We unveiled CONtraflow to fans from accross the country (and the world if you count the fans from the U.K. and Ireland and that gentleman from the Phillipines) at ReConstruction, the 10th occasional NASFiC, or North American Science Fiction Convention, in Raleigh, NC August 5th - 8th. We have a NASFiC whenever Worldcon, The World Science Fiction Convention, is held outside of North America and, with this year's Worldcon, number 68, being in Australia, well, there we were.
Raymond, Jessica and I made the 14-hour drive laden with flyers, t-shirts, coozies, posters, ribbons for folks who pre-registered, muffeletta bread, olive salad, bourbon pralines, rum balls, sazerac cookies, Mardi Gras beads and the wherewithal for hurricanes, bourbon milk punch and sazeracs. We manned a fan table situated between Capclave (a Washington DC area con) and the FUMP (The Funny Music Project, a professional, comedy filkers' collective) and accross from tables for the next Worldcon, Reno in 2011, and the Worldcon bids for Chicago in 2012, San Antonio in 2013 and London in 2014. We sold some memberships, t-shirts and even a couple of coozies, while talking up the con and schmoozing with staff from other cons.
Attendance wasn't especially large with about half the numbers of the previous NASFiC, Archon in St Louis in 2007, but perhaps that only helped us stand out more. Our party Friday night, excuse me, our "promotional gathering" per Marriot corporate policy, was hopping from the moment it started at 9pm til after 1am with hungry, thirsty, bead-loving fans eager to hear about New Orleans and CONtraflow. There were even a few expatriates, wanting to reminisce and hear about how things are going at home.
We had some treats left over from the "promotional gathering" that we donated to the London bid suite (after handing some out at our table too!) on Saturday night. We even got to spend some time relaxing at other folks "meet and greets" on Saturday.
Rebecca
