First Thoughts...

I’ve just got back from Eastercon (Concussion), and there was something not quite 100% right about it. The trouble is, I just can’t put my finger on it. Or rather, I have suspicions, but in the cold light of day, they are less rational than they seemed at 1am on Monday morning after a couple of beers and a few surgical V&Ts.

First the hotel. The hotel did a bang up job for the Worldcon, at least in my opinion. This time; it was, like the rest of the Con, a bit of a curate’s egg. My room was excellent, and I thought the price wasn’t bad. Breakfast was superlative and the quality of the food in general was great. However, the pricing system was completely FUBAR’d. Unlike the Worldcon, where the hotel was selling very reasonably priced snacks and sandwiches; this time the costs were insane. Especially, when you consider that the hotel shop was selling the same products at 50% of the cost. Likewise, the price of a Convention “meal” was £5, when you could get a wider range at a similar, if not lower price in the main hotel bar.

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Concussion: My Raw Numbers

My workings from my rant... ahem... sorry report.

124 people (roughly, excluding the Guests¹), were involved in the programme.

1 individual did 6 items
1 individual did 5 items
14 did 4 items
16 did 3 items
32 did 2 items
60 did 1 item

These are pretty rough, but I think they're accurate.

1 - While there were also some weird things happening with certain guests, I thought, after a discussion with one of the committee that I should exclude those factors from any analysis.  For the record there was a similarly weird distribution among guest activities, but I will assume that that was down to guest requests.  Although I would be surprised to learn that Justina Robson agreed to do so many, including moderation duties.