in the library I talked to Serena some more, and found out that Neil had argued with his daughter over who got the pig--she had seen it before we presented it to him and thought both that it was cute and that she might get to keep it, as she lives in London and Neil lives in America. He apparently wanted it for his other daughter, who is younger, so he decided to FedEx it to the states after a while. He is going to post pictures on his blog when it gets to his house so we can see his daughter opening the package. I got Serena's information for facebook and so on, which makes me quite happy--she is a really lovely woman.

Finally, the car. I had to refuse several times to play "Cuddly Toy." Had the urge to sing, "Doctor Whoooooooooooooo, Doctor Who!" I slept instead, until we got back to Joss and then I got to run around like a chicken with no head as I packed and prepared for my journey to Switzerland the next day.

Even now I can think of a million things that I forgot: how Misha got a hernia and had to go to the hospital, and Elanor (dubbed Gopher Dad) had to take over and how cool she was, how triumphant I felt after helping to kill off all my fellow werewolves and then fourteen other townspeople in werewolf, learning to play settlers of Catan on the night or two before, wandering around with Iggy, fearing that I'd lost Iggy, learning and forgetting the names of about a thousand people, getting handed an easter egg by Kat's mom who is really nice (especially since that was the second time I'd met her). But I cannot write anymore! I cannot. Safe to say that it was one of the most amazing things I think I've experienced, and I'm going next year even though I don't know any of the guests of honour. So I bid you adieu, EasterCon, You were amazing while you lasted. I look forward to Bradford next year.

Eastercon: Postscript

You listened, to it, didn't you? you listened to Cuddly Toy. YOU BLOODY LISTENED TO IT.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

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