Brief summary of Aussiecon day 1

Aussiecon day 1 was excellent. A more detailed report will follow soon, but here are the highlights.

In the morning I bump into some people who are panicking over the Hugo award ceremony preparations, so offer to give them a hand. We get that sorted, then collect membership pack from the reg desk and head for breakfast.

I also give a hand in the Fan room setup. I have three tables to work there - the Fan Fund table, the London 2014 table and the New Zealand 2020 table, so stop by there and there's a good chance you'll find me.

Soon it's time for the opening ceremony. I was intending to slip into the back of the room, but I get grabbed and told to sit in the reserved seats in the front row. Then during the ceremony, after the guests of honour are introduced, the fan fund delegates get introduced and asked to sit on the stage, which is a completely unexpected honour - sitting beside Robin Johnson, Shaun Tan and the legendary Kim Stanley Robinson. Chuffed.

I have a bit of a break after that, then I'm on a panel called Minotaurs in Space Helmets, which is about mythology in SF. I'm a bit out of my league next to the two pro writers beside, but hopefully I make a positive contribution.

After that I head back to the fan room and spend some time sitting on the London and Fan Fund tables. I take a couple of presupporting memberships of London, and write the location of the parties on lots of cards.

Once the fan room closes, I'm about to head off when I get collared by Sue Ann as they need someone to babysit a photocopier in Programme Ops. So I slave over a hot copier for the next 3 hours. It's interesting as we get quite a lot of people looking for ops and end up fielding a lot of questions to the best of our ability (though very often the answer is "come back tomorrow").

Eventually we can admire the fruits of our labour, a big stack of pink sheets containing the updated programme.

Duties discharged, I head to the bar, and catch up with lots of fans, including the awesome Kate and a bunch of Perth fans. I'm really looking forward to my stop-off there in a couple of weeks.

At the end of the day we head out in search of chips, though we end up with some dumplings and fried chicken things. Finally collapse into bed at the end of a long day.