#barfleet

[flukeoffate]

New First Order nipple pasties! I wanted to make a pair with rhinestones. I can't get great pictures of the sparkles on my phone. XD I wore these with a Hux theme to the barfleet party at Nauticon this weekend.

[courtcat]

This is several hours into one of those crazy parties I help throw. Barbacking now, was bartending. #momsofinstagram #hiphip #barfleet (at Westin Southfield-Detroit) https://www.instagram.com/p/BxBvavrAjvW/?igshid=1rzinc1bxkcwe

[courtcat]

#barfleet #ubsdelirium #siblings #penguicon2016 (at Westin Southfield-Detroit)

[jenetic777]

Lifehack

Always let @inkedamazon DJ. Magical things will happen.

[lunaconsf]

Room Party Culture - What Worldcon Did Right

Parties in SF Fandom can be a particularly interesting art.  They started so long ago that working out the history would be a pretty deep article in itself.  It’s storied enough that there are blogs named after SF convention party rooms and named groups like Barfleet, Biohazard, the Cult of Scott Bakula, and the Space Cadets whose sole purpose is to prepare for and throw these gatherings.  But here’s a little bit of background:

At Science Fiction Conventions, room parties are not “after parties”.  Though they are not program items per se, they are largely viewed as an intrinsic part of the convention to the point that most of the conventions make great strides to ensure that members know where they need to go and even are directly facilitated to do so in various ways.  This is in contrast to many for-profit events and some other kinds of convention where you sort of have to “know a guy” or have a particular set of credentials to get into a room party.  Here, you’re part of a weird family of sorts, so you’re generally welcome and even encouraged to come in.

But this article is more an appraisal of Worldcon parties, particularly those at the most recent one, Sasquan in Spokane, WA.

(pictured:  The frequently seen -- especially on the East Coast -- DIY-driven Party Board, a simple crowdsourced way to share your parties at a con; usually located near Registration)

THE PARTY BOARD

As seen in many East Coast conventions like Lunacon, Arisia, and Philcon, this Worldcon had a “Party Board”, simply a listing of room gatherings that members of the convention wanted to share with other members.  These mostly took the form of “bid parties”, attempts to convince folks to vote for an upcoming Worldcon in a specific region, and soirees for people in the literature business (book release parties and the like), but a few exceptions included a Babylon 5 party and birthday party (where the birthday boy handed out some nice ciders).

(pictured: An old-school Klingon bar at a typical Science Fiction Convention. They ran out of Romulan Ale quickly)

PERMISSIVE DRINKS POLICY

Shhh, don’t advertise alcohol at parties publicly!  This is a common and pretty understandable mantra -- conventions can get in serious trouble if this happens.  Stilll, the restriction can be more and less overt depending on the convention.  At Arisia in the Northeast, for instance, the only parties allowed on the party board or on public flyers are non-alcoholic gatherings.  There are a lot of parties, but while they are generally open to all con members 21 and up, the invite measures can be tricky.

Sasquan/Worldcon had none of that.  I don’t think there was a single party on the public party board or otherwise that didn’t have some form of alcohol being freely given out.  And I salute that form of sticking it to the man.

(pictured: Con Suite Meat; sort of cheating, as we didn’t take many pictures of the parties proper, but we’re sneaking this in as the Con Suite is listed on that party board, and it is a public gathering that any con member can attend)

MEAT (and other kinds of real food)

The one category where Worldcon continuously excels is the likelihood for parties to have actual food, not just cheap crackers, cheese cubes, and those LEGO candies that look awesome but don’t quite fit together right.

Montreal had Poutine, Japan had... items that your typical American would find very interesting but very weird (squid-flavoured potato chips and burger-flavoured crunchy-poofs, for instance), DC had strips of bread with a variety of olive oils to test out, New Orleans had rice and beans in a slow cooker. Nearly every bid-related party had some sort of thing that a person might legitimately call a meal or a part thereof and not, say, more a part of a football-viewing session.  There were tiny meat pies, little custard things, unexpected chocolates with custom logos stamped on, many delightful things that kept people coming back.   And they were all free, everything put forth by the beneficence of the party hosts.

As we didn’t get to the Babylon 5 party, we can’t report on whether or not spoo was served.

