{"id":2964,"date":"2015-10-18T12:48:10","date_gmt":"2015-10-18T11:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/j-applebee.tumblr.com\/post\/131411555063"},"modified":"2015-10-18T12:48:10","modified_gmt":"2015-10-18T11:48:10","slug":"octocon-the-irish-sci-fi-convention-or-activism-never-has-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/2015\/10\/octocon-the-irish-sci-fi-convention-or-activism-never-has-a\/","title":{"rendered":"OctoCon – The Irish Sci-Fi convention (or activism never has a…"},"content":{"rendered":"

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OctoCon – The Irish Sci-Fi convention (or activism never has a day off)<\/p>\n

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In last week\u2019s episode of Jacq goes to a Sci-Fi convention\u2026<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been to 3 conventions prior to OctoCon. \u00a0Dragon Con was awful. Nine Worlds was pretty bad. \u00a0EasterCon (Dysprosium) was good. \u00a0I was completely ignored at DragonCon – as in I\u2019d talk to someone & they\u2019d look at me with a blank stare. \u00a0A panelist called me a Troll at Nine Worlds when I spoke up about cultural appropration. \u00a0So far, so bad.<\/p>\n

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. \u00a0The good thing about Dysprosium was the organisers were brilliant when I spoke to them about these problems. \u00a0They got on with sorting out these issues quickly, & reassured me that I was being listened to. \u00a0It is something I really appreciated. \u00a0I shouldn\u2019t have to face these kind of problems at any event, but they kept on happening. \u00a0I didn\u2019t have very high hopes for OctoCon. \u00a0But in the end, it was fantastic!<\/p>\n

I took part in 5 panels, including 4 that were decidely LGBT+ and sex positive. \u00a0Where most conventions will have a single diversity panel (or in the case of Nine \u00a0 \u00a0 Worlds, a track), OctoCon had diversity woven into every single session. \u00a0I didn\u2019t 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. \u00a0This is no small thing for me; having been used to being shoved in a\u00a0\u2018ghetto\u2019 of ethnicity at events. \u00a0The fact that there weren\u2019t even that many People of Colour in attendance didn\u2019t alter the fact that I felt listened to at OctoCon. \u00a0I felt respected. \u00a0I had loads of fun and learned new things about the worlds of gaming, science fiction and fantasy. \u00a0And with the added bonus of a lot of seriously HOT folks in attendance, what more could I ask for?<\/p>\n

Go to OctoCon. \u00a0http:\/\/2015.octocon.com<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0You know it makes sense.<\/p>\n

And support the bid for Dublin 2019 too!\u00a0http:\/\/dublin2019.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Better than a Quinn Martin production.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

OctoCon – The Irish Sci-Fi convention (or activism never has a day off)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In last week’s episode of Jacq goes to a Sci-Fi convention…<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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!<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

Go to OctoCon.  http:\/\/2015.octocon.com<\/a>  You know it makes sense.<\/p>\n

And support the bid for Dublin 2019 too! http:\/\/dublin2019.com<\/a> <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Better than a Quinn Martin production.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":1211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216,451,203,415,189,450],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activism","category-fantasy","category-ireland","category-lgbtqia","category-race","category-scifi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bimedia.org\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}