orycon

[piranha]

question for anyone who's ever been: would i want to go there? i mean, did you go there, did you like it, why did you like it, what did you not like about it?

Comments

[snippy]

I've been going since 1996. It's a big con, usually between 1200 and 1600. All in one hotel, easy to navigate. Good art show, large gaming room (and air purifiers, so it's actually usable and a fun place to spend time), reasonable dealer's room. Most of the function space is the upper level of the central core, accessible by elevator (but not directly accessible to the room areas, which cuts down on noise). Note that there is a wing of the hotel for party rooms, which is also the wing that is closest and most convenient to all function space; but it is, of course, very noisy.

Orycon is well known for excellent Hospitality, with real food and cheap, good beer (Black Butte Porter for a quarter a glass). There's a suite dedicated to fanzines/fans, where most people I know online normally hang out. Lots of good, open room parties.

Unfortunately programming has really sucked lately--the science track has been all but dropped, in favor of miscellaneous things the committee is interested. Orycon has always had a strong orientation toward people who want to be writers, and the writing track still shows that--lots of panels on how to write X, how to submit to editors, how to write off everything you spend.

After years of going regularly, we're not going this year. The last two years we ended up spending way too much money to go to a hotel and sit around with friends in the bar; we can do that without paying for a room and for badges. There haven't been any panels that we wanted to go to; they stopped doing Masquerade in favor of an open costume ball, which they are still tweaking and doesn't work well yet.

I keep thinking how awful it is that we're not going, and then remembering how we sat around complaining the last two years about how little there was to do, how the art show was getting smaller (fewer artists), same with dealers. I think part of the problem is a lot of the people I enjoyed don't come anymore, since the dot-com bust--no money.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

I don't do cons, but I could offer, in the why would I want to go there? category, that Portland (a) contains Powell's City of Books, the best bookstore on the planet and (b) is just over an hour north of me. (-: