I just got back from a two week holiday attending various Science fiction conventions. Actually I got back on Tuesday but between being so tired and having to go back to work, its taken until now to be able to write about it.
I’ve been to lots of SF conventions before, but this holiday was a first on two counts. It was my first time attending a really big convention outside of Ireland, and my first time attending a convention with a child in tow.
First off on our trip was Orbital 2008, this year’s Eastercon the UK national SF convention and it was brilliant. Huge amounts of people, panels that went on from morning into the wee hours the next day in some cases, and a really great atmosphere. What was also great is that I found it to be very child friendly when I wasn’t really expecting it to be. My little toddler had a great time just doing laps of the hotel and exploring its labyrinthine corridors and function rooms. She loved being around so many people and spent most of her time showing off when she wasn’t learning to climb over some new piece of hotel furniture. Overall I think her spatial abilities shot up as a result, as we were no sooner home than she found two ways to get around our stair gate, one by sneaking through the gaps in the banisters and the other by using a frontal assault mounted on her rocking horse which she moved stealthily into position like some medieval siege technician. There were also so many other fans with kids there, most of us up at the 6.30 breakfast serving, and everyone else was very friendly and welcoming of children. There was also a creche and some very creative kids events although our little one was bit young for most of these but in a few years I could see her having a whale of a time.
The great thing about bringing kids to a convention is myself and the other half both got to give each other time off to attend panels or just sit in the bar and read or chat to friends while not being very far way from the little one if she needed us, it was a great setup.
The next convention we went to was a bit different and that was PCON in Dublin. Now don’t get me wrong the convention was great but it wasn’t very child friendly. To be honest I didn’t expect it to be and I’m not saying it should be and we were probably a bit spoiled after how large and great Orbital was. I suppose it comes down to scale really, when you have a large venue with so many people there’s bound to be other kids and lots of room for them to play. But when you have a smaller amount of people in such a poky venue it was never really going to work out with kids too well. As well as that there was relatively speaking a larger contingent of younger people at the con who understandably don’t really get kids, which resulted in some scowls and grimaces when I brought our toddler on some exploration trips through the venue. That said we had a great time at PCON and it was very well put together, but my advice to people with kids is to stick to the larger cons and you’ll have an easier time of it.
Of course coming back from cons always results in some post con blues so we remedied that by signing up for LX 2009, next year’s Eastercon. After signing up for that I saw the hotel booking forms were available and went to fill them out and unfortunately found out that there is limited room in the main hotel already. I hope we can get a place, as if we have to stay in the overflow hotels we’ll probably have to cancel as its too much trouble with a small child, I never would have guessed this would have been a problem a year in advance. The main advantage of going to a con with kids is that you can just nip back to your room to change nappies or for naps or just for some time out, and if you had to run outside in the cold and possible rain to another hotel it would take the ease out of the holiday. So here’s hoping we can get a room, if not I’ll make sure we’re signed up for Odyssey 2010 in plenty of time.
