Longer version:
Well gosh, that was fun. And if ever there was a convention that needs a lot of photos taking during it, it's Geekfest. Alas, I took none. So you'll just have to take my word for the fact that there were so many cool costumes! Harley Quinn, Dr Who and Ace, baby in a flying saucer pram, Judge Dredd, assorted manga type people, Daenerys, a Sharknado...!
And panels. Good lord, were there panels. About a million of them, with a handy digital programme thing to make it easier to sort personal scheduling out. Missed a load I wanted to go to because they clashed with other ones I wanted go to a bit more. I need a Time Turner for next year, I think, so I can see all the things.
But what I did see - well, there was the Urban Fantasy panel, of course, which I live tweeted due to the perplexingly small amount of women being mentioned as having written urban fantasy and/or city based fantasy. There'll be a blog forthcoming on that shortly, I think, as there's a lot of thinky thoughts bubbling in my head about urban fantasy, cities and visibility of women. Though, apart from the issue with forgetting women authors, it was a good panel with some intriguing points made and the panellists were excellent.
I also made it to the Time Travel panel; the Mythology and Fairy Tales panel; the Writing LGBTQ+ Characters in SFF talk by Laura Lam; the Rule 63: Gender and subversion in History, Popular Culture and Fandom panel; the 'It's A Man's World...': Where Are The Women In The Creative Industry? panel; the Looking Backwards panel, which was a cool history thing; and the podfic vs podcasts thing - which I somehow managed to not realise would be about fan fic, despite the fact it was in the fanfic track! But it was a fun one, and very interesting.
And I may have gone a bit mad shopping in the dealer room. And that's before the post-con book binge of buying up stuff recommended on panels and mentioned by lovely random people. And talking of people, I saw many, in that ships that pass in the night kind of way, and big hugs to Alasdair and Marguerite and Adrian and Adele and Ian who were particularly lovely and made the con just that bit better!
Definitely need to book up for next year.
