Blue Goes To Worldcon Glasgow 2024

(fair warning this is a long blog)

Worldcon (World Science Fiction Society or WSFS) – a science fiction and fantasy-focused convention – was held in Glasgow this year. It’s a huge convention that attracts attendees from all over the world. It also runs the Hugo Awards, one of the most sought-after awards for science fiction or fantasy creatives (writers, game designers, artists, etc). You might have seen a sticker on a book or game you picked up that proclaimed it the winner of a Hugo Award, this convention and its members are responsible for deciding who wins and hosting the awards ceremony. Each year Worldcon is held in a different location (next year, 2025, it will be in Seattle) and the host location is voted for by the members two years in advance.

I found out about Worldcon quite late, maybe a week and a half before it was happening. Some friends of mine mentioned that they were going to it and that they’d been waiting for it for years. After my friend Russ explained it a bit more and seeing how excited he was about it, my curiosity was through the roof. The ticket prices, however, were not very “I’m currently only self-employed and it’s the dry season for work” friendly. So I thought that I wouldn’t be attending. Once again Russ was a font of knowledge and explained that people would often sell their tickets for very cheap if they couldn’t go anymore. So I joined the Facebook group and got very lucky. There was a very lovely person willing to sell me their ticket for whatever I could afford. So I paid the £45 WSFS membership fee and paid the nice person £20 for the 5-day ticket they were selling (I do have a fair bit of guilt for not being able to give more) and then I was all set to go to all 5 days of Worldcon Glasgow 2024.

With my membership and ticket sorted out, I then had access to the convention programme and wow, it was extensive. There were nearly 1000 different items on the programme. So in the days leading up to the convention, I picked out the panels, events and workshops that seemed the most interesting and made up my schedule. I didn’t end up going to everything on my schedule, that would have been impossible unless I suddenly was able to create copies of myself, but I thoroughly enjoyed the things that I did get to go to.

When I got to Worldcon I was almost immediately struck by how big it was. I’d been to comic conventions at the SEC before so I’d had a rough idea of what to expect from a convention there but this was on a whole other level.

Worldcon had the two largest halls (Hall 4 & 5) set up as the main halls to wander around to find things to buy, to talk to authors and other creatives, to find out about future Worldcon sites, find out about other societies and fan clubs, play games, take part in table talks, get autographs, buy food, take advantage of the freebies library and just to hang out. There was just so much stuff to see and do. And that’s before you even start thinking about panels or workshops.

It also had two Batmobiles on display, which were pretty cool.

Needless to say from the moment I collected my badge from registration I was already feeling hints of being overwhelmed by just how much there was going on.

I did however get my very first ribbon whilst I was in the queue to pick up my badge, which was pretty funny. Ribbons – I found out very last minute – are quite a big part of the Worldcon experience. They’re small bits of ribbon with an adhesive strip that usually say something nerdy or funny or are a reference to something that people give out at Worldcon for attendees to stick onto their badges. The ribbon that I got was a rainbow-coloured ribbon with the text “I Am Queue” on it – a Star Trek reference – followed by the Glasgow Worldcon 2024 logo. The person who gave me it later gave me a second ribbon of a similar style that had the text “Deja Queue”, once again I was given it whilst standing in a queue. And when I made it to the registration desk and got my badge they gave me a burgundy ribbon that said “My First Worldcon” followed by the Glasgow Worldcon 2024 logo on it.

The ribbons side of the con was a lot of fun to interact with. I didn’t have the time/funds to organise getting ribbons to give out but I did order 120 tiny resin cats (minus 5 that I kept for myself) that I then handed out to people during the convention. Seeing people’s reactions to the tiny cats absolutely made it worth the cost of buying them. So I imagine the people who bought ribbons to give out must have felt the same sort of joy when they got to give out their ribbons.

Another thing that was a fun surprise about Worldcon was that there were a bunch of people who dressed up or had some sort of cosplay on. So of course I did my best to do Glasgow proud and made sure I had a different fun outfit for each day of the con.