GETTING THERE

Worldcons (as do other cons) generally set aside specific space to have the party in order to make it easy for people to party hop and to reduce the chance of noise complaints.  This year, for “Sasquan”, the party space was a party hotel, as was the case in Reno’s 2011 “Renovation” Worldcon.  Folks who wanted to party were facilitated by free shuttle buses that came along every twenty minutes, though it was only a fifteen minute walk away.

While shuttle buses are often provided when the party hotel and other official hotels are distant, this year’s were the most consistent and the most frequent.  Not a visit happened where the bus was more than a couple minutes away from our approach at the stop, and that’s pretty great, especially at the  end of the night when you‘ve reached your personal limit from partying!

PARTY-AWARE CULTURE

Even with the Party Board, it’s hard at some cons to get people in the rooms.  More than any other convention I’ve seen, Worldcon has crafted a culture where a gigantic fraction of the convention’s members aggressively attend parties.  This year in particular, the parties were insanely packed from the start at most nights.  Although this comes with some tradeoffs, I consider it a definitely net positive, as it means people are out there to have fun and they know how to do it in the context of this part of the event.

While a followup post here will be critical of some aspects of parties at Worldcon, it’s important that we stress that a lot of great work is put in here by a lot of great people.  Worldcon is among the top tier of events that really go out of their way to make sure that every member can be aware of as many gatherings as possible.  In a way, it resembles the very open nature of many of the regional burning man style events, more so that any other style of convention we’ve visited. And in the end, we think that this kind of openness is what makes the “fannish SF” community rather special.

[yuridiculus-blog]

(pictured:  One of Pi-Con’s past mascots, checking out the news in the Con Suite)

Pi-Con celebrated its last get together this past weekend at the Sheraton Bradley in Windsor Locks, CT.  It’s a small convention that almost perfectly encompasses everything I like about Science Fiction Conventions, and its closing has in fact prompted me to create this Tumblr account.

It was the first convention to hold “Panel in the Pool”, a staple of several Northeast conventions, including Arisia and Lunacon.  I think it’s the first in the area to appoint a different mascot every year (erm... the first one was a dead frog in a jar they found in a panel room).  And it was of course the first convention I ever got laid at -- I offer many thanks to whomever started the concept of throwing “How to flirt/get laid at a con” panels, as it gives attractive women the sudden agency to shamelessly hit on me with strong intent (this is not something women are disallowed or dissuaded from doing normally at a weekend like this, but panels like this seem to present an opportunity for the interested to actively practive the art).

Pi-Con also claims the mantle of being one of my first experiences with Barfleet, a group of geeks who take it upon themselves to throw very, very good parties at conventions  from the Midwest to the Northeast.  This year, their signature drink was The Infamous Hurricane Irene.  Four years ago, the convention took place during that very storm, the seventh-costliest hurricane in United States history.  It’s a testament to the community nature of this kind of convention that the majority of this con’s members braved the ravages of nature to come together.

Other parties included LI-Con’s Latte and Egg Creme bar; the Broad Universe ladies showing off their literary wares; Arisia’s assortment of finger-food pizzas, cheesy poofs, and hummus; and yours truly, who with another member of the Regional Burning Man camp “Radish” put on a soirée wherein we made bloody marys, flavoured coffee liqueurs, and the dry ice and grain alcohol powered Northeast nerd delicacy known as Rocket Fuel.  Lest you think all our parties are booze-fests, know that I mixed up some dip and had an obscene amount of chips and finger foods, as well -- the really great thing is that the combination of drinks and snacks kept this party at a shockingly high value of interesting and intellectual conversational discourse, in contrast to Barfleet’s sardinesque-yet-comfortably-intense dance floor (I approve of that vibe, too, being one of their bartenders, internally known as a blue-shirted Medical officer).

All in all, it was a good time.  I’m particularly happy that they’re not stopping because of dwindling attendance or lack of money.  In this case, the folks who run it are now spread across several different states, so we’ll be seeing a few new cons in different areas from some of the same conrunners, including Ro-Con and relaxacon The Geekend Weekend.

[palaguin]

My latest article, where I experience Who’s Yer Con and explain lessons learned shall I ever host my own small geeky con.

[courtcat]

This wristband amuses me far more than it should. #barfleet