A TRIP REPORT
“Let’s meet at the bar” is the standard refrain at World Fantasy Conventions. You say it when you bump into a colleague or friend or even when striking up a new acquaintance when there isn’t time to have an extended exchange in the hallways or after a panel or heading toward the elevator to fetch that thing you need from your hotel room. The hotel bar is the natural congregating place where the in-depth conversations can be realized.
Having those in-depth conversations is very nearly the main thing I come to conventions to do. It’s the heart of the experience. At this latest World Fantasy Con, held in Niagara Falls, NY, I was able to do less of that than I’d ever experienced at any WFC I have attended, and I’ve been to quite a few. Twenty-three, not counting this year’s. So color me disappointed.
I don’t know that I can blame the con committee. They did a solid job in many respects. I would say the shortfall was much more a result of the venue. The Sheraton didn’t realize the potential the event possessed for them. They are accustomed to filling their rooms with tourists who will then spend most of their time off viewing the falls or gamblers who will park themselves across the street within the Seneca Nation casino. Plus, it was the beginning of the off-season. Ordinarily the weather would have already turned and the crowds would no longer be there to sight-see, so the hotel, like much of the city, had partially shut down, curtailing the hours of their food-and-drink amenities to save money. So there was no open hotel bar of the traditional sort. There was a Starbuck’s counter. There was a space called Torrents that normally functioned as a bar, but now at this time of year was only open for four hours in the morning for breakfast traffic. There wasn’t even much ordinary seating in the lobby area.
The committee seems to have understood the importance of a watering hole. They devoted a large function room in the convention center to socializing and made sure it had a cash bar open for many hours of the day. But it wasn’t enough. The room was off to the side, not “on the way” to and from other function rooms and of course nowhere near the hotel lobby, nor even in the hotel itself. And when that makeshift socializing space was taken over by karaoke on Saturday night, there went the ability to hear conversations in progress.
That said, WFC is WFC, and I was glad to be there. Moreover, it was my first trip to upstate New York, an area I’ve long wanted to visit, so my wife and I flew in several days early and drove around, including visiting places where ancestors of mine lived in the period from the 1790s to the 1830s. The falls really are as impressive as advertised. The weather cooperated, blessing us attendees with mild temperatures and no rain. My reading went well. (I read a portion of “The Wind’s Kiss” from Swords, Magic, and Heart.) And I was able to momentarily touch base (mostly in passing in hallways, the dealers room, or the mass autograph session) with such folk as Madeleine Robins, Susan Forest, Joe and Gaye Haldeman, Walter Jon Williams, Sephora Giron, Cecilia Tan, James Van Pelt, Beth Dawkins, Pat Murphy, Frog and Esther Reed Jones, and Renee Stern.
As far as substantive conversations where I got to sit down and talk to anyone at length, there were only four instances to speak of: on Thursday night, my wife and I took Kristine Smith out to a gastropub about four miles from the hotel, on both Thursday and Friday nights Patrick Swenson and Jacob Weisman and I held forth in the hotel lobby until sleepiness obliged us to head up to our respective rooms, and on Saturday night I hung out with Jeanne Van Buren, who had driven all the way over from Binghamton in order to meet me (as well as to say hi to the many old friends and colleagues in the field she has known for decades). Back in the mid-1980s, Jeanne had purchased my novelette “Goats” for the anthology In the Field of Fire, but we had never done the face-to-face thing before.
I appreciated those conversations, but the tally just doesn’t approach the level of any other WFC. Next year the convention will take place in Brighton, England. I suspect I will not be able to travel that far, but I’m looking forward to the 2026 one in Oakland, CA. A member of the committee has assured me attendees will be able to engage in their accustomed “meet me at the bar” habits.