For day 1 I wore my tartan dress with my grey and blue cat ears because firstly, I’m Scottish and the tourists love when we wear tartan, secondly, I knew there was going to be a ceilidh (traditional Scottish dancing) at the end of the day, so it only seemed appropriate and thirdly because I’m a cat girl and I love getting the chance to wear my ears out.

For day 2 I wore blue and white to match my cat ears which were largely white but had some light blue accessories. I also made sure to have my “Sex Work Is Work” badge on full display as I knew I was going to be going to the sex work panel later that day.

For day 3 I went with a pink dress and fluffy underskirt coupled with my white and pink cat ears. It was a super cute look that I’ll need to repeat.

For day 4 I was all yellow. I wore my yellow Care Bear skirt, with a yellow body suit and topped it off with my yellow cat ears (with a chocolate drip effect).

For day 5 – the final day of Worldcon – I opted for a light-coloured floral dress and my white and turquoise sweet hearts themed cat ears. If anyone was looking close enough they might have seen that on the left ear is the text “Miss You” which is definitely how I’ll be feeling about Worldcon.

When it came to the panels that was a bit of a wild experience. You’d have one panel at 11 am that lasted an hour in one room of one building and then have your next panel at 12:30 pm that was in a room in an entirely different building and because of how popular some of the panels were you’d have to rush straight there to be in with a chance of getting to actually attend that panel. At one point I thought I’d gotten lucky because two panels that I wanted to go to were in the same room one after another, so at the end of the first one I thought I’d get to just stay seated and hang around for the next one (this was early into my Worldcon experience). But instead, the room was emptied and I had to join the queue, which had already gotten quite long, to then try and get back in for the next panel. I did realise afterwards that was the fairer way to do it but it did feel odd to go from being sat in the room waiting for the next panel to being 50th in the queue for that panel. When the SEC realised just how popular some of the panels were they had to amp up how strict they were about room capacity too. So getting to panels early and queuing in advance got really important really fast.

The one wish I had for the panels was that more of them had been recorded. I know there will be reasons as to why more of them weren’t recorded but it does seem such a shame. So many people ended up being turned away from panels and if you were attending virtually then your options were pretty limited as far as I could tell. Attendees also weren’t permitted to make personal recordings, so although I had a great time at the majority of the panels I attended, I’d really struggle to go into any detail about any of them because my memory isn’t so great nowadays (thanks COVID). I did try to take notes for a few of them but honestly, I just wanted to be able to be in the moment and actually listen rather than hastily scribbling things down.

But I do want to highlight a few of my favourite panels.

Thursday 8th

Introduction to Scottish SFF (not recorded)

This panel featured: Justin Lee Anderson (moderator), Keith Williams, Neil Williamson, and Robbie Guillory. It would have also had Emily Finer but she was unable to make it. I found this panel far more engaging and left with plenty of authors and books to look up. One of my favourite moments from this panel was when one of the panellists (I forget who) said in response to the question “What makes something/someone Scottish?” that anyone who wanted to be Scottish was Scottish and welcome here (or something to that effect). Which made me just a little proud and with a huge smile on my face.

Fungi in Speculative Fiction (not recorded)

This panel featured: Adrian M. Gibson (moderator), Alex Kingsley, Rivers Solomon, Sarah Pinsker and T. Kingfisher. This panel was a lot of fun and had everyone in the room laughing. Whether the discussion was about real fungi that exist and how they can control the corpses of ants and how that inspired fungi-powered zombies or about how apples will be the next big thing, it was light-hearted and entertaining from start to finish.

Friday 9th

Queer Triumph and Utopias in Fiction (recorded)

This panel featured: Ash Charlton (moderator), Jake Nicholls, Jane Flett, Ng Yi-Sheng and Susie Williamson. This was a really lovely panel that featured some great discussions about what triumph could mean for Queer people. Whether that triumph was as simple as surviving or whether it was exploring slightly darker themes such as revenge against an abuser/abusive system. I’m really glad this panel was recorded and I’ll aim to do a full write-up about it soon.

