Everyone Expected the Fannish Inquisition

This morning at Westercon, I moderated the "Fannish Inquisition," where bids for future Westercons, the seated Westercon, seated Worldcons, and bids for future Worldcons made presentations and took questions. We had to squeeze a little bit for time (it's probably better to do it as two separate panels), but we got through everyone who was there. Lisa recorded everything, but we do not expect to get it uploaded until we get home due to the other things we have to do here and due to only standard (slower) internet connections being included in the room rate.

( San Jose in 2018 Worldcon Officially Launches )

We spent the afternoon after the Fannish Inquisition doing our own things. I had several smoffish discussions with various people, while Lisa took Scott Sanford (who was able to come to Westercon as a last-minute helper for dealer AmyCat) to lunch. We didn't see any other programming, but I observed that the halls were very quiet between program changeover times, so a pretty high percentage of the members must have been interested in the program.

Matching the Fannish Stars

Thanks be to Westercon 67 for letting us have Salon B/C from 7 PM onward for our 9 PM show, and for not complaining about our sound checks in the room immediately adjacent to the Masquerade in the main ballroom, separated only by an air-wall. Lisa and I went out for an early dinner, first going to the Cheesecake Factory in the City Creek Mall, but balking at how loud it was there and going over to the Food Court instead. I'm glad we got dinner because it was a long, busy, exciting evening.

( Scenes of Set-up )

The show went really well, and Scott counted at least 70 people (not including panelists and crew) attending at one point, which means more than that got to see the show as people cycled in and out for the five games we played. We gave away memberships to the next two Westercons — including the just-elected Westercon 69 in Portland. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and even travelswithkuma got into the act with a question about him.

After five games, and around 11:30 PM, we called it a night and struck the set. Scott also helped wonderfully with the tear-down, even taking the luggage cart back to the bell desk for us so that we did not have to go back downstairs and could instead collapse out of our costumes and into a relatively cool room.

Thanks again to Westercon 67 for adjusting their programming schedule to give us the rather large block of time (six hours in all including set-up and tear-down) to put on Match Game SF for Westercon. It's tiring, but satisfying. Also big thanks to everyone who made the show happen. We had a lot of fun, and I'm glad everyone enjoyed it.

We were too worn out after the show to hit the parties, and now we have to try and get some sleep before being up again for the Westercon Business Meeting at 11:30 Saturday morning. Fortunately, aside from officially receiving the results of Site Selection voting, we're not expecting any business, so this should be a short meeting. Fingers crossed.