Review of TitanCon – EuroCon 2019

TitanCon – EuroCon 2019 is held at Belfast on August 2019 from the 22^nd to the 25^th.

About TitanCons

TitanCons are conventions held in Belfast every year since 2011, self-defined as 'Initially focused on HBO’s Game of Thrones, it has grown and evolved over the last decade with the addition of literature programming, gaming, and workshops, as well as an art show and dealer’s hall. It is now Belfast’s annual speculative fiction and media convention - run for fans by fans'.

About EuroCons

EuroCons are big conventions dedicated to the fantastic genre in English language, held since 1972 in Europe. At the start they are held every two years, but from 1983 on they are held every year, with the only interruptions of 1985 and 1998, which makes TitanCon – EuroCon 2019 the 41^st edition. EuroCons are travelling events, always changing their city from one edition to the next – though they may come back later. It is the role of the European Science Fiction Society to choose the hosting cities for the EuroCons, usually two years in advance. By choice, EuroCons are usually celebrated conjointly with an already existing convention (i.e. TitanCon on 2019), so to some extent they are gatherings rather than conventions. Still, most EuroCons are celebrated at European countries where English is not natively spoken, so in spite of sharing venue with the national convention the fact of using a different language makes EuroCon a separate convention. After having the opportunity to experience Shamrokon (the 2014 EuroCon) and BCON (the 2016 EuroCon), I gladly enlist TitanCon, the 2019 EuroCon. And after having the opportunity to compare three of them, now I have a view on EuroCons which I can share.

Election

The election of the place for 2019 is held with the usual two years in advance. Belfast gets voted for EuroCon in July, 2017.

Website

The TitanCon website, online since 2011 at the domain http://www.titancon.com/ , publicizes the event much in advance – starting at the very bid to host the 2019 EuroCon, which was announced on February, 2017. It provides practical information about how to get to Belfast and find accommodation, and full information about the event and how to register and pay for membership.

 

The website is complemented with a page on Facebook

However, the website has a serious shortcoming: it fails to show the programme. As you can check out in the image below, it just asks the users to read the program on Grenadine, which happens to be a web service that requires the users to create an account. No account means no access to the programme – it is never publicly available. Besides, it requests the users to install the Grenadine app. This is absolutely unsuitable for Free People, as there is no anonymous way to install the Grenadine app. It is not available at app stores such as Aptoide, nor even at app download sites such as APKMirror, which I wouldn't recommend since it doesn't provide updates automatically, a feature that out of security reasons no one should do without. In order to download the app from the Google or Apple stores, you need to introduce a Google or Apple account – there is no other way than to identify yourself and let your Big Brother of choice watch you. It is astonishing that no alternative is provided – has the people in charge of TitanCon so long ago submitted to this servitude that they no longer realize how much freedom does it take away from the users, cannot they anticipate that some people will reject it? Certainly, I am one of those - as Free People I am not giving away my freedom just to read a programme that should be public in the first place.

 

The consequences of rejecting to use Grenadine are, sadly, non-trivial. You stay uninformed of what the program is. As the date approaches, you somehow keep expecting the Programme page from the website to show the programme in the end, and when the day comes and it doesn't you still think everything will be fine when you get the pocket programme – but both expectations are unfulfilled. I come across two nuisances:

• Small nuisance: The first day in the morning the TitanCon desk is open, and I am certainly handed the Pocket Programme, but the events for the day don't begin until 15 hours. I already know of the Titanic and Game of Thrones exhibitions, and am considering to visit them, so I just choose to spend the morning doing so. Being both visits comfortably near, they make for a so much pleasurable morning that it might as well be planned so in advance.
• Big nuisance: It turns out that the last day there are no actual events at the venue, but instead a coach tour that visits the typical landmarks of Northern Ireland (for instance the Giants Causeway) and also locations for the filming of the Game of Thrones series. Not knowing about this, and having a willingness of my own to visit Northern Ireland, I take a similar tour four days prior - so to re-tour the same places four days later doesn't make sense to me, and thus I end up with a spare day, which I choose to spend making an early return to Dublin – no matter how many times you are in Dublin, you can always find new places that are worth a visit.

