DucKon Report

DucKon, as a whole, was an ok convention. The Dealers room was same-'ol, but the art show had a few new surprises. The con-suite was the big disappointment for me, on Sat, on 3 separate occasions I went up there looking for coffee and there wasn't any. I ended up going across the street to the Starbucks to get my fix. Same thing on Sun., 3 trips, no coffee. A con-suite needs to have coffee on Sun morning. Good thing we have the internet café, Rick will be taking care of my addiction all weekend long.

The best part of DucKon was getting to talk to a lot of people. Connections were made, ideas were generated, and I now have a much clearer picture of where we are going with C25.

Friday night was our party. I checked in at about 3p, then went to buy perishables. I got back to the hotel at 6p. One of the 2 (very small) elevators to the party tower was broken so it took half an hour to get my cart load up to the party room. Setup wasn't supposed to start until 7 but I decided to stay in the room once I got there because I wasn't sure I could get back in time if I left.

I was helped with early setup by Phoenix and Kerry and a little later, Rick, Brent & Tracey (who brought yummy cookies) showed up to assist.

We actually opened our doors a little early, because we hung lights on the door and then realized we couldn't close it. Traffic came in waves throughout the evening with the bulk showing up from 10-11p. We stuck 90 people with stickers but, if you include the usual bunch that prefer not to be stuck, we had about 100 people come through our party.

Helping a great deal during the party were Vicki and Rich, without their help I would never had the chance to go get Black Forest cake and Ogre's blood, Yum!

Other con-com that stopped by were Brian, Tracy Erik & Vlad.

We had almost exactly the correct amount of everything, there were only a few cheezy poofs and cookies left. There were a bunch of people who were glad to find that we had proteins (cheese) and, strangely enough, most of the lazy pierogi was eaten…I guess fen like sauerkraut. Miscalculations, no-one touched the egg-drop soup, and we ran out of frappe and had to send Phoenix for more.

For Windy, I think I will stick with the same assortment of basic snack foods, but slightly more. I would like to add more proteins to the mix, if you are/have been on Atkins, please help come up with Mad Scientist proteins to feed people.

We closed the doors around 1:30a and Vicki & I did some clean up. At 2:30 I decided I was done cleaning and checked out the other parties. I finally went to bed a 4:30a.

Sat was quiet. Except for the lack of coffee, it was a pretty good day. I talked to people, did the Dealer's/Con-suite/GT-suite cruise a few times. Took a nap, and then worked on the budget for C25. By this point, the parties were in full swing so I cruised the parties for the rest of the evening.

Sun, we were supposed to have a fan table assigned to us, but there wasn't so I staked out a claim at an unused one. The traffic was light and happened mostly during the "passing times". Tonya, Rich & Eric took turns keeping me company and Gretchen & Eloise stopped by for a chat. Special thanks to Mirth & Mischief who found 2 cups of coffee for me. We took in 8 memberships, but more importantly we made a contact with someone at Argonne and talked with a group that wants to throw a Mad Scientist LARP at C25. We closed up the table at 2:15

February 10-13, 2005
Arlington Heights, IL

James P. Hogan- Author GoH
Shaenon K. Garrity - Artist GoH
John Morse - Fan GoH

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