OctoCon - The Irish Sci-Fi convention (or activism never has a day off)

In last week’s episode of Jacq goes to a Sci-Fi convention…

I’ve been to 3 conventions prior to OctoCon.  Dragon Con was awful. Nine Worlds was pretty bad.  EasterCon (Dysprosium) was good.  I was completely ignored at DragonCon - as in I’d talk to someone & they’d look at me with a blank stare.  A panelist called me a Troll at Nine Worlds when I spoke up about cultural appropration.  So far, so bad.

Dysprosium had more than its fair share of racist attendees - from the man proudly wearing a Gollywog badge, to an attendee demanding I explain to him & his mates how to end racism.  The good thing about Dysprosium was the organisers were brilliant when I spoke to them about these problems.  They got on with sorting out these issues quickly, & reassured me that I was being listened to.  It is something I really appreciated.  I shouldn’t have to face these kind of problems at any event, but they kept on happening.  I didn’t have very high hopes for OctoCon.  But in the end, it was fantastic!

I took part in 5 panels, including 4 that were decidely LGBT+ and sex positive.  Where most conventions will have a single diversity panel (or in the case of Nine     Worlds, a track), OctoCon had diversity woven into every single session.  I didn’t only hear about or from People of Colour in the Race & Sci-Fi type sessions, but in the ones on Timetravel, in Genderqueerness and inErotica in fiction too.  This is no small thing for me; having been used to being shoved in a ‘ghetto’ of ethnicity at events.  The fact that there weren’t even that many People of Colour in attendance didn’t alter the fact that I felt listened to at OctoCon.  I felt respected.  I had loads of fun and learned new things about the worlds of gaming, science fiction and fantasy.  And with the added bonus of a lot of seriously HOT folks in attendance, what more could I ask for?

Go to OctoCon.  http://2015.octocon.com  You know it makes sense.

And support the bid for Dublin 2019 too! http://dublin2019.com 

Better than a Quinn Martin production.