Convention(al) Wisdom part 4: Why back in My Day part 1

I figured out the other day that I have been going to conventions for almost 35 years. When I was young, it was limited to conventions in Atlanta which there were a few. The big media at the time was the Atlanta Fantasy Fair, which was our big convention of the year. There were also a number of other conventions both book and media related and there was the Atlanta Science Fiction something or other which was an off shoot of another Science Fiction Club. (I am sure someone reading this will remember the real name of the group.) Before the Internet there were things called APAs (Amateur Press Association) that allowed fans of something to share their thoughts and ideas about a subject.

At the time the literary convention and the media convention were two different beasts. And there was an attitude of fans against the mundanes a lot of the time. We also had the older fans which fell into two distinct groups which some were very welcoming of the next generation and encourage younger people that weren’t just the children of the older fans to participate and the “get off of my lawn” group which really drove me up a tree. The GOOMLies didn’t seem to want anything to change from when they first discovered fandom and anything that might threating their version of FIAWOL (fandom is a way of life) and they made it hard for some conventions to survive. In some cases by the time they could be convinced that they needed to expand their horizons, it was already too late and a number of venerable conventions fell by the wayside because of the GOOMLies.

Within the media conventions there seemed to be a little more understanding of other fandoms and they tended to be a little more inclusive. However there were media GOOMLies as well that wanted their conventions to only be about a series that hadn’t had an episode in quite a while. I remember a Star Trek group rejected the idea of having some Star Wars stuff at their convention. That convention lasted longer than I expected but then we had a couple of new Star Trek series for them for mine but eventually it did go the way of the dodo.

There were a couple of conventions that tried to be all things to all people. Some of these worked (DragonCon) and some of them failed. There were some in fights between the conventions for guests and marketing which led to some people not being able to go to conventions that they previously enjoyed because they were assumed in the other camp. This got to the point of silly and then imploded. Some conventions stated what they were for (San Diego Comic Con) but they also were willing to branch out a bit and appeal to the younger fan. San Diego Comic Con for a long time was the only place I could find things based on Japanese animation that I loved.

I enjoy all forms of conventions in the things I am interested in. I can fluently speak all kinds of geek and am comfortable with various types of conventions. I never understood why a convention had to be this or that when you had a young base interested in that and could potentially be the next generation to run the convention. Especially when it overlaps something that is of interest to the people who do come to that convention. There is only so far you can go with the children of fandom, you have to find the new blood to bring in or the GOOMLies win in a very sad way.

The advent of the Internet changed the face of fandom and conventions forever but that is an essay for another day.

I am grateful for all the conventions I have been to through the years and all the friends I have made through them.