October Convention Reviews: Eurocon and Octocon 2020

Eurocon (Futuricon) was surprisingly small. The convention requested prerecorded solo talks (their largest category of programming), so I sent in my four ahead of time. This was a relief as some were premiering at three and five in the morning. When possible, I chatted along and offered to take questions and then moved to discord. There, rooms one, two, and three made the panel chats sometimes run together with the ones before or after, but it was manageable. There was a discussion thread for everyone’s self-promotions, which was convenient. There was also an online games giveaway contest.

Access to the convention website wasn’t available beforehand — in fact, the emails with one’s sign-in only were sent the day of the convention. Thus, many questions about whether people had registered and how to get in were flying around. Admission was just ten euros.

Fittingly for a Eurocon, there were many talks on European fantasy and Croatian culture, including strong women’s mythology and “witches and bitches.” A talk on fake news also was very topical. There were talks on Portuguese fantasy and fantasy cons, and many independent authors and publishers sharing what made their fiction different (or as one publisher said, nothing at all). There was a large track of presentations about upcoming conventions. There were art workshops, and for something different, lots of trivia quizzes on popular fandoms like Harry Potter and Buffy. There was a lot going on, though much of it was during my sleep hours.