The Future of the Oldest Profession: Portrayals of Sex Work in SFF (not recorded)

This panel featured: Liz Bourke (moderator), Sarah Langan, Johannes T. Evans, Lauren Beukes and Avery Delany. This was probably the panel I was most excited about out of all of the panels available during Worldcon. And I was not disappointed. The panellists were great and the moderator had brought along three history textbooks to reference, so they had very much done their homework. I will definitely be writing up a full review of this panel in the very near future.

Saturday 10th

Solarpunk: Building Better Tomorrows (recorded)

This panel featured: Phoebe Wagner (moderator), Rob Cameron / Cameron Roberson, Francesco Verso, Beatrice Erkers and Alyx Dellamonica. This was a really interesting panel that I’m really glad was recorded, so I’ll be able to re-watch it and do a proper review of it soon. Solarpunk is a fairly new genre and it’s one I’m keen to get to explore more, so I was glad to leave this panel with a few new books/authors to look up.

We Did The Monster Smash (recorded)

This panel featured: Anna Raftery (moderator), Andrija “Andy” Popovic, Johannes T. Evans, Nadia El-Fassi and Zoe Burgess-foreman. I’m surprised but delighted to realise that this panel was recorded. This was a very fun panel that was all about Monster f*cking. The discussion ranged from our favourite monsters to difficulties getting monster f*cking published due to censorship/rules enforced by payment processors and then recommendations for books/toys/art. I’ll be sure to rewatch it and write up a review soon.

Sunday 11th

Bad Girls of SFF: Villainous Female Characters (not recorded)

This panel featured: Jenna Hanchey (moderator), A. Y. Chao, Hannah Kaner, Kate Dylan and Tasha Suri. This was another very fun and upbeat panel, which I definitely needed by this point in the con, haha. Getting to talk about women/female characters being “bad” or being villains was so fun and hearing the variation of “bad” that each of the authors had explored was hilarious. We went from “she has her ass hanging out, she’s a bad girl” to “she’s killed hundreds of people – she’s a bad girl”. I’m looking forward to reading everything by all of these panellists because they all were tremendously fun and had great vibes.

Monday 12th

How To Write Solarpunk (not recorded)

A workshop hosted by Phoebe Wagner. Out of all the workshops I put my name down for during Worldcon this was the only one I got into and it was really good. An hour was not nearly enough time but I left the workshop feeling inspired and excited to have a go at writing some Solarpunk stories.

There were very few panels that I didn’t love, the ones I was less keen on were the ones where the moderator was not very good or where a panellist had to be both moderator and panellist and the ones where I hadn’t fully understood what the panel was actually going to be about. I also really wish some panels had been more than an hour long, haha.

But honestly, all of the panels were interesting and there were literally hundreds to pick from. There was always something happening somewhere and as overwhelming as that could be it was also really amazing.

What made Worldcon even more amazing was the attendees. Whether they were just an attendee or a panellist or a volunteer or a vendor, it didn’t matter, every single person I interacted with was lovely. Everyone was so friendly, it helped to make what could have very easily been a terrifying and overwhelming event fun and welcoming.

I hope I’ll manage to keep in touch with some of the people I spent time with at Worldcon, that would be lovely. Maybe I’ll see some of them at other cons in the future.

One of the other main attractions of Worldcon had to be the large selection of vendors in Hall 5. There were all kinds of creatives selling a variety of things. You could chat with authors about their books and then buy those very same books directly from them. Or you could go to a publisher’s table and browse a selection of books from different authors and potentially also meet the author if they happened to be at the table. There were comic book artists, traditional artists, games and ttrpg sellers and cutesy collectable goods sellers. It was great to see and terrible for me in particular because I had no money to spare and I wanted basically every second thing I saw.

I lasted all the way until Sunday before I gave in and bought a few things for myself.

I bought an official Glasgow Worldcon 2024 Pride badge. It was only £8 and will make for a great memento of my first Worldcon.

I also bought “I Want That Twink Obliterated” which is a collection of Queer science fiction and fantasy stories. The cover art reminded me of those old-style sci-fi horror movie posters and the stall itself had giant inflated tentacles reaching out above it. The people running the stall were all really friendly and gave off wonderful queer vibes throughout the convention. I ended up not making it along to their official book launch but I bet it was amazing. Once I’ve had a chance to read it I’ll be writing up a review and telling you all about it.

