Each year, for about a million years, Western Australian science fiction fandom has held a local science fiction convention called Swancon. The current one, which will run next March is the thirty-third such event (which suddenly makes me feel old – I helped run the 17th and started attending back at the 11th). Swancons have been held at different times during the year, but for some time now they’ve been held over the Easter weekend. I’ve come to appreciate over the past ten years what a bad idea this is. For whatever reason, chunks of Perth shut down for the Easter weekend. Restaurants and bars are closed, there’s nothing to see or do. Good Friday is especially bad, but Sunday isn’t great either. Unfortunately, the burden for this falls most heavily on people who visit from out of State, who are looking to enjoy both city and convention. I’m sure Swancon 33 will be a hoot, and I’ll definitely be there for the first time in some years, but I hope future Swancon committees consider running the event at another time during the year. For conventions, Easter sucks a bit.
Easter also tends to attract higher air fares than the rest of the year due to the number of people going to see families for the holiday, or taking advantage of the long weekend to have a few days away.
On the other hand, Easter is an opportunity to have a four day convention without any of the locals needing to take a day off work. I wouldn’t want the locals to forgo that just so us out-of-town types can play tourist, beautiful though Perth is to visit.
Are they still taking bids on Danny’s milepost?
its really simple – Easter gets you an extra day of convention.
And you are at the con, which has room parties etc, so with a modicum of forethought to purchase alcohol, you are left only with mild inconvenience regarding dinner.
Essentially, you present the case from the viewpoint of the casual con-goer – the person for whom the con is largely the focal point of a weekend of socialising, much of which takes place outside the convention itself. The hard core (who often barely leave the hotel to notice things are shut) have tended to call the shots at Swancon for some time now.
And besides, what else are going to do at Easter, if not spend it at a convention? Spend time with your family or something? What an outrageous suggestion.
I don’t know, Dave. I’m starting to get people I would consider to be pretty serious con-goers saying that Easter is enough to put them off going to Swancon. And the extra day, in my experience, often isn’t a benefit. I’ve seen Swancons really struggle to program that extra time. Also, if you don’t find away of attracting casual con-goers, don’t you ultimately run out of them?
In terms of calling the shots: I’m making a point, mildly and politely I hope. If I were deadly serious, I guess I’d try and get active running cons, and then push for change. People who run cons make these decisions, and they should get to do so. I just think Easter is a mistake.
I think it’s a reasonable concern.
Facing closed shops and restaurants over Easter wouldn’t stop me coming to a Swancon (I’m coming next year) if there was a guest I particularly wanted to see.
But if I could only go to one con in a year and was choosing between Perth, or Melbourne or Canberra (for example) I might be swayed by the fact I could go out and socialise and eat somewhere nice in the latter two cities. And I think there’d be a reasonable number of people in the same boat.
Is it a regulatory issue? Are the restaurants allowed to open?
If there’s no legal impediment then maybe one solution is to start campaigning for Swancon bid committees to harass, cajole or broker a deal with some local eateries and/or restaurants. Maybe even informing them that there’s a con on around the corner with 250 people might convince a few to open. It might take a few years but if people start asking Swancon bid committees what their ‘restaurant’ policy is, you might see some change. Imagine how much better a bid would look if a committee could say: “We acknowledge this is a problem and on Saturday and Sunday lunchtime this eatery will open and con members can get a 5% discount and on Friday and Saturday night we’ve convinced these two restaurants to open.”