UnCon 2008 perchance?

[Anome]

Is there any word as yet about whether there will be an UnCon next year? As I mentioned about this time last year, some of us need advance warning to arrange leave and flights etc.

 

[colpepper1]

Was just wondering the same thing myself. This year's gig was sorely missed.

 

[cassandra78]

I was thinking the same, apart from the flights thing As i'm utterly broke, will prob need a good few months to try & save up tho.
Would it be in the spring?

 

[Stormkhan]

I, too, would like the Uncon to re-materialise in London. However, I get the impression it's cost of holding the event, rather than popularity which is preventing the Dennis Machine from running the event!

Poor old cynical me!

 

[drjbrennan]

So is there an UnCon in 2008?

 

[Anome]

Still no news. Might be worth e-mailing the management.

 

[taras]

pretty please can we have an Uncon2008?? Or if not, a Scottish Not the Uncon 2008

 

[James_H]

aye


I missed it last year as it was the day before I was due back in university, which was a major bummer

 

[colpepper1]

We'd have heard by now. Two years out will turn into....forever. Does anyone know whether it was a financial loss maker or just a ball ache to organise? The crowd for the last one was undoubtedly thinner.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Might be being a bit naughty, but since everybody is desperate to know, or has already given up hope, about the whether, when and where of UnCon 2008. I appear to be first with the news, from Issue N°235's Editorial.

A date for your diaries

Two of the questions we've been asked most often over the past couple of years - usually in tones of deep sadness or anxiety - are: "What happened to UnConvention? Are you ever going to do another one?"

UnConvention, for those readers who have never attended, is a weekend get-together in which we assemble some of the best and most exciting fortean researchers from around the world for two days of talks, demonstrations, workshops, exhibitions and performances. Perhaps more importantly, it's a chance to meet fellow forteans in a social environment, an opportunity to catch up, swap news and discuss ideas - often over a few drinks, if past years are anything to go by.

We understand the disappointment people suffer when they don't get their annual fix - although our fellow forteans at the Centre for Fortean Zoology and Newcastle's Centre for Life have done their bit to plug the gap left by UnCon in recent years with their crypto-themed Weird Weekend and Monster Weekend. By way of explanation, various periods of change at our publishers and the difficulties involved with finding a suitable venue for an event the size of UnCon have conspired to make it an occasional rather than annual event of late, with the most recent one taking place in the distant days of May 2006. So, after what we believe, regretfully, is the longest ever hiatus between UnConventions, we're overjoyed to be able to announce that we're back!

UnConvention 2008 will definitely be happening, although we don't yet have full details to give you. It will be a London-based event taking place in the autumn, most likely over the weekend of 1-2 November, so we suggest you pencil this into your diaries, turn down invitations to any school reunions, second cousins' weddings, beer festivals and other less pressing social events that might happen to clash with this one, and get ready for a weekend of fortean fun. The other good news - for all those who complained about the venue of the previous two UnCons - is that, this year, there will be a bar!

Obviously, at this stage, we don't have a line-up to announce - keep an eye on future issues of FT and the website for further announcements - but we'd like you to get involved.

UnConvention is your event, so we'd like to know who, and what, you'd most like to see appearing at it. Do you have favourite speakers you'd like to see return? Or new ones you think would enliven the UnCon stage? Are there particular themes or topics you'd like to see covered this year, or areas we've neglected in the past? Should we hold more hands-on, workshop-type events? Or host more films, live performances and exhibits? Perhaps you'd even like to deliver a talk or a workshop yourself...

We'd like to know what you think and get you involved in creating the programme for this year's event, so get in touch. You can email suggestions to us - with a subject line of 'UnCon 2008' - at [email protected], drop us a line at the office address shown at left or post your thoughts on the Fortean Times message board at
http://www.forteantimes.com, where there will be a special thread for UnCon 2008 suggestions.

:yeay:

 

[Anome]

Hurrah!

Now I need to look at bookings and stuff.

 

[Stormkhan]

*Folds arms and looks huffy*
About time. You took your own sweet while to figure out the Uncon was on again ... etc. etc.

 

[Fizz32]

Could we have Uncon somewhere other than London sometime? Please?

 

[taras]

Could we have Uncon somewhere other than London sometime? Please?

Or they could provide special UFOs to ferry people to the venue from around the country. More likely than moving the venue away from London, anyway....

 

[celticrose]

I will be my first one

 

[Timble2]

I hope to be there.

 

[colpepper1]

Yea! It's a long treak from t'north but the capital is the only place trains run to in a straight(ish) line so the capital is the place to hold it. The Quaker meeting house was good, dead handy for Euston, St.P and KingsX.

 

[TheQuixote]

From the latest issue's editorial column, it seems this year's UnCon will be:

[...] taking place over the weekend of 1-2 November at the University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, in Central London.

No word on speakers as of yet, more to be revealed next issue.

 

[Stormkhan]

Ah, my old stomping ground. I worked for over six years in that part of the West End.

 

[escargot]

Where's the 'Suggestions For Uncon Speakers' thread? I'd like to put forward Mark Olly, if only so that he and Stormy could have a fopping contest.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Where's the 'Suggestions For Uncon Speakers' thread? I'd like to put forward Mark Olly, if only so that he and Stormy could have a fopping contest.

It's stickied at the top of the UnCon Forum, or here:

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=781106#781106

 

[escargot]

Bloody'ell, you're very quick to please a woman!

Are you by any chance a married man?