Odyssey Con - 2001 Convention Report

Convention Notebook

2001 by Jerome Van Epps

(click on any picture for a large image)

About two months before Odyssey Con, I was told that my job was sending me to a four day meeting in Chicago the week of the convention. Everyone told me at work not to worry because meetings at my organization were almost always rescheduled, but as it got closer to the date it became apparent that there was not going to be any rescheduling, and I would have to go. Talking vaguely about a "conference" I begged out of the last day of the meeting, but still had to go Monday through Wednesday with a bad cold I had just picked up. I lugged along a portable computer, so I could keep up on the flood of last minute convention related e-mail.

I got back just in time Wednesday night to stop in for the weekly SF gathering at Nick's Bar. People seemed to be pretty up for the convention, and was I glad to hear that Richard Russell had gotten all his video clips together for the convention. Back at home, Tom Havighurst and I put the final touches on the program list. (In the past several months, Tom had put in several late nighters on the program book and the two flyers.)

On the phone with Hope Kiefer the next morning, I found out she had already started buying food for the ConSuite, and was going to get the rest of it that afternoon. Hope and I had worked out a food buying strategy, based on her experience buying food for WisCon. Taking into account that we would only have at most half the people of WisCon and the convention would only last two days rather than three, we cut the purchases down to one-third (one-quarter for anything healthy.) The main change from WisCon would be that we would have sixty pizzas. Since she had not had time to pick up decorations, I drove over to Woodman's Grocery, and bought streamers and space and cow related decorations. At the checkout the clerk told me I must be planning a really cool party for a young boy, then she asked me how old he was. Not feeling like trying to explain the concept of a ConSuite, I told her that the boy was twelve years old.

My next stop was Saint Vincent DePaul's to pick up an extra coffee maker and an air popcorn popper. WisCon's mammoth industrial size popcorn maker had been stored in Tom's and my basement before going to last years' WisCon from which it was taken never to be seen again (editors note - it was found eventually). Despite numerous e-mails and telephone calls, we had been unable to track down the poppers' whereabouts. Tom, after many years of WisCon ConSuite duties, had developed a profound dislike of the machine, and I suspected that he might have tossed it in a ditch someplace to be rid of it once and for all. Also we did not have use of the hot dog rotisserie grill, so had to settle for using a crock pot. (editors note - this was very dangerous).

On my way back, I stopped by the Edgewater Hotel, to find the hotel's set up already in progress. Despite numerous reassurances that the hotel had as many chairs and tables as we needed, it turned out that the hotel was using every single chair and table which it had, leaving a lot of open space in the rear of the main programming space where there should have been chairs. The staff was very helpful, and we ended up pulling up a few extra chairs from the supply room, and moving some chairs we did not need from the dealers room. The dealers room was a bit of a surprise, when I saw it all set up, I discovered we had it just about completely filled, since we had sold an extra nine tables in the prior week. Not sure what we were going to do about the over crowding, I decided to think about it over night.

Back home, I got a message saying that Hope and Bill Farina were dropping off the first of two loads of food to the ConSuite on the lower level. I already had my cooking supplies in the car, so off I went to the hotel. Bill and Hope were struggling with the hotel luggage carts which had wheels like an old Piggly Wiggly shopping cart, which in combination with the 1948 elevator was a real problem. Bill owned a two-taper soda dispenser, and was hauling in a cart full of a dozen soda canisters the size of WWII bombs. The ConSuite did not have a refrigerator, but looking around, we found one in the program space across the hall. Which is probably the only convention program space you will ever see which has its own Murphy Bed. By about 6:30 we had most of the equipment in place and half the food, which would mean loading-in the rest of the food the next day would be easy. Off I was back home to wash up a bit, and go meet Vernor Vinge.

Jim Frenkel had agreed to pick Mr. Vinge at the airport, and in the traditional manner of WisCon, we were going to take the guest of honor out to dinner. (Jack L. Chalker was coming in too late to join us.) I had picked Pasta Per Tutti on Atwood, as a good choice. I spoke to Jim a few days before to confirm the time and place, which was a good idea, because Jim had thought we meant Tutti Pasta on State Street. (The curse of similar names.) Mr. Vinge was surprisingly relaxed after his long flight from San Diego and in a very good mood and glad to be here. It was a fairly small crowd because Joan D. Vinge and several others who wanted to be there had other things they had to do. Tom showed up with a copy of the program book hot off the press. It looked really sharp, except for some problems with photos. Getting graphics to look right had been the bane of Tom's and my existence for our earlier flyers. (Somehow in transferring the panelists short biographies, I had identified Jeff Lowrey as Mike Lowrey, a mistake which would not be likely to be made if the two stood next to each other.) Bill Farina showed up just as we were paying the check, and volunteered to pick up Jack L. Chalker, who was coming in on a late flight. (Better him than me after all the wine I had just had.)

