I have a whole essay/rant about Arisia and it's changing dynamic as of late, How I feel it's strayed from it's original mission to be all inclusive and such, how it's more of a fannish lifestyle and polyamory based con now instead of Science Fiction and Fantasy based as originally intended, and how it really needs to be able to encompass all things equally, but I will likely not subject people to it.
I want to agree and disagree with this. First, the disagreement. Of those forty seven lifestyle panels, a very small number of them were poly related. Most of the panels in the Fannish Lifestyles track were things like the Mad Scientist Laugh, Yoga, Disaster Preparedness and other similar things. The "Fannish Lifestyles" track seems to have been used as a catch-all for a whole bunch of things that didn't fit anywhere else. And I for one enjoy an opportunity to learn something about what other fans find interesting.
That being said, I was disappointed in the lack of variety and number of panels this year as compared to the last two cons I attended. I was a panelist for eight panels, and they were the only ones that I attended. That might be a function of having been a panelist on so many panels, as I was ON nearly all of the ones I would have wanted to attend. However, I do feel that there weren't nearly enough science panels, and the Literature track seemed to be heavily dominated with author readings. For a four day event, the panel program seemed a bit light, so much so that I left the con before noon this morning because the only panel I found marginally interesting was scheduled last, and I didn't feel like wasting four hours doing nothing to get to it.
I remember in years past lamenting that there were two panels scheduled against each other that I wanted to attend. This year, I had a hard time FINDING a panel to attend at all (aside from my own).
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Date: 2008-01-22 02:00 am (UTC)I want to agree and disagree with this. First, the disagreement. Of those forty seven lifestyle panels, a very small number of them were poly related. Most of the panels in the Fannish Lifestyles track were things like the Mad Scientist Laugh, Yoga, Disaster Preparedness and other similar things. The "Fannish Lifestyles" track seems to have been used as a catch-all for a whole bunch of things that didn't fit anywhere else. And I for one enjoy an opportunity to learn something about what other fans find interesting.
That being said, I was disappointed in the lack of variety and number of panels this year as compared to the last two cons I attended. I was a panelist for eight panels, and they were the only ones that I attended. That might be a function of having been a panelist on so many panels, as I was ON nearly all of the ones I would have wanted to attend. However, I do feel that there weren't nearly enough science panels, and the Literature track seemed to be heavily dominated with author readings. For a four day event, the panel program seemed a bit light, so much so that I left the con before noon this morning because the only panel I found marginally interesting was scheduled last, and I didn't feel like wasting four hours doing nothing to get to it.
I remember in years past lamenting that there were two panels scheduled against each other that I wanted to attend. This year, I had a hard time FINDING a panel to attend at all (aside from my own).