Brighton by Train

[kevin_standlee]

I got to Brighton on Thursday by way of Portsmouth Harbor, where I had about 20 minutes to walk around and look at things and say, "This might be worth coming back again someday when I have more time to look at stuff."

Arriving in Brighton and the Metropole for World Fantasy Con, my first impression was, "They held a Worldcon in this place?" It doesn't seem anywhere near big enough for the over 4,000 people who attended ConSpiracy '87.

Being part of the Seditious Halloween Conspiracy of WFC, I got into the only costume I currently have that still fits, that being my Chicon Ground Crew jumpsuit. (Photo is from Chicon 7 with me, Lisa, and Kuma Bear; I will post a photo of me in it here in Brighton when I get a chance.) I managed to register at WFC and hang around the bar for a while without being thrown out by the super-stuffy convention management that sneeringly admitted that costumes on Halloween are vaguely permitted, but not at any other time. I even managed to go out to dinner and have BBQ chicken and ribs without getting any of it on me, which is something of a miracle.

We went into some of the more interesting parts of Brighton on the evening, where people in costumes of all sorts were having a good time, dampened (literally) at times by rain that at one point more or less trapped us in a club. Around midnight I managed to make it back to the hotel room (which is huge), check e-mail, and exchange messages with Lisa before falling into bed. Fortunately, on Friday I don't have commitments that run so late.

Comments

[drplokta]

Conspiracy used the Brighton Centre conference centre next door to the Metropole as well as the hotel.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay, I get it. That makes more sense. And presumably people spread out in various hotels as well, but that seems more palatable to people when they come to non-North American Worldcons.

[petrea-mitchell.livejournal.com]

Evelyn Leeper's con report (http://www.fanac.org/worldcon/Conspiracy/w87-rpt.html): "The convention was very spread-out. The main track was in the Brighton Centre, the secondary tracks, the Dealers' Room, and the Art Show in the Metropole Complex, and the film program in the Bedford."

Was that huge seething crowd I remember really only about 4,000 people? I suppose the huge number of journalists added to the crowding quite a bit, especially when they were setting up their camera equipment so as to block the hallways.

[a-cubed.livejournal.com]

Now, I wasn't there, but wasn't there some issue about the number of people and the hotel in the evenings?
(runs away!)