Fantasticon 2018
It's that time of year again. Yes, when I make my one and only (ish) train journey for the year to meet up with a large selection of the members of The Sovereignty. For this journey I always travel First Class on what I affectionately call the "gin express". It's my guilty pleasure that Mrs. Carrumba loosens the purse strings for- honestly, I think she welcomes the peace and quiet and doesn't want me to have any excuses not to travel south- this year to Cleethorpes.
I first attended Fantasticon (tickets still available at the door!) last year in Hull (which was city of culture at the time) and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Meeting up with fellow streamers and Elite Dangerous players, mixed with a wider selection of nerds, authors, drone pilots and a sarcastic dalek was brilliant fun. Coming from a small town in Scotland to such a diverse event each year is a good reminder of how different people are; I am always respectful of the diverse ecosystem of the internet but sometimes you need that person-to-person contact to remind you of the humans behind the discord ID's. Or at least I do. And you don't often get that where I live.
My One Chance to Schmooze
...and I forget to get business cards printed. Well, ok... I didn't forget, I procrastinated. I hummed and hawed. Changed my mind a few times on Vistaprint and finally gave up. What I really wanted to do was credit card sized bottle openers with my details on it but the costs were astronomical for the few sites I found- more research needed! As I do Twitch as a hobby, I have never been able to justify the idea of going to any Twitchcons as they are invariably in America- even Twitch London has filled me with...meh... but I am going to make an effort to get to that or Gamescon next year, so I have decided to just chill at Fantasticon. Schmoozing is on standby.
It's a good convention to chill at as well! There is invariably silly amounts of alcohol - the FDev bar bill was impressively silly last year I hear- and everyone is open to having a laugh and releasing their inner, outer and other previously unknown levels of geekiness. As well as being a meeting spot for members of The Sovereignty, it also gives me the chance to champion my own player group, 95th Squadron and chat with a vast array of others from the 'Ambitious but Rubbish' Hammers of Slough to the sole ambassador for the Guardians of Tarach Tor (I think... I had a few beers by the point of conversation). Even had a brief chat with Paul Archer over breakfast this morning.
I will be doing one live stream at some point, just to chew through some data- perhaps a bit of a "Sov After Dark.." or the like. If I am organised enough. And...er... focused. Keep an eye on @SOV_Carrumba for updates and I will try to find time to update this blog to cover the weekend shenanigans for you all! Now... time for a walk along the seafront before hitting the convention and a medieval bar. Mmmmm. Mead. o7
#Fantasticon2018 #95thSquadron #TheSovereignty #TheHammersofSlough #EliteDangerous