Glasgow 2024: A First Time WorldCon Experience

On August the 8th to 12th, I attended the 82nd World Science Fiction Convention. It was my first Worldcon (my first trip out of the country, even) and was attended by over 7000 other people, many in-person and some online.

Although I was going with other people, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect and hadn’t really had the chance to look into everything the convention would entale in advance. Given I was running a weekend LARP mere days before hopping on a plane, most of my energy had gone into desperately trying to avoid sickness and burnout while preparing and planning both a weekend LARP and a three-week trip.
That was largely successful, but did mean I was relying very heavily on other people’s planning to see me through the whirlwind few days between landing in London and catching the train up through York to our accomadation on Sauchiehall Street (which I have been reliably informed is pronounced much like ‘suckie hawl street’).

I planned out all of the panels I was interested in just a day in advance, which was cutting it quite close to the line but meant they were fresh in my memory.
I do think I made a rookie mistake and overdid it slightly on the first day with my original nine planned items! Luckily, I recognised this and ended up going to only four – which was still a lot, considering I also explored the entire main floor, caught up with some people I knew, and spent a significant chunk of the evening at the Brisbane 2028 bid party and hanging out with new first-day friends.
I had intended to make it to the ceilidh, but maybe it was for the best that I didn’t because I was shattered the next day!

Three to four panels/performances/lectures per day was about right for the rest of the con. There were a number of fantastic-looking events with planned recordings that I ultimately decided to skip in favour of other events that were in-person only, or being social. I have until the end of the year to finish working my way through those, and there is an online watch party planned for November where people will have the chance to catch up together.

There were a wide range of topics available – all the way from author panels, science, tech, RPGs, performances, readings, meet ups, and more. Even given the various interests of people in attendance (readers, hobby writers, published authors, academics, scientists, artists, volunteers helping to run the con…) I was very unsurprised that thousands of unique people could simultaniously have something to do that was taylored to their interests.

On that note, there are a few different ways people could enjoy their con. While I personally attended a mix of panels and socialising, I am aware of some people who spent most of the time enjoying the social activety centered around the bar (dubbed ‘bar-con’), which is always a bit of a hub for people gathering between events. There were also a variety of spaces for people to sit and hang out in the main hall, and another entire hall filled with art, books, and stallholders who were all very lovely to chat with. On the second day, I spoke to a delightful person over lunch who was enjoying predominately the science track panels.
I was mostly interested in learning about science and perpectives that I perhaps hadn’t considered for my own work, but I didn’t limit myself too much and included whatever looked fun and informative on my personal schedule. The only category I ended up avoiding was tech, as I found a lot of the talks reminded me too much of what I do for work. Maybe I will attend some of the tech talks another year.
There really isn’t a ‘right way’ of enjoying the con. I think the only rule of thumb is doing what is enjoyable to the individual.

I was pleasently surprised by the sheer number of textile crafts that attendees had with them. I had my crotchet, which I had successfully transported across the world, accompanied by my stitch picker and a thick needle – and a second needle that I had found abandoned on the floor of one of the panels.
Knitting and crotchet were very common, but really anything that was portable enough was in someone’s bag somewhere at the con. It was a delightful conversation starter, and gave me something to do during the pre-panel wait.

Speaking of wait times, I missed out on a couple of panels because I arrived too close to the start time. I had the biggest success arriving 30mins before the panel started (when the previous panel was leaving) and anything up until 15mins before was generally fine.
That meant that I had the most success with back-to-back panels that were within 5mins of each other, or were not one of the very crowded popular panels.

COVID safety policies were somewhat light, although masks were ‘heavily encouraged’. We all wore masks from the moment we hopped on the first plane to our arrival home, with some mask-off time for eating and when we were away from the crowds. There was a chat for self-reports in the Discord and I am sure that, from reading the chat, I must have been in the presence of people who unknowingly had it. Through a combination of luck and the masks, we all managed to avoid it. Something I am very thankful for, as I only regained my energy from my January infection two months before WorldCon.

There is so much more I could say, even in this broad overview. Because this is already quite long, I will finish up by saying that I found the whole experience delightful and inspiring. My top three favourites out of everything I attended in-person were:
Dune! The Musical (performance) – This was an absolutely delightful musical portrayal of Dune. I even went to see it a second time at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, it was so good. It’s on Bandcamp and I highly recommend listening to it.

The Many Legs of SF: Creepy Crawlies in Space (panel) – A brilliant author chat between Adrian Tchaikovsky, Justina Robson, Nnedi Okorafor, and Johnathan Thornton (the moderator). Everyone on the panel had the chance to speak and it was all very well presented and interesting.

Fighting Fungi in Space (science) – An informative talk by Andy Pitt about the challenges of fungi growing in space, particularly on space stations, and possible solutions that are safe for humans and bad for the fungi we don’t want.