Up early the next morning, I loaded up the registration materials, and arrived at the hotel by 9:30 A.M. Since the registration desk was right by the front door, I had everything in place quickly, which gave me time to check up on the ConSuite and to help one of the parties get organized in their suite, hang a decorative banner behind the stage in the main programming space and put up a few signs, one helpfully marked - Don't Panic.

About 10:30 A.M., Hank Lutrell showed up to run the dealers room. I had spoken to Hank the last weekend, and he had once again warned me of the endemic problem of dealers' room security. According to Hank, over all the years he had run dealers rooms at various conventions, he had never once not had some sort of problem with how the dealers room was secured by locks, including at least once when someone had to sleep overnight in the dealers room to prevent theft. Nothing I could tell Hank over the phone would convince him that what the hotel had told me about the locks was even remotely true. Now, with Hank there, I explained the plan I had thought up overnight to ease the dealers room crowding. We would move the Sunday gaming auction out into the game room next door, and put the autograph table and the promotional tables out in the lobby. Hank agreed, and declared also that he was satisfied with security.

Sandy Gazdecki had valiantly agreed to take charge of registration, but she had warned me that she would not be able to get there from Milwaukee with her son much before Noon when we were scheduled to begin registration. Without her being there, I started to try to run registration without her, and with me trying to juggle the registration list and figure out badge numbers, things quickly turned into 'Lucy in the chocolate factory.' (Richard Russell had brought in some WisCon supplies, which helped.) When Sandy finally showed up about a half hour later with a story of an overturned truck blocking the highway, things quickly settled down to a degree of efficiency. With things under control at the registration desk, and panelists showing up for the first panels at 1:30, (Eric Larson had been stuck in the same traffic jam) I went back down to the ConSuite which despite the absence of several volunteers who had not made it in yet was getting close to being ready to open at the scheduled 3:00 P.M. time. (Hope's husband Karl, had brought in the rest of the food.) My biggest fear about the convention was getting everything set up on time. I figured that if we could survive until opening ceremonies at 7:00 P.M., we could find volunteers to fill any gaps in staffing.

By the late afternoon, people were coming in a steady stream, all the panels were happening when and where they were supposed to be, and food was being served in the ConSuite. Not very hungry, I grabbed a bite in the ConSuite before I went down to make sure set up was going okay for the opening ceremonies. In the spirit of the late Rev. Ted, "Uncle" Don Helley (picture below) brought in twenty or thirty pounds of fruit. My girlfriend Cynthia White had shown up, and was helping with food in the ConSuite. Cynthia had given me the advice that as long as no one was killed and the hotel did not burn down, I should consider the convention a success.

We had asked the improvisation comedy group Ark 2 to do a skit that night after the opening ceremonies, and I had not gotten confirmation that they would be there until earlier that day, but they were there at 6:00 and were setting up lights and their other equipment. I had borrowed Tom's boom box to play 'Also Sprach Zorathustra' from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and had to improvise using the boom box from behind the curtain, when I discovered that Ark 2 had taken the electrical outlet I intended to use. After the piece, I got up behind the microphone, made a few jokes, thanked a bunch of people, and tried to mention Denis Hackbart who had been very sick, only to lose my voice, as much out of stage fright as anything. With that I was glad to hand things off to Uncle Don, Bhim Nimgade, Eric Larson and Ruth and Jim Nichols 'The Not Ready For the Concourse Hotel Players' to do a skit based on Homer's Odyssey spoofing local fandom.

I was settling down to watch Ark 2 when I was informed of a crisis in the lobby. Sandy had not had a break since she had gotten there, and she had told me that she was taking off at 7:00 to go out to dinner with her family. I figured it would be a simple matter for me or someone else to give out badges if a few people showed up late. Here it was 8:00, and there were ten people in the lobby wanting badges. I found the registration materials in the ConSuite, with everything except for the master list. Looking through everything several times trying to find the master list, I finally gave up and gave everyone temporary badges. Next year we are going to have the registration materials prepackage in envelopes, with pre-numbered badges to make things easy and quicker at registration.

Afterward, I finally got a chance to break from work and stopped in at the MadCon party where Vernor Vinge was talking about how Futurama was his favorite TV show and the WisCon party with plenty of cheese cake in many types. Hoo-hoo!

