Donna Maree Hanson, Author and PhD Candidate

After partying at the Hugo Losers party, it was a slow start to Saturday at Worldcon. Thank you to WorldCon 76 and George RR Martin for a great party. Saturday for me was a panel on Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance. I received an email from program ops saying the moderator for the panel was sick and could I take over as moderator. I said yes, but then put myself in stress mode. It is much easier to answer questions than it is to ask them. So while we had slept late and I did the blogging for post #6 I was hard pressed to get to Mesukeskus in time for my panel. I managed to get on the tram and brainstorm. Then I realised I left my bag of koalas and chocolates at the hotel.

The panel went really well I thought. I went to the green room first but couldn’t see any fellow panelists and we hadn’t talked beforehand. When I got there the panelists were already assembled. They were Delia Sherman (USA), Russell Smith (UK) and Elina Rouhiainen (Finland). The panel were mixed in their writing on paranormal romance and Urban Fantasy. Only Elina and I wrote paranormal romance and urban fantasy. It was interesting but in my brainstorming I came at the topic from a  romance side of things and it was good that Delia and Russell reminded me there was/is a different style, genesis of Urban Fantasy starting from Mary Shelley, but also, Charles De Lint an more recently Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series. I was able to clarify the paranormal romance/urban fantasy divide from the romance perspective. It was an interesting panel for me, particularly learning about the other panelists’ work but also Elina, whose work is not translated/published in English. It was sad for me because her work sounded so interesting. Apparently it is in Finish and also translated into Chinese.

We finished that panel on time and my next assignment was the Fan Fund Auction, which as GUFF delegate I needed to attend and I had donated quite a bit of stuff. First up I have to say the fan fund auction did not go off as I expected. I had expectations that it would be fun and entertaining as they are done in Australian conventions. I also thought it would be more organised. But a few things went wrong, particularly the last minute change of venue. Jukka Halme did take time out of his busy schedule to do some auctioning but he couldn’t stay long and as there were 4-6 auctioneers it was a bit chaotic from my perspective. However, we did sell at lot of stuff and that makes it a success! I did hear that the Brits do auctions differently. I thought it was odd that I had culture shock, but that’s my fault for having expectations. A learning experience all round. As the auction took a few hours and I was on my feet, I had serious issues with my feet.

A shot of Paul Weimer selling stuff for the Down Under Fan Fund.

My daughter had come to bring me my Koalas and chocolates and she urged me to go back to the hotel. By the time I got there I could hardly walk and my feet were so sore and swollen I was in agony. This meant that I could not go back into worldcon in the evening for the parties. I really should have sat down instead of standing up. Again, my own fault!

My daughter made me lie down and she went out to get us take away dinner. However, just after she stepped out a massive storm hit. It was the weirdest thing. The air just went horizontal and swept over Helsinki bringing rain and lightening and wind and thunder. A nice Finish man on the tram warned us the storm was coming and told us to stay safe, but we could hardly see it and then it just hit. There were sirens and trees were blown down. I turned myself around on the bed so I could lie down and look at the sky.

My daughter came back safely but wet. She said it was rather dramatic being out in the storm. Anyway, I had an early night but was rather sad about missing the last night of parties.

The next day, the last day of WorldCon75, was walking stick day. My only seeming duty on Sunday was to be at the closing ceremony as it was on my schedule, but I had not been informed if I was to do anything so I sent a query to Events. Eventually I found out that I didn’t have to do anything, but I was invited to sit up the front in the reserved seats.

My daughter and I did the hop on hop off tour around Helsinki, before heading to the con. I got to sit on my butt which was good for my feet.

So I spent my time meeting some fans in the fan lounge and checking out the dealers room before it shut down. We caught up with our Finish friends, Thomas and Alex 11, Craig Cormick (Aus) and Robert Hood (Aus) and Lawrie Brown (Aus). I also caught up with and said goodbye to Paul Weimer and met Cora (Germany) again. I met another lady but I’m sorry to say I can’t remember her name. Forgive me!

This meant that I didn’t get to any panels as the last couple were few. I caught up with Sam Hawke as she was taking some Finish coffee and sweets back to Canberra for me. They will be sold in the Fanfund Auction at Conflux when I get back. She sent me a message this morning that she made the allowable weight by .14 of a kilo. She just scraped in.

We have weight issue because two of our flights have 15 kilo limits. One to Iceland and one to Ireland. To get some stuff home we had to beg space in other Canberran’s luggage. I was lucky that Rob Porteous and Sam Hawke came to my rescue. Now that I have been raving about Finish Blueberry flavoured coffee my daughter wants to buy some.

When the time came we went to the closing ceremony. It appears someone didn’t get the memo about being invited to sit up the front and we were tossed from our seats. My daughter went outside and I found a place somewhere else. They were very pressed for space again. The closing ceremony was full. The numbers were so encouraging because usually a lot less people go to the closing ceremony.

There were dead dog party details which was to be held in a nearby hotel. It was being sponsored by another convention. Well that was a really sad thing because we walked over there and were refused entry. Some not quite nice guy had the tough job to tell us to bugger off. It was a mistake he said. The venue was only expecting 400 people and we couldn’t go in. That’s it. So the plans to say goodbye, to celebrate a wonderful convention were destroyed. It was a sad, brutal cutting off of a lovely convention. What was said to us and how we were treated was not good. I don’t know who he was but it was so badly handled. I can’t begin to express how hurt I was feeling and how upset people were.

Really bad planning. If the closing ceremony has 1000 people then clearly you are going to have a lot of people come to the dead dog party. So heartbroken we trailed off into town.

Then I had the absolutely brilliant idea to try the Viking restaurant that Thoraiya had recommended. We found it once we had wifi access and we got in. You see there was only one waitress when we turned up. Another came to help out. We had a fab meal. We had picked up some other fans along the way but getting a table for six wasn’t going to happen quickly. So three of them peeled off leaving Lawrie Brown, my daughter and me.

Some pics of the Viking meal. Haralds was very cool. We had cider with cranberry in these cool mugs. I had beef stew in bread (like a trencher I suppose), ligonberry relish, baked garlic in tomato, parsnip mash and baked root vegetables. It was delicious and rich. My daughter got a vegan vegge/bean thing. We tried two desserts and shared them. There was also a vegan dessert by my daughter was too full. We tried tar and bramble ice cream. I will tell you a secret. It tasted like tar, or how tar smells.

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Later on Twitter I saw that the venue for the deaddog opened an upstairs bar and people were allowed in and they had a wonderful time. I am trying not to feel bad about this. I’m glad people got to go and have fun but I’m said we were turned away so callously, with no information no alternative, just go away. This was not the Worldcon 75 people doing this by the way. They were awesome. I messaged Jukka Halme about it and he was very sorry and distressed to hear what happened.

Now this morning, we are packing up. We had walk in the gardens and then a Finnish Sauna, which was quite nice. I don’t normally do sauna but I managed okay.

I’m sad to be leaving Helsinki today. Such a great place, such lovely people, such a fantastic convention. I’m really looking forward to going to Stockholm on the ferry. I am not looking forward to moving our luggage from the hotel though. Who likes moving their luggage while on holiday? No one.

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