MediaWest*Con 31Trip Report
Jun. 5th, 2011 05:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfold_xBack from MediaWest, where a good time (and many a pancake) was had by all!
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mrwubbles, myfieldnotes and I flew into Detroit on Thursday and drove to Lansing. Although this generally takes longer than flying to Lansing, it turned out to be a lucky choice as severe weather apparently caused extensive flight cancellations late Thursday and into Friday, which delayed or ended the plans a lot of attendees. We like driving over as it also gives us a chance to try a new afternoon tea service. This year we stopped at the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham. The sandwiches, scones and desserts were all excellent and definitely worth the side trip, though we were surprised to be offered only Earl Grey (bergamot is Of The Devil) or a raspberry tisane. I don't think we managed to keep the horror off our faces, and they immediately offered to brew us anything we liked. If we go back next year we'll definitely be taking them up on that (because it may make me an enormous snob, but good sandwiches deserve a nice, non-flavored, black tea).
I was surprised and delighted to find that the love of Sherlock is broad and deep. I was afraid that there might be more panelists than attendees at the scheduled Sherlock panels. Given the previous scarcity of Sherlock Holmes panels (one Richie movie panel last year, the occasional Granada or ACD panel in prior years) I didn't think there could be that many folks who'd developed a fannish interest in the series.
Wrong!
Each of the Sherlock panels I attended were full houses, with lots of enthusiastic participation from the audience. Almost all of the conversation was focused on the positive: the witty dialogue, the rich visuals, how well the creators manage to make the series accessible to new fans while including fun nods to canon. I met lots of great Sherlock fans, like the talented and engaginglunate8, and was happy to find most of my old friends shared my new love.
The Sherlock H/C recs panel went especially well. A few years ago, we attended a Stargate: Atlantis H/C recs panel hosted bywraithfodder, which was an absolute blast. A room full of hurt/comfort fans, trading favorite stories, aided by the hotel wifi when our memories failed us. It was a total blast, and since then, mrwubbles, myfieldnotes, brate7 and I have tried to replicate this with our current favorite fandoms. This year, myfieldnotes had the excellent idea of creating a delicious account to host the recs we brought to the panel as well as the recs from the participants; she also made some fabulous Sherlock bookmarks with the URL which we distributed. Per usual, our provisos for recs were that they be gen, with a happy ending and no permanent (major) character death. We don't have all of them up in the final format yet, and haven't had time to read all of the stories to be sure that they meet the criteria, but most of the material from the Sherlock, Supernatural and NCIS panels are up, along with some of the recs from previous years.
Although there weren't as many Sherlock vids as I'd hoped for, one of my friends entered a really excellent pan-Sherlock Holmes vid into the competition, which walked away with best song interpretation.
myfieldnotes, mrwubbles and I chose a door decoration theme that left no doubt as to our current favorite fandom:
The hotel is newly renovated, and we were asked (reasonably) to leave off the really elaborate door decorations that might damage the new paint or fixtures. This limited some of the more creative decorators, but there were still many fine entries. I especially loved this Nicholas Courtney/Liz Sladen tribute door:
Each renovated floor of the hotel featured a new statue in the elevator area. The fifth floor got a little green cherub. I think the congoers were in the hotel for all of thirty seconds before:
The angels have the fifth floor
Unfortunately, severe weather continued through Memorial Day weekend. On Sunday, as the final Sherlock panel was breaking up, a hotel employee warned us that the county was under a tornado warning, and gave us their recommended locations for taking shelter, should the sirens go off. I'm from the east coast, where there simply aren't as many tornadoes, and this was my first time actually needing to take shelter. We decided against the interior service halls in favor of the vid room (which is windowless, though it does have some spectacular chandeliers that shivered through the storm period), after rescuing our snacks from our room (because if it's my time, I want to go out on a sugar high). A tornado did touch down a few miles down the highway, knocking out power for several days. Fortunately, Lansing was not affected.
