By James H. Burns: In this gigantic New York fantasy extravaganza convention weekend–
How big?
Try getting a hotel room anywhere in Manhattan (even the YMCAs, I’m told, were sold out!)
I can’t help think what, for those of us of different generations, would comprise the perfect convention?
I know that I’d want at least a few lovely programming tracks (with one, hopefully on science), a dealers room with items I had somehow never known of, and most importantly, the chance to converse with a bevy of the bright and curious, under encouraging circumstances!
(Somehow, didn’t hotel-bound conventions make the latter all the more accessible and amenable?)
Most of all, I’d love the chance to see comics and science fiction convention friends from decades past, whose destinies I’ve always wondered, and had faith and optimism about…
And, of course, to some degree, that’s all simply a desire to return to all the joys of one’s youth!
And, I realize, or trust, that today’s youth are having their own amazement and fascinations in abundance, if in a different way, at this season’s New York Comic Con.
But what would be the recipe for YOUR perfect get-together, if the sky, and the stars, were the limit?
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Mine would be in The Tucker Hotel — spacious, but not enormous, because we’re talking about the number of people one individual can cope with … less than a thousand, and perhaps about half that. Maybe 300 people I’ve known for mumblety-mumble years (about all that have survived for that long nearly 60 years, in my case) plus about 200 interesting & stimulating newcomers). And I suppose it would need to last for at least a month. Not that I’d be likely to last for that long, on a maximum of four hours of sleep per night.
Let’s see – 60 to 100 fanzine fans would be about right, with one or two programmes. Yeah – another Corflu, that’s the ticket. And within comfortable driving distance. But not in the same city in which I live as I would then have to work ON the con and I am too busy putting out APAzines and other written fanac to have the time for working on a con.