Eurocon plans advance, slowly

Those of you who know me, know that I have launched a tentative bid to host the 2007 European Science Fiction Convention in Ireland. With the emphasis on tentative. As of yet I have no venue, guest of honour or date but I do have a receipt book. However, yesterday I started taking positive steps to advance the situation. The Holiday eXperience is in Dublin this weekend so yesterday I popped along to the RDS, flashed my press card to get in for free and spent several hours visiting stands getting information on conference facilities. (And before you condemn me for abusing my press pass, I did in fact identify one or two potential stories which I now have to run past various editors)

Realistically, Dublin is front runner for venue but I am determined to give serious consideration to other cities both North and South of the border. I was particularly impressed with Belfast. The representative from the Belfast Visitor and Convention Bureau was particularly helpful and I got the impression he was keen to land the business.

Interestingly, I picked up a brochure for the Belfast Europa Hotel. The first sentence describes the hotel as 'one of the most famous in the world' however the authors wisely decided not to elaborate on why it is famous.

I plan to go to Belfast in March for MeCon so I may go up early and pay a visit to some hotels.

Galway also has some nice venues. I'm particularly interested in the Galway Bay Hotel and perhaps one of the Great Southerns. Again, I'll be in Galway in May so I can check them out then.

Further afield, there are interesting venues in Derry, Enniskillen, Tullamore and Athlone and while they may be further down the list, they cannot be discounted.

Comments

[brendan]

If you're thinking of Galway, the Radisson may be worth a try. It has good and bad points, but it's big.

[Johan]

I'd love to see a Galway Eurocon!

[David Stewart]

Johan, will you be at Concourse in Blackpool this Easter? If so, I'll be delighted to sell you a pre-supporting membership :-)

[Murph]

I suspect you'd find a number of antsy North Americans who would hear "Belfast" and decide not to attend. Just like seeing two people with masks at Torcon because SARS had hit, and wondering how many didn't bother because a few dozen people in a city of 2.5 million died from it.

D

[Jonathan]

Dear Dave

Congrats on having a setrious contemplate about a Eurocon.

Forgive if I may gently offer a few words of advice.

First, A Eurocon is a Eurocon and not a souped up Nat con.

Second, venue town must have an international airport with direct connections to Frankfurt (w.europe mainland hub) and Budapest (or Vienna at a pinch)(Central Europ hub). A town far from an airport means even more travel on top of that to an internat aiport, a possible change of plans etc. Plus a day extra of cost each end (or at least the extra cost of a transferable air ticket to allow for transport problems)

Get Eurocon guests (and certainly nobody who has been a Eurocon,. Worldcon, Eastercon Guest in past decade). There are very many worthy souls from mainland Europe.

The standard you have to live up to is Brighton 84, Jersye 93, Timisoara 94 and Dortmund 99. (87 and 95 were dominated by the Worldcon and so did not have a discernable Eurocon identity (o5 will probably be the same but thems the breaks when merging with a Worldcon)

Bear in mind that Dublin had pluses and minuses. The latter included: poor advance programme planning (and liaison/preparation with prog participants), and no nhight time centre of socialising (the castle bar/cafe was not big enough and did not allow you in after the early evening!

Hope this does not all seem frightfully obvious. Apols if it does but best to say these things now.

Good luck

Jonathan

[Boris]

Greetings to 2007 Eurocon bid from 2006 Eurocon bid :-). We bid for Eurocon in 2006 in Kiev, Ukraine.

[Boris]

We won :-)

[David Stewart]

Yes. I met Dave Lally yesterday and he told me. Congratulations.

[Olav M.J. Christiansen]

Greetings from Denmark and thank you for the competition. As most of you probably know by now, Denmark won the bid, and this means that the Eurocon 2007 will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark. I hope we'll see some of you there. Btw: Am looking for agent in Ireland. Cheers/Olav.

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