We’re in Stockholm for Imagicon 2, this year’s Swecon. There is a
good-sized delegation of Finns here (12, plus 2 children), including a
couple of first timers which is always great. The ferry trip was fun as
usual, and there was time in Stockholm for a really thorough breakfast,
some shopping (did manage to do almost no impulse shopping at SF
bokhandeln and Comics Heaven, and discovered that Uppsala’s famous
English Bookshop now has a store in Stockholm as well), and a really
nice Swedish meal at a pub. Then it was time to go see the convention
for a few hours, although arriving in Sweden at way too early an hour
(wakeup call at 5:30) took its toll on the Friday evening festivities.

Imagicon seemed again to have a better handle on organizing things than
the average Swecon—there even were guide signs from the metro station
to the local library/culture center where the convention is held.
Everything was in place when we arrived, registration went smoothly and
the printed program booklet and badges awaited the members.

The culture center is not very big but is quite well suited for hosting
a small, cozy convention. There are a couple of rooms for programming,
a hallway where the vendors are (not many of those, the Alvarfondet
book sales tables take up most of the space) and there’s also a
cafe/bar that offers some vegetarian dishes and a very attractively
priced selection of beers (some ciders too).

There was some programming on the first day, but I didn’t see much of
it; instead the evening was well spent meeting friends and chatting in
the bar. Today I plan to go see at least the GoH speeches and
interviews, and there were a couple of other program items too that
seemed interesting. Plus also Jukka’s “Never mind the Buzzaldrins”
quiz, lifted from Åcon, and is of course a must. The beer is not
expensive and the books sold at the con are even cheaper, so this looks
to be shaping into a great little convention.

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Posted By Tero to Partial Recall at 10/17/2009 12:50:00 PM