Could this disappointment be averted? Certainly yes, but only through research. This tour-only last day is being announced from the times when Belfast is only a bid for the 2019 EuroCon. You can find it at the Souvenir Book for the BCON, EuroCon 2017, at November, 2017:

TitanCon's bid for EuroCon 2019 advertised on the Souvenir Book of the EuroCon 2017

You can find it also at the TitanCon leaflets distributed at the Dublin 2019 WorldCon. It is obvious, but only after you know where to look. However, before the EuroCon, those aren't the places to look at – the place where that information is expected to be and actually searched for is the website, and it fails to show the information. At the Programme page, no programme; and at its home page it reads 'We are delighted to be welcoming folks to Belfast from Thursday 22nd August to Sunday 25th August'; as shown in the two screen-shots above. It is not the duty of the attendees to research what the programme is – it is the duty of the organizer to show the programme at a predetermined, public, single-click, web address. That is the way it is done on every convention except this one. So it is definitely a fail on the organization side. When you put together a tour-only day and a non-publicly-viewable program, it is inevitable for people to end up misled.

Previous information

The previous information is quite poor. There are no progress reports as such. In the previous months to TitanCon the website is being updated and enlarged, but there are little news published – just three newsletter-like messages sent to the people with account at Grenadine:

• May: Titancon Programme Participation Survey now live!
• June: TitanCon information from the committee
• July: TitanCon: T-shirts and train

Inscription

There is a supporting (non-attending) membership of £10, upgradeable to attending membership by paying up for the difference. The attending memberships for the full event are divided into three categories depending of age, with a discount until February 2019:

• Child (6-15): £25
• Young Adult (16-25): £40
• Adult (26+): £65

Day passes are also advertised. My inscription, made in February, costed me £52.

Venues

The venue is the complex formed by the Hilton Belfast Hotel and the Waterfront Hall, on the bank of river Lagan. The Hotel, accessed through the main door, offers various rooms at its first floor amounting up to 200 seats. The Waterfront Hall offers the Waterfront Studio, a small Auditorium, accessed through a hard-to-find secondary door and also through a passage from the Hilton cafeteria which is not to be used before breakfast time finishes at 10 AM. All the spaces being at the same complex makes for a comfortable venue even if somewhat labyrinthine. Also, the size is adequate for the number of members so members are almost never left out because of lack of space – hence, a comfortable venue.

Sorry, no venue photographs. Instead, have this picture of the nearby Salmon of Knowledge, with whom I had the pleasure to discuss deep issues. 'Stars are living beings, just like fish in the ocean of Cosmos', posed Salmy in a way that sounded somewhat sententious to me. 'Do they reproduce?', skeptically retorted I. 'Of course they do, my finless friend. The red color in your blood and mine comes from the iron produced by the stars during their lives. We are their offspring'.

Staff

TitanCon 2019 has a reduced but sufficient staff. In addition to that, the Hilton staff runs the elegant cafeteria and bar which happen to be a warm, fine place for conversation. In addition to that, the Waterfront Studio has an unseen sound engineer that cares for the sound quality, so at the start of any event it suffices for the host to ask “Can we make the music to fade out?” for it to happen.

The Welcome Pack

On arrival, attendees receive the badge and Pocket Programme – no souvenir book this time. As for the Pocket Programme, it is poor – for any event, it only provides time, place, title and description, so you don't know who hosts it.

 

The leaflet distributed in Dublin 2019 WorldCon.

 

The TitanCon's Pocket Programme and Badge. Also featured, the insignia distributed in Dublin 2019 WorldCon.

 

Awards

During the EuroCon, the ESFS Awards are elected – not by the EuroCon Members, but by the representatives of all countries at the European Science Fiction Society.

Stands & Exhibitions

There is a room full with stands and exhibitions, with stands for incoming conventions and all kind of art merchandise.

Programme

The programme has many events, with usually three at the same time: panels, talks, workshops, keynotes, and meetings. If anything, I am surprised at how small the media programme is.