Overall, attendance seemed down. Though some of that might be due to the weather, with the Internet provides a lot of the content and interaction that used to be provided by cons, it seems likely that trend will continue. However, as much as I enjoy my fannish hobbies, for me, MW*C is more about the friendships I have made over the past decade, and I expect I'll keep going as long as we're having fun.
mrwubbles, myfieldnotes and I flew into Detroit on Thursday and drove to Lansing. Although this generally takes longer than flying to Lansing, it turned out to be a lucky choice as severe weather apparently caused extensive flight cancellations late Thursday and into Friday, which delayed or ended the plans a lot of attendees. We like driving over as it also gives us a chance to try a new afternoon tea service. This year we stopped at the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham. The sandwiches, scones and desserts were all excellent and definitely worth the side trip, though we were surprised to be offered only Earl Grey (bergamot is Of The Devil) or a raspberry tisane. I don't think we managed to keep the horror off our faces, and they immediately offered to brew us anything we liked. If we go back next year we'll definitely be taking them up on that (because it may make me an enormous snob, but good sandwiches deserve a nice, non-flavored, black tea).I was surprised and delighted to find that the love of Sherlock is broad and deep. I was afraid that there might be more panelists than attendees at the scheduled Sherlock panels. Given the previous scarcity of Sherlock Holmes panels (one Richie movie panel last year, the occasional Granada or ACD panel in prior years) I didn't think there could be that many folks who'd developed a fannish interest in the series.
Wrong!
Each of the Sherlock panels I attended were full houses, with lots of enthusiastic participation from the audience. Almost all of the conversation was focused on the positive: the witty dialogue, the rich visuals, how well the creators manage to make the series accessible to new fans while including fun nods to canon. I met lots of great Sherlock fans, like the talented and engaging
lunate8, and was happy to find most of my old friends shared my new love. The Sherlock H/C recs panel went especially well. A few years ago, we attended a Stargate: Atlantis H/C recs panel hosted by
wraithfodder, which was an absolute blast. A room full of hurt/comfort fans, trading favorite stories, aided by the hotel wifi when our memories failed us. It was a total blast, and since then, mrwubbles, myfieldnotes, brate7 and I have tried to replicate this with our current favorite fandoms. This year, myfieldnotes had the excellent idea of creating a delicious account to host the recs we brought to the panel as well as the recs from the participants; she also made some fabulous Sherlock bookmarks with the URL which we distributed. Per usual, our provisos for recs were that they be gen, with a happy ending and no permanent (major) character death. We don't have all of them up in the final format yet, and haven't had time to read all of the stories to be sure that they meet the criteria, but most of the material from the Sherlock, Supernatural and NCIS panels are up, along with some of the recs from previous years.Although there weren't as many Sherlock vids as I'd hoped for, one of my friends entered a really excellent pan-Sherlock Holmes vid into the competition, which walked away with best song interpretation.
myfieldnotes, mrwubbles and I chose a door decoration theme that left no doubt as to our current favorite fandom:The hotel is newly renovated, and we were asked (reasonably) to leave off the really elaborate door decorations that might damage the new paint or fixtures. This limited some of the more creative decorators, but there were still many fine entries. I especially loved this Nicholas Courtney/Liz Sladen tribute door:
Each renovated floor of the hotel featured a new statue in the elevator area. The fifth floor got a little green cherub. I think the congoers were in the hotel for all of thirty seconds before:
The angels have the fifth floor
Unfortunately, severe weather continued through Memorial Day weekend. On Sunday, as the final Sherlock panel was breaking up, a hotel employee warned us that the county was under a tornado warning, and gave us their recommended locations for taking shelter, should the sirens go off. I'm from the east coast, where there simply aren't as many tornadoes, and this was my first time actually needing to take shelter. We decided against the interior service halls in favor of the vid room (which is windowless, though it does have some spectacular chandeliers that shivered through the storm period), after rescuing our snacks from our room (because if it's my time, I want to go out on a sugar high). A tornado did touch down a few miles down the highway, knocking out power for several days. Fortunately, Lansing was not affected.
Overall, attendance seemed down. Though some of that might be due to the weather, with the Internet provides a lot of the content and interaction that used to be provided by cons, it seems likely that trend will continue. However, as much as I enjoy my fannish hobbies, for me, MW*C is more about the friendships I have made over the past decade, and I expect I'll keep going as long as we're having fun.
