There’s a theory about attending a science fiction convention. It starts with studying the program, noting who the guests are, and planning out a strategy to participate every day and not get too worn out.
Then there’s the practice of being immersed in a con.
There is some similarity. One can see the relationship between theory and practice. But they are by no means the same.
What is important to remember is that this is just fine.
Take, for example, BayCon 2013, the San Francisco Bay Area annual convention. This year is dubbed Triskaidekaphobicon. Largely because this event houses the highest concentration of people who already know what that means.
For an eager preregistered participant, the event began the day before, on Thursday night. Last Thursday night, to be precise. So, for starters, consider plan and execution for this simple task.
| Time Frame | What the Plan was | What really happened |
| Thursday night | Go to Hyatt on the way home from softball, at around 8:30, and pick up badge | A phone call delayed departure for my weekly session of cheering for the NASA Ames softball teams. By the time Great America Parkway was my next freeway interchange, it was just about 6 o’clock. So took a detour & stopped off at the Hyatt, which is sort of on the way to softball. Was the TENTH person to pick up my badge. Cool. They planned to put the first thirteen in the newsletter, and asked if that would be OK. “Of course,” I said. Double-cool. Asked if they needed “gofers” still, but the pick-up team didn’t know & couldn’t locate the Head Gofer person. (Hint about future: never did get signed up, and that was all for the best for Baycon and for the family Wray.) |
BayCon participants embellished the welcome sign profusely.