First, some background on my trip to Minicon. I'm a member of the Baltimore in 1998 Worldcon Bid Committee. Last summer, I decided to support our bid by attending some distant convention to convert the natives to our holy cause.
But which convention? I wanted a big con that I had never attended in the past. And one that other members of our committee had not "officially" visited yet. There were many choices since I haven't attended any cons away from the East Coast except for Worldcons like Chicon V.
Minicon seemed like an excellent choice. It has over two thousand attendees and my friend Bruce from Chicago recommended it highly. And by attending Minicon I would miss Balticon. This was a good thing since I was doing the pocket program for Balticon and I would be in Minneapolis if anything went wrong.
I talked Bob Mac-like-the-computer-Intosh into going with me on my quest. I promised him that we would sign up many pre-supporters and make lots of money. I got us memberships and started to make room arrangements with the Minicon Hotel Liaison, Karen Cooper. In the course of our e-mail correspondence, we experienced a "My, What a Small Universe" twist of fate. Guess which friend of mine has recently moved from Chicago and is now living with Karen?
Traveling with Bob is very entertaining but should be avoided by persons with weak hearts. It's like going on a field trip with Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street. Bob enjoys yelling at all the drivers on the road and complaining excessively about the airports. But all the kids know that there's really a nice guy under that fur. Our trip out to Minnesota was uneventful and we reached the hotel shortly after 11 am on Good Friday.
We discovered that many of the Minicon attendees had arrived on Thursday to get an early start on their parties. Minicon is like Spring Break with an art show and dealers room. Visualize a large two-story annex of rooms surrounding an indoor pool just off the hotel lobby with lots of deck area and an Olympic-sized Jacuzzi. Karen had given us an excellent corner cabana room on the first floor near the con suite with a great view of the Jacuzzi. To be fair, she gave the Boston in 1998 people the room on the opposite end of the Jacuzzi.
I wish I could give you a review of Minicon 30 (Oh... Is that what you thought this was?) but I am embittered and covetous and without a kind word to say about Minicon.
After we had registered, Bob and I borrowed Bruce's car and did our party shopping. Do you have any idea of how difficult it is to locate a cheap Styrofoam ice cooler in Minneapolis in March? We ended up buying a Styrofoam bait bucket for our ice. Then we spent the entire weekend being completely ignored by everyone! Don't these people realize how important Worldcon bids are! Don't they know that conventions are for serious business? We had rum left over on Sunday!!!
Hey, we were the big city guys from Baltimore. Everyone was suppose to flock to our bid table and our excellent room parties. There were over 3,450 attendees, a new record for Minicon. And ninety-nine percent of them paid absolutely no attention to us! The other 34.5 people came over to ask, "What's a Worldcon?"
Oh sure, Minicon is run by the most efficient and competent group of fans I've seen west of Boston. These guys seem to operate by the principle of "How can we make this Minicon even better than past Minicons and have lots and lots of fun doing it?" All the divisions were superbly run. Yet it was all done with a sense of humor and a touch of whimsy. Everyone was just so cheerful and bursting with energy that it made me ill.
So Bob and I spent a quiet weekend sitting around drinking the bid's rum and watching everyone around us have fun. We were in such a foul mood that we didn't attend any of the other parties and we skipped all the program events. We missed the Minneapolis in `73 party suite, the Dark Star Cafe, the dances, the CD release party, and all the other events in a very crowded weekend of fannish celebration. Our only consolidation was that the other bidders from Boston (1998), Las Vegas, Niagara Falls, and Chicago were all equally overlooked. Chicago and Las Vegas (run by people from Chicago) had slightly better crowds but they're closer to Minneapolis.
The majority of the people attending Minicon were there for the parties. The rest of the con functions such as the programming, art show, and dealers room seemed to be sized for a convention with about a thousand attendees. Everything associated with Minicon was totally first class from the construction of their badges to the programming. Well, I do have to say that more than half of the program items and most of the stuff in the dealer's room, art show, and masquerade was media fluff but it was very good fluff.
This is why I can't give a real review of Minicon 30. We were so upset that we forgot how to have fun. I'm jealous that they have such a great relationship with their hotel. Minicon has been at this particular hotel for eleven years now. They are allowed to do things that most eastern con committees would find unthinkable. Allow people to pound on drums next to the pool until 4 am! Flyers covering every empty vertical surface (and a few ceilings) in the hotel? Serve beer in the con suite... well, skip that example.
And surprisingly, most of the attendees worked hard at observing the convention's few rules. For an example; every time I used one of the three elevators to the 22nd floor, everyone was carefully counting to make sure they didn't exceed the twelve-person limit. The people at Minicon were not just attendees, they were members who cared about their convention.
Minicon 30 was a rotten convention...for Worldcon bids. Actually it wasn't quite as bad as I have made it sound. We did sell seven pre-supports and collected enough money to cover the cost of the party supplies.
We concluded on the way home that the Minicon participants interested in Worldcons must have attended Con-Adian in Winnipeg last year. They may already be pre-supporting the bids of their choice. So if Baltimore does win the 1998 Worldcon bid, Bob and I plan to return to Minicon to have some fun and maybe sell a few memberships on the side.