Tom, Bhim and I had gotten a hotel room, and the next morning when I woke up, my cold was back, and my voice was gone. My voice had dropped at least an octive, and it occasionally came out with a croaking sound. Not really able to sleep, I went downstairs to help set up the ConSuite. Mary Ellen Testen and a couple of her friends were helping get everything in order, and a couple of huge trays of doughnuts had come in.

That morning, Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons and Dragons, came in from Lake Geneva. Lory Aitkin from Pegasus Games had managed to get him to come, but unfortunately not until after our second mailing went out, so not very many people knew about it. I managed to talk to him briefly, and he said he would try to make it back next year.

At Noon, Jim Hudson and other WisCon mainstays set up a Triptree Bakesale in the ConSuite, and sold out almost all of the treats they brought.

Back at the registration desk at about 2:30, we already had about 30 people on the sign-up sheet for the guest of honor banquet. Our deal with the hotel was that we were supposed to give them the list late in the afternoon, but when I went to check with the restaurant they had so many reservations from non-convention goers, they no longer had room for everyone. Thanks to some gifted 'smofing' by Bill Farina, our hotel liaison, we got the restaurant to put in some extra tables.

I made a tour of the dealers room and found things were going fairly well. I bought a paperback from Lisa Freitag (picture below), and a few obscure games from one of the games dealer. By luck, more than anything else, the dealers were mostly selling different categories of things, which worked out well for their sales.

In the lobby, I was greeted by Klingons and Starfleet Officers who were doing a panel, and somehow there had been a miscommunication (those pesky ion storms, you know). They had expected us to provide them with a slide projector. Luckily, I tracked down Richard Russell who volunteered to bring in his the next morning.

That evening at 6:00 PM we had the scheduled banquet for the Guests of Honor in the dinning room, to be followed by speeches in the main program space in the next room at 7:30. Going down the reservation list earlier, I had noticed Vernor Vinge's name, and somehow imagined that Jack L. Chalker was on the list. Well, he was not. When he got there the maitre d' would not let him in unless someone canceled. Not only that, but he would not take my word that someone had told me he was canceling unless that person physically came in, and said he was canceling. I offered to give up my seat, but Jack L. Chalker was not happy with that. So I ran down to the dealers room, and yelled as loudly as I could in my hoarse voice, "Is there anyone here, who signed up for the banquet who is not going!" There was a few cries of 'what?' from the back of the room, and I repeated my question, and said I needed someone who had canceled to get Jack L. Chalker into the banquet. Richard West put his hand up in the back of the room, and I motioned him to follow me to the restaurant where I presented him to the maitre d'. Anyway the food was wonderful and the sight of Klingons eating in the formal dinning room, while the lounge pianist played a Star Trek melody was worth the price of admission.

Somehow I knew that an hour and a half was not enough time for the banquet, but I went ahead and put it down on the program schedule that way. Well, by 7:30, people were still eating their entrees, so interrupting my dinner, I went over to the main program space and told everyone we would not be able to begin before 8:00 so everyone should go off and have fun someplace else for the next half hour.

Well, at 8:00, I was finished, and so were our Guests of Honor, but Jim Frenkel and his family were just starting to look at the desert menu, which was going to be a problem considering that he was the toast master. Anyway, I convinced Jim to skip desert, and I went into start things off. After croaking out a couple of jokes, I introduced Jim as a benefactor of the Odd Con, and let him take over the talking. He described Odyssey Con as the 'Ur' WisCon. I do not know if he was referring to the ancient Mesopotamian city, or what my voice sounded like at that point. First he introduced Jack L. Chalker, who had warned me earlier that he did not have a prepared speech. With that warning, he preceded to riff off a comment by Jim, and talked about an infamous bay area convention in the 60's in which the fans at the masque had been lucky to escape with their lives. Jack L. Chalker likes to play the role of the grumpy old man, but he is really a very nice guy. Vernor Vinge followed with a very generous speech in which he thanked everyone and had very nice words to say about Madison. The ceremony ended with my presenting drawings of our Guests of Honor to them done by Georgie Schnobrich.

I had to miss most of the masque because I had to be on a panel, but people told me that Nancy Middlebrandt and her friends ran it really well. (Jim Frenkel and Tor Books donated books as prizes.)

The ConSuite that evening was being run by various people such as Jae Leslie Adams (picture below) and Cynthia White. There were a lot of other last minute volunteers to whom I did not get to talk.

