THURSDAY 8^th August 2024

After a 19 year hiatus Worldcon returned to Glasgow for five event-packed days from Thursday 8^th to Monday 12^th August 2024. The schedule included nearly 1000 separate programme items with over 400 panels where the passion and erudition of the sci-fi and fantasy community tackled issues ranging from ‘Systems as Villains’ to ‘How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse.’ This was my second Worldcon, having attended Dublincon in 2019. Over a series of posts, I will try to share a flavour of my own Glasgow Worldcon experiences drawing on photos and very rough notes jotted on my phone.

Introduction

The Glasgow SECC is a large venue of interlocking buildings (the centre itself, the Armadillo theatre and the Plaza hotel) with the convention utilising rooms in all three spaces. The unscaled map I had looked at beforehand failed to convey the vastness of the SCC space. I had thought Dublincon’s titled Bean can exhibition centre was large but Glasgow felt far more spacious. The larger halls were augmented by screens placed around the rooms to relay images of the panels on the dais. Although there were over 7000 in-person attendees at the con, it never felt crowded, though the greenhouse glass roof and uncharacteristically summery Glasgow weather did make for a warm bar and central promenade area.

Programme items and events

Besides the discussion panels, other programme items and opportunities included

• table-talks where readers could sit around 8 to a table for a relatively intimate chat with a favourite author.
• Book signings – with queues of varying length according to author prestige – where people could have a brief moment and a personalised epigram.
• Talks from publishing industry experts with Q&A follow up
• Musical performances from visiting bands
• A massive array of books and artefacts on stalls in the spacious dealers’ rooms
• Set piece ceremonies and awards including, the masquerade, opening and closing ceremonies and the Hugo awards.
• Activities – for example an in-person writing fighting participatory workshop led by the ever expert and always debonaire Miles Cameron.

Social aspects

For scale and variety of attractions, Worldcon is unrivalled in my experience and certainly I will look to go again every time it is within reach of my budget.

Just after returning from Worldcon I was watching the Simon Pegg and Nick Frost alien comedy Paul. The movie itself is a bit hit and miss. However, the sense of wonder and belonging from the Pegg and Frost characters as we meet them walking into ComicCon, perfectly captures that sense of coming home that you get from a convention of your extended speculative fiction family. Something that certainly enhances the experience (as with any con) is the chance to catch up in person with that found family of like-minded social media friends with whom one has bonded over a love of fantasy and science fiction literature.

Comparisons to my only other Worldcon experience

One issue I had found at DublinCon was that each of the one-hour panels followed immediately after the other. For the many very popular panels in Dublin this had created crowded queueing systems on the landings as the next group waited for the previous group to leave the space. It also meant you couldn’t really attend successive panels, though the queues themselves were a fun opportunity to chat and socialise. However, Glasgow solved this by inserting a half hour hiatus between each panel, which made getting a seat a more leisurely and less pressured experience – it was even possible in that half hour gap to grab a bite to eat and still make it to the next panel.

The events that had signups (the table talks and workshops) had been paper signups as far as I recall in Dublin, but in Glasgow you put your name down electronically by 5 pm the day before and then successful people were picked at random to fill the available spaces and notified by email the night before. While there was no way for an early bird to guarantee the worm, this was at least fair and efficient.

Having gathered my pass the day before the convention opened, It was straight in to the convention on Thursday. Although six of us did head off to the nearby Clydeside Distillery for an exclusive tour and whisky and chocolate tasting, so our conventioning didn’t really start until after lunch. That meant, along with catching up with the gathering throng, and sampling the interesting items in the Dealers room, I only took in a couple of panels.

Blood is thicker than water: found families in SFF (14:30 8/8/24)

Adrian Tchaikovsky, Kari Sperring (Moderator), Martha Wells, Michael Green Jr.

Given the found family experience of speculative fiction fandom, this felt like an appropriate panel to start with, with some big hitting authors. The many fans of Martha’ Wells’ Muderbot series certainly recognised the found family elements to her rogue sec-unit’s engagement with AI and human companions.

Curiously, the colloquial meaning of phrase “blood is thicker than water” as being family matters most is somewhat disputed. Other sources extend the saying to “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb” which is to say ties forged fighting in battle together – the found family if you will – are stronger than the ties of biological kinship.

There is also the observation that – when joining a found family – you get the advantage of a clean slate, rather conforming to the role that your family has cast you in through custom, expectation and reinforcement! Which is perhaps why in found families you have more chance of being yourself, rather than who your family think you should be/are!

Fight the Powers: Systems as Villains in SFF (17:30 8/8/24)

Abigail Nussbaum (Moderator), Aliette de Bodard, Charlie Stross, John Scalzi, SJ Groenewegen

The panel had a lively discussion about systemic villainy. Is the evil genius X the creator of the system, or the product of a system that would have inevitably thrown up someone equally evil to be its figurehead in the absence of X. Apropos of nothing, there was one quote from this panel “He thinks he’s Tony Stark but actually he’s Dilbert” which I think may have been a reference to Elon Musk.

Other observations included the point that “the purpose of a system is what it does.” That is to say, judge a system by its actions and effects, not by its avowed mission statement or legal purpose. A drycleaning company that smuggles people is a people smuggler, not a cleaning company. There was an opportunity to ask questions, but sadly time was limited so I will have to leave you with the question I would have asked “Do systemic villains require collective protagonists? Do we need ordinary people on the streets more than a hero in a cape?”

Apres-Con

The convention centre had a good range of speedy (if not exactly cheap) food ranging from the pizza and fish and chips from the stalls at the end of the hall, to more civilised bar food from the Cydebuilt bar. However, people tended to drift off in the evening to find quieter restaurant opportunities. The Ibis hotel – a short 20 minute walk from the centre – was surrounded by food emporia and a group of us found ourselves in the only unlicensed restaurant in Glasgow. Fortunately I had brought some whisky with me for a convivial night cap though it was not too late a night. With four more days of con, we all felt the need to pace ourselves.