kevin_standlee | Worldcon 2016 Day 1: Open to the Public

Today was, relatively speaking, the least-scheduled of our five days of Worldcon. After the CanSMOF Board Meeting, I came back to the room, and instead of my WSFS Captain's uniform, got into my Colonel Chinstrap outfit, and Lisa and

travelswithkuma (Lt. Hayes and Pvt. Bear) and I set forth as the Imperial Airship Corps command team. Regrettably, I forgot to get anyone to take a picture of the three of us with my camera, although many other people did take our pictures. It was very entertaining. Lisa had a telegraph key strapped to her wrist that would make click-clack sounds from the relay on her belt, so she would send dispatches from the Colonel. Maybe we'll have a chance to get dressed up again sometime this weekend.

This was not, thank goodness, the registration queue, but was instead the queue to enter the Exhibit Hall a few minutes before members were allowed in. With all three escalators set to go up, the queue cleared quickly. (Later one of the three escalators was set to come back down.)

The Exhibit Hall has a series of "parks" in it. This is the File 770 Park. The San José in 2018 light tower is visible in the distance.

Speaking of the Tower, here's some video of it displaying one of many of the light patterns it goes through.

Later in the afternoon, we returned to the hotel to drop off the many things we had been accumulating, changed out of our costumes, and made a foray to the grocery store around the corner and down a couple of blocks from our hotel. We purchased supplies that we could store in the mini-fridge. With our Business Meeting schedule, it's probably the only way we'll be able to get any breakfast, and breakfast is very important.

At about 5 PM the official Opening Ceremonies took place in the "Heinlein Stadium," which is also where they played quiddich; the led to some delay while people brought chairs into the stadium. The convention was formally opened, the guests of honor introduced, and the designs of the 1941 and 2016 Hugo Award bases were unveiled. (We'll have them up on TheHugoAwards.org soon.)

After the Opening Ceremonies, the WSFS Mark Protection Committee had a short meeting to confirm that there was nothing more than what is in our written report that we submitted to the Business Meeting. Linda Deneroff and I then went and found Lisa and we headed off to dinner, and ran into Andrew Adams and Emeeli Aro who were also looking for dinner. We set out to use the free streetcar to take us uptown, where we ate at the Homestead Cafe. I had a nice blackened catfish. It's nice to get out for dinner. I'll be surprised if we do that very often. We walked back to the hotels and convention center.

Kansas City is unable to have traditional hotel-based room parties. Instead, like Loncon 3, they have what they call the "Fan Fair" with sections draped off for various fan groups to host events, in this case the San Jose in 2018 Worldcon bid.

There were others about in costume. This one one of the few photos I managed to take.

Earlier than we would have liked, we headed back to the hotel. Lisa and I got an early look at the room where the Business Meeting will be held, but the tech setup will not start until tomorrow morning. We have to be over there at 8 AM to get set up for a 10 AM start. Other days may be easier, but Thursday is likely to be a little frantic. And we're not the only people working hard on this. I left Business Meeting Chair Jared Dashoff and Secretary Linda Deneroff dealing with the copying of hundreds of copies of WSFS agendas. Everyone is working hard to make this event a success.