I was on a panel about war in science fiction and fantasy, and we started behind schedule because everything was running late that night. Jack L. Chalker was still talking about H. P. Lovecraft. I am sorry that more people could not hear the panel, because he had started as a Lovecraft scholar, and had very interesting comments about how Lovecraft had created in his personal letters a sort of fictional self; a self more like who you would expect to write Lovecraftian stories than the actual author. He also had stories of tracking down rare limited additions of Lovecraft, the stories themselves had a very Lovecraftian flavor.

After that, I was on a panel about war in science fiction and fantasy with Nick Pollotta, who I knew very little about, but is a completely captivating talker, and seems to have a regular following at conventions. Phil Kaveny joined us, after the open mic poetry reading was over. As usual, the panel drifted off topic a little, and went more into the history of warfare, without talking about science fiction and fantasy. There were some interesting comments about which armies compared to their contemporaries were the best and worst. The panel ran way late, and about 12:30 AM, I suggested that Nick begin his vampire panel now, and I quickly made my exit. Out in the lobby, a Live Action Rolling Playing game (LARP) was busy killing vampires.

Upstairs, the Tor party was still in full swing, but Georgie's cake, a rich double chocolate, she had made specially to celebrate Joan D. Vinge's birthday on April 2nd was almost gone, but there were still plenty of fans and beer. From the APA, Scott, Jeanne, Jae, and Pat were there. Scott and Jeanne (picture below) were badge numbers 2 and 3. The person who was number 1 did not make it up from Chicago, so they were the lowest badge numbers at the convention.

I turned in reasonably early around 2:00 AM, or whatever time it was because of the change to daylight savings time that night. Just before I went to bed, I went by Nick Pollotta's vampire panel which was still in full swing with Nick rolling around on the floor, his arms and legs up in the air, demonstrating some finer point of literary criticism. My cold was getting worse, but I was too wired to sleep-in, and got up around 8:30 and went down to the ConSuite to help out. We had ordered way too many doughnuts to be delivered, and it turned out to be too late to cancel the order for Sunday, so I took the excess doughnuts to the gaming room to give the gamers a sugar fix, and some of Uncle Don's apples for good measure.

I had my second panel at Noon was on the law in science fiction and fantasy. By this point, I should note, I was still on my feet mainly because I knew that in a few hours it would all be over and I could then collapse for the next couple days. My mind really was not up to highly intellectual thought, and several time I came up with something bright to say in response to another panelist, and then completely forgot what I was going to say before he finished speaking.

All weekend, I had been getting very good feedback about panels. Several persons said that the panel on the future of the internet was the best panel they had ever heard, and the Harry Potter panel was also very popular. Someone suggested that in 02' we call the convention Even Con rather than Odd Con, which is way too fannish for me. A couple of attendees were actually surprised to learn that this was our first convention, considering how smoothly things ran overall.

Holding the microphone close to my lips so people could hear my comments, I croaked and whispered answers to questions at the closing discussions at 4:30 (picture below). In general, people were pretty happy, other than about my Friday night registration screw up. The comments tend to go in contradictory ways. They liked the fact that the convention is small, but they want more of whatever it is they are interested in, which of course if you had all that stuff, the convention would no longer be small. Luckily, our hotel next year will be larger.

Clean up went amazingly quickly, since we really only had to clear out registration and the ConSuite, and its a lot easier to take down than put up. Jim Frenkel volunteered to take our Guests of Honor to the airport. We had survived the weekend without damaging the hotel other than one armchair which had been broken in a party room by fan who broke it merely by sitting in it.

We really had no plans for a Dead Dog Party, but Tom sort of ad hoc decided a bunch of us who had done the clean up should go down to the Angelic Brewpub on Johnson Street. Over beer and nachos, we read through the surveys we had handed out. From the comments, people seemed to be happy with the convention. One person under the question 'what did you like most,' wrote in big red letters - STARWARS!!!! Under what he did not like - NOT STARWARS!!! Also, most people liked the hotel, but several people wanted us to physically change the layout of the hotel. Cosmo from Minneapolis was there with us. According to him, over the next two months, he was supposed to be at a convention every weekend - sounds too much like work to me. By 9:00 P.M., the weekend was finally taking its toll, and I was fading rapidly. Laurel Winter was sitting next to me, making witty comments, which were mainly lost on me.

About 10:30, I unload my supplies at home and crawled into bed, and called in sick for the next two days. Wednesday, I was back on the phone, talking to Jim Frenkel and others about lining up guests of honor for next year - April 12-14, 2002, at The Concourse Hotel.

Later that week, on April 7th, NASA launched Mars Odyssey. NASA's last couple of efforts to explore Mars had been failures and everyone is hoping for a successful mission this time.

God speed, Odyssey.

Last Updated 10/17/2001