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I have returned from the (at the moment) Not-So-Frozen north of Canada (Winnipeg, to be exact) where I attended Pemmi-Con - The 15th North American Science Fiction Convention. Herewith, thoughts.
The Convention
1) The hotel was nice and very centrally-located, and the convention center was good. It was a shame that we were split between the hotel and a set of rooms in the convention center literally a block away.
2) Convention scheduling and on-site tech were hit--or-miss (more miss than hit, in truth). I'm told they had a serious staffing shortage which did not help matters.
Winnipeg
When I first started going to cons, I treated them like work events at which I had to justify my attendance by going to as many panels as possible. Now I know I only need to go to those at which I signed up to participate in, allowing me time to do other things. Wikipedia tells me Winnipeg is Canada's sixth-largest city and eighth-largest metro area, so there was plenty of other things to do. Two other things of note were:
1) Winnipeg Art Gallery or WAG was a short walk from my hotel. They had a HUGE collection of Indigenous art, which was neat. Also neat is that they came up with a solution to the typical museum problem of too much art to exhibit. They call it the "Visible Vault" and it was a two-story tower in the lobby with art on shelves.
2) The Manitobia Museum was a mixture of natural and regular history. Their most impressive piece was a full-sized working reproduction of the Nonsuch which was the first ship operated by the Hudson's Bay Company.
Travel
I was greatly disappointed in United and Air Canada. United's online system could not seem to digest my perfectly-valid US passport and I ended up spending an hour on the phone (mostly listening to on-hold music) before getting a boarding pass. United flew me to Toronto and handed me to Air Canada. Both airlines decided to nickle-and-dime me - Air Canada doesn't even offer free pretzels anymore!
Flying back from Winnipeg to Toronto, my flight deplaned at the end of "D" concourse, which was at least half-a-mile from my departure at "F." There was also a security checkpoint and a US Customs checkpoint to clear - the later of which I only got through in time by asking my fellow passengers to let me jump the line. (Thanks, y'all!) I barely got on my plane to Chicago in time, only to sit on the runway for an hour. At least my luggage made it - but barely, as it was like the 3rd bag to hit the conveyor at O'Hare.
The Convention
1) The hotel was nice and very centrally-located, and the convention center was good. It was a shame that we were split between the hotel and a set of rooms in the convention center literally a block away.
2) Convention scheduling and on-site tech were hit--or-miss (more miss than hit, in truth). I'm told they had a serious staffing shortage which did not help matters.
Winnipeg
When I first started going to cons, I treated them like work events at which I had to justify my attendance by going to as many panels as possible. Now I know I only need to go to those at which I signed up to participate in, allowing me time to do other things. Wikipedia tells me Winnipeg is Canada's sixth-largest city and eighth-largest metro area, so there was plenty of other things to do. Two other things of note were:
1) Winnipeg Art Gallery or WAG was a short walk from my hotel. They had a HUGE collection of Indigenous art, which was neat. Also neat is that they came up with a solution to the typical museum problem of too much art to exhibit. They call it the "Visible Vault" and it was a two-story tower in the lobby with art on shelves.
2) The Manitobia Museum was a mixture of natural and regular history. Their most impressive piece was a full-sized working reproduction of the Nonsuch which was the first ship operated by the Hudson's Bay Company.
Travel
I was greatly disappointed in United and Air Canada. United's online system could not seem to digest my perfectly-valid US passport and I ended up spending an hour on the phone (mostly listening to on-hold music) before getting a boarding pass. United flew me to Toronto and handed me to Air Canada. Both airlines decided to nickle-and-dime me - Air Canada doesn't even offer free pretzels anymore!
Flying back from Winnipeg to Toronto, my flight deplaned at the end of "D" concourse, which was at least half-a-mile from my departure at "F." There was also a security checkpoint and a US Customs checkpoint to clear - the later of which I only got through in time by asking my fellow passengers to let me jump the line. (Thanks, y'all!) I barely got on my plane to Chicago in time, only to sit on the runway for an hour. At least my luggage made it - but barely, as it was like the 3rd bag to hit the conveyor at O'Hare.
