Details aren’t public yet. Suffice it to say there’s going to be an upgrade in venue at one of them. A fairly significant one… with table fee increases to match.
This is why I have an escrow account. Still, for the love of God: buy my books. They’re good! Excellent Christmas gifts!
Just as a reminder:
I don’t expect many venues in December, if any, but I’ll be talking to bookstores and whatnot about doing book signings for GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND. If anybody knows of 1Q 2024 venues within reasonable driving distance of southern Maryland, now is the time to tell me…
Moe Lane
PS: Buy my books!
#commissionearned
Basically, I need the following:
If you have any suggestions or leads along those lines, by all means: let me know.
Starting in December – or, more likely, January 2023. Maryland for preference, although if I can get to somewhere in DC or Northern Virginia without putting my life in my hands that’s fine. I would actually prefer the smaller venues at this point, because they’re more likely to be reasonable on table fees. The last two biggish conventions I vended at… were not.
Suggestions welcome.
Schedule:
Balticon 56 will be from May 27-30th, at the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel in (shocker) Baltimore, MD. I expect I’ll be setting up the 28th; still haven’t worked out whether I’ll be staying at the hotel those two days. It’s not very far from home, after all. Cheaper, too.
Will TINSEL RAIN be ready by then? I… dunno. It’ll definitely be ready for FrightReads, but that’s a much smaller venue: but since I was originally expecting the book not to be ready until the end of the year, even having it almost ready in May would be a win. There’ll be other conventions, surely.
Costume-Con 40 is local (Rockville, MD), going on in April, and my SCA barony was talking about having a table there. I’m just not sure yet if I can actually vendor at the event, though. I’d be selling books, not costume-related materials. On the other hand, it’s reasonable to assume that folks who do FSF costuming might be interested in FSF books. And, on the gripping hand: my money is as good as anybody else’s when it comes to a table fee, hey?
I guess we’ll see.
To wit: “Any con which disinvites a guest for any reason other than demonstrated misbehavior on that guest’s part (such misbehavior to include threats of violence but not simply threats to someone else’s complacency) will go on to our list (“Oh, we have a little list! We have a little list!”) of conventions at which we will be forever missed.” Not that nearly as many people would care about my decision to not attend; but I suspect that more than a few con committees might be worried about David Weber’s decision, and you never know. Maybe this stance of mine will be actually meaningful, some day.
But whether or not it ever does become meaningful, this is what I am going to.
So, the convention schedule is firming up:
A few thoughts on this: first off, yes, that’s significantly earlier than from the previous two election cycles (as Dan McLaughlin is noting here). In 2008 the Democratic convention was held from August 25th to the 28th, and the Republican convention was held from September 1st to 3rd. In 2012 the GOP held ours from August 27th to the 30th, and the Democrats had theirs from September 4th to 6th. I’m noting the dates because at first I was under the very mistaken impression that the distance between the two conventions was usually longer; but it’s not, really. Presumably neither party wants to give the other one any kind of extended convention bounce.
Second: the Democrats are going to have an interesting time picking their venue. The AP reports that the choices for them are NYC, Philadelphia, and/or Columbus. I don’t really think that picking any of those will actually give the Democrats more votes, but I also think that the Democrats have pretty much already decided on Columbus for other reasons. It’s an open question whether NYC is going to be in any kind of shape to hold a convention after another year of Bill de Blasio – imagine how the city might look if the Mayor/NYPD feud goes on for another year – and Philadelphia is… not what it was. A very historically significant city with a proud civic history, but… well, at least they’re not Detroit*. It also is an easy train ride from NYC for any screaming protesters native to Gotham, while Columbus is not. And yes, that’s a consideration.
Lastly: if anybody next year complains about how strange this election season feels to him or her, this would be why. It’s been a while since we had conventions this early. It may be long overdue, but it’s still out of the ordinary. I wonder how the election cycle will look with an extra month of full-bore campaigning by both candidates?
Moe Lane (crosspost)
*Yes, I know that since Cleveland is where we’re having our convention, this is a somewhat ironic video to use. However, it’s good to have a bit of a laugh, no?
Alternative title: Democrats proudly choose being subjects over citizens.
Let me show you what happens when you don’t teach civics in high school:
[UPDATE: I don’t know why this H/T didn’t take, but the video’s from RevealingPolitics] For those without video, it shows various Democratic convention attendees’ reactions to the DNC’s infamous statement “The government is the only thing that we all belong to.” As you might suspect (or even fear), the attendees featured largely showed support for a political philosophy that wishes to essentially beat to death one of the basic operating principles of the American Republic, then urinate on its corpse.
Yes. It’s going to be one of those essays.
They took our mocking to heart about Democratic idiocy re Timothy Cardinal Dolan, and rushed to repair relations with the Church:
Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York, has accepted an invitation to deliver the closing prayer at next week’s Democratic National Convention. As was previously announced, he will also be offering the closing prayer at the Republican Convention on Thursday of this week.
It was made clear to the Democratic Convention organizers, as it was to the Republicans, that the Cardinal was coming solely as a pastor, only to pray, not to endorse any party, platform, or candidate. The Cardinal consulted Bishop Peter Jugis of the Diocese of Charlotte, who gave the Cardinal his consent to take part in the convention that will be taking place in his diocese.
Continue reading #rsrh Clearly somebody at the Democratic convention reads RedState.
