Tales from the Con: Philcon 2009

Last weekend I had the pleasure to attend Philcon 2009 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Cherry Hill. This will actually be my third time attending Philcon, and my first time attending Philcon at its new home in New Jersey. I had been looking forward to this con for the last couple of weeks because of their great roster of guests listed on the homepage, and I was also looking forward to attending a more literary focused science fiction convention.

I arrived at the hotel at 9:30 a half hour after the con began; the parking was free and plentiful which is a great thing. The first panel I wanted to catch that morning was at 10:00 and was The Value of Art: Traditional vs. Digital Media. I have to admit after my first time at the Crowne Plaza; with the way the hotel is set up I am starting to think the issues with registration from Monstermania might not have been a function of the con, but of the hotel itself it just seems like a very awkwardly formatted space to hold a con. I do think some signage when you first come in would be really helpful though, but for all we know the hotel might not have allowed it. One thing I really liked is for people either not familiar with the con or the layout of the hotel they did have an information table which I thought was a very nice touch, in case you had any questions.

Once I found my way to registration it was a breeze, and the pocket guides for Philcon were very well designed and laid out in such a way finding the information you needed was a very easy thing to do. All the panels in the pocket guide also had a well thought out explanation, and made me wish I had more time to see all the great panels: this is a sign of a great con and one that brings the attendees back next year, to try and see the panels they missed the year before. All the panels I attended were well staffed and were well moderated as well, and I also found them all very informative. Some panels did start out as regular panels but transitioned to a more free form discussion on the topic between the panelists and the attendees, which also was great depending on the topic being discussed.

The dealers room was a bit smaller than the space used for Monstermania, this is due to the space being cut in half and used for the art show. There were a fair bit of vendors and the prices seemed reasonable, but I was a bit disappointed with the lack of variety in the selection of goods offered. But Philcon isn’t known for its dealers room. The art show, which also had an auction attached to it as well, had some interesting pieces to offer although some of their asking prices just seemed a little high.

The guest of honor at Philcon was Cory Doctorow co-editor of boingboing.net and author of Little Brother, Cory was on the tail end of the book tour for his newest book Makers. I got the chance to both see him on panels and off, and he brought a unique bit of relevance to his panels, since he is not only a editor and blogger on one of the best blogs on the net, but a great sci-fi author as well. If you haven’t read Little Brother I can’t recommend it enough. I thought some of the web comic and art panels were really well done as well with such guests as Frank Wu and Onezumi you couldn’t go wrong.

I honestly have to say its been 2 years since I attended Philcon, but I simply can not wait for next year. The panels and their discussion topics were both relevant to science fiction fans and thought provoking as well, and left me regretting that I chose not to come on Friday. I really think the mark of any great convention is where you leave with a list of stuff you can’t wait to check out, and that was me after Philcon thank goodness for Amazon. The con overall was very well organized and one of the best con going experiences I have had so far this year. If you didn’t make it to Philcon this year and your into Sci-fi make sure it’s on your calendar for next November!