And now, to the programme... or rather, being this a single-authored article, the small part of the programme that the author manages to attend.

Events for Thursday the 22^th

03:00 PM Opening Ceremony. This is a short, inventive ceremony with the participation of dancers.

05:00 PM Control your Artificial Intelligence. This is a talk centred on the concept of Artificial Intelligence, but as developed in Literature rather than in Computer Science. The Golem story, having a lot more depth to it than just a living statute, takes most of the time. As a side note, there is a delay at the start when the video projector fails to show the presentation – myself, usual helper in this kind of situation but unfamiliar with the projector at the Lagan A room, am hesitating to step in and lend a helping hand when the Hilton staff comes in and selects the right input.

06:00 PM Dramatic Readings from the Ig Nobel Prizes. Did you read Nobel Prizes? Well, these are not those ones. Maybe you should focus on the Ig before – these are the prizes awarded to scientific research dedicated to trivial topics. We have a good time listening to the narrators reading research that exercises the strongest mind muscles Science can provide against the most pointless topics.

Events for Friday the 23^th

11:00 AM Royalties in other countries. An enlightening talk by an specialist in laws about royalties, introducing the basic concepts and making a succinct description of what the situation is for authors trying to publish in foreign countries.

01:00 PM Croatian Folk Traditions. This is a talk that succinctly summarizes a lot of folk stories from Croatia. Sadly, the video projector shows the presentation unfocused – and sadly, this time the Hilton Staff doesn't come in to fix it. Being the Lisburn room crowded, and myself too far away from the projector to recognize the type, I hesitate again to step in. The talk goes on, and the narrator densely summarizes a lot of stories from the Croatian folklore in simple enough way to get ourselves interested. Only after the talk ends and the room clears can I get a good-enough look at the projector hanging from the ceiling, recognize the focus ring around the lens, and fix the focus reaching the ring with a walking stick lent by a gentleman.

08:00 PM Evening Entertainment: The Irish Video Game Orchestra. A 30-musician classic orchestra plays themes from video-games of all time, from the 8-bit generation to the most recent ones. Musical notes are adapted from the original beeps to a fully-orchestrated score. The resulting performance provides an amazing experience.

The Irish Video-game Orchestra led by its Director

Events for Saturday the 24^h

12:00 AM Eurosmof. The topic is European Conventions, and we talk about a lot of them. The Croatian representative makes an exciting description of the convention of his country, saying that it goes over 50,000 visits (I guess, counting as many visits per visitor as days).

01:00 AM The matrix – 20 years on. The matrix Saga is analysed, including the three live-action films and the animated film Animatrix. There is a bit of bitterness about the ending failing to fulfil the many expectations. There is a just mention to the incoming new film, but not more as there is not much known about it.

03:00 PM Eurocon 2020 and Eurocon 2021: A presentation. We see the presentations for the next two EuroCons at Rijeka (Croatia) and Fiuggi (Italy). Both presentations deliver nicely the practical information about transportation, accommodation and venues, enough to give appetite to the audience.

04:00 PM Adventures in adaptation. The topic of adaptation, mainly from literature to film and TV, is discussed with plenty of examples. Some adaptations are discussed in depth. There seem to be a consensus on unexpectedly good adaptations such as Good Omens and unexpectedly bad ones such as Game of Thrones, whose massive final disappointment is blamed on changing too much from the original books.

06:00 PM Closing Ceremony & The European Science Fiction Society Awards. The much-awaited Awards are delivered in the usual way. The closing ceremony thanks all the people involved, and the flag is given to the representatives of the next-year EuroCon.

Events for Sunday the 25^h

This is the day the activity at TitanCon is the coach tour that I do not attend, and therefore cannot review.

Conclusions

The convention runs finely and without incident. The limit of attendees is established on 650 for the whole convention plus 50 daily passes – I get no information on this, but I don't get the feeling that this limit is reached. Anyway, even though some rooms become eventually full, the number of attendees is never too much for the venue and the convention feels comfortable. Comparing to Shamrokon 2014 and BCON 2016, it is a convention with less attendees and events.