Confuzzled - a UK furcon at last?
Loganberry
There's been a previous attempt at getting a UK con done (BritFur), but
that never seemed to go anywhere and as far as I know it's now
effectively dead. The site above appears to be all the public information
in existence at the moment, so it's hard to judge, but three things stand
out:
1) Giving themselves two years to sort things out is promising. Of course
if there's still nothing concrete in six months' time I might change my
mind on that, since after the BritFur experience I'm sceptical of just
about anything like this! I do genuinely hope it succeeds, but it's going
to take more than a nicely designed website to convince me of that!
2) Manchester - assuming it's *in* Manchester, and not somewhere ten
miles out of the centre - seems like a good venue. Previous proposals,
IIRC, have been for the depths of the Cheshire countryside and somewhere
in rural Scotland, neither of which would be easy to get to for most
British furs. Manchester *is* easy to get to.
3) That price of £150 (~US$280). Yes, it's full board, and in that sense
it's not particularly excessive given Britain's ludicrously inflated
accommodation prices at all levels... but the way the Confuzzled site is
written, it currently looks as though it's that or nothing, rather like
Eurofurence (which charged €150 - about £100 - for regular membership
this year).
I hope that it be a case of "full board or nothing", though, since that
price would be way out of reach for a lot of furs, and would also scare
off many of those for whom it was their first furcon - something that
seems quite likely in a country where we haven't had one before! If
you're new to furcons and want to see if you like them, you don't want to
go spending that amount of money straight away. What you want is pricing
more akin to Anthrocon, which charges $45 (£24) for standard membership,
whereas the SF con WorldCon 2005 (which was in Glasgow) charged between
£25 and £40 for a day membership.
Yes, it's two years away and that will help people save up, but I really
think it's important that there's an affordable option if at all possible
for those dipping a claw in the water. I'd be quite interested, since one
(though not the only) major reason I can't go to the American cons is the
cost... but £150? That's a great deal of money for a con, however good it
is - and certainly not if it ends up being just a slightly larger than
average NorthernFurs furmeet! =:S
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