Along with the book I also bought two pin badges, because of course I did. I couldn’t buy the book and not buy the matching pin badges. What sort of terrible pin badge collector would do that?

All in all, I spent £35 on the book and 2 pin badges which was well worth it.

The other book that I bought was a little bit ** spicy **. “Divine Burdens” is book two of The Passionate Pantheon series, it’s a collection of three stand-alone erotic sci-fi or fantasy stories based in the same universe but entirely different worlds and characters. I ended up chatting with Eunice Hung – one of the authors – a fair bit throughout the con. She was also wearing cat ears, so it was only natural that we would end up chatting. She explained that the book series took place in the same universe but every story took place in a different world and was entirely separate from every other story. So you could pick up any book and dive right in. Which is always a fun way to do things. The other interesting thing about The Passionate Pantheon series is that the odd-numbered books (1 & 3) are romance and drama whereas the even-number books have elements of horror. I hadn’t heard of this as a system for a series before, so that got me fairly interested. However, my lack of funds meant that I waited until the final day when they only had one book left – a copy of Divine Burdens – and after chatting with Eunice Hung more in-depth about the specific content warnings of the book I caved and bought it. But as a bonus for buying their last copy and being willing to try a horror-themed book that I wouldn’t necessarily have gone for I also got an advanced reader copy of Book Four “Unyielding Devotion”. Of course, it being an even-numbered book in the series means it is also a horror-themed book, haha, but it was still very nice of Eunice Hung to do that for me. I’ve started reading Divine Burdens and despite not being very far into it, I am loving it so far. Although I think my review of this particular book may have to go up over on my spicier profiles, haha.

On the topic of content warnings for erotica, I got to tell Eunice Hung about the way that the Mead Mishaps series has its content warning list at the very start of the book in the preface section. She seemed to think that was a good idea, so maybe Eunice and her co-writer Franklin Veaux will look at doing that in their future books too. I’d love it if more books – not just erotic fiction – would start including a list of content warnings at the very start of the book. I feel like it would be so useful for people.

I spent £13 and I’m over the moon with my purchase so far.

As I’ve mentioned, I had a very limited (read as none really, but I have an overdraft so…) spending budget but there were some wonderful vendors that I want to highlight that I will definitely be buying things from in the future.

One author in particular who was a ray of sunshine (and an irn-bru fairy) was Adriana Polito. Every time I passed by her table I’d stop and chat for a while and we’d both end up laughing and with genuine smiles. It was delightful. Her book “The World Within” also sounds really interesting and it’s definitely on my list of books that I want to pick up when I have money again.

Another author that I couldn’t help but stop and chat to was the lovely Debbie Iancu-Haddad. She’d had some misfortune with one of her newest books not being delivered in time but still kept a positive attitude and was a genuine delight. Her YA series “The Children of the Stars” sounds cute and I’ll probably pick it up when I can.

If you’re more interested in art and ttrpg then you might want to check out Lost Haven Art. We’ve been mutuals on Twitter for a while now so it was really nice to get to meet him in person. His Pokemon art in particular was cool and would’ve been great to be able to take home.

The final author that I’d like to highlight is Eóin Dooley, an Irish author with a debut novel that had a pretty cool plot. The main character is essentially an asshole that pushes away all of his friends and then discovers magic because in this world, to do magic you have to essentially be forgotten by the world which goes against our wannabe rockstar main character’s entire way of wanting to live. This one is definitely on my list of books to get in the near future and a friend of mine did buy a copy, so I might even borrow it from them if I can’t wait, haha. But Eóin Dooley was lovely to chat with and did a far better job of explaining the story than I did, haha, so be sure to check him out.

There was so much to do and see and buy at Worldcon and I’m really glad and grateful that I got to go and experience it whilst it was here in my home city.

I know this has been a long blog but it honestly feels like I’ve barely scratched the surface. If you ever get the opportunity to go to a big convention like this I would absolutely recommend doing it.

To round off this blog here are all my selfies and pictures from my time at Worldcon, enjoy!

Photos From Day 1