Convention Review

Levitation 2024

The 2024 British Eastercon
29th March -1st April 2024, Telford International Centre.
Arthur Chappell reports.

The 75th Eastercon, Britain's national SF convention, for the first time held in Telford, was successful, though attendances were low, with just 640 listed on the convention's website's membership page (possibly with a few walk-ins and day visit attendees) and about 450 warm bodies. Low numbers are easily attributed to there being an Eastercon and a British Isles venued Worldcon in the same year.

The Guests of Honour were: Tade (the Rosewater trilogy) Thompson; Michelle (fantasy writer) Sagara; Genevieve (The Secret Chapter) Cogman and Jackie (artist) Burns.

The Eastercon venue was the spacious Telford International Centre with many attendees block-booked into the adjoining International and Holiday Inn Hotels or in nearby independent hotels.

Telford International Centre, Shroopshire

The Holiday Inn was used for drinking and socialising after the convention closed its doors after the last nightly programme events.

Socialising space

The Conference centre had very generous seating for fans to chill out and socialise in between programme events and accessibility was excellent.

The dealers and art show rooms were well set out. There were lots of book-sellers but only one offered second hand books. There were free books by registration too. Some traders were rather too evangelical, pitching their wares like real estate or car showroom sales reps rather than leaving fans to browse uninterrupted.  I wanted to see all the goods offered before thinking which stalls to revisit for a closer look.

Programming was varied, with up to five events running in tandem leading to being spoilt for choice dilemmas.  There were too many panel-led items rather having more intimate presentations by independent speakers and presenters, and there were no films Timings were equally problematic.   At most cons, events run for 55 minutes to an hour. At some cons a thirty minute gap was given between events to enable fans not to rush between items. Over-running a little was often the practice.   Here, many events were given just 45 minutes, which is especially bad when some panels moved from the usual four panel-participants to six.   By the time everyone had introduced themselves the time was severely reduced, and some events left little time for audience questions.  I took direct part in two well moderated panels myself.

The virtual input, with events going out live online to subscribed members, and some panellists joining in through the screens was incredibly well managed.  The team responsible is also booked to do this at Worldcon later this year in Glasgow.

I attended two terrific solo presented science events.

The first was 'So, You’re Thinking About Murder'. It was a close look at forensic science by a leading practitioner, Dr Rose Drew.

The talk barely touched on murder investigation despite its title. The focus was very much on identifying cause of death in bodies that have been unearthed long after death. Rose concentrated on skeletal finds (with illustrated slides). A large portion of her presentation dealt with bodies found on the recovered wreck of the Mary Rose which sank in 1545 and was raised in 1982. The cause of death for most of the crew was unsurprisingly drowning, though one poor chap was crushed by a large cast iron cannon shifting and trapping him as the ship went down. The bodies showed degrees of palsy and other diseases in many of the men whose skeletons were found.

Bones distort with age and often identifying the age or gender of a body let alone cause of death can be hard and sometimes impossible. Rose had little regard for the instant discoveries made by forensic investigators in police procedural TV shows like Bones, CSI and NCIS with David McCallum playing the forensic medical examiner.  Even DNA data can take months to decode and analyse, and such technology is also extremely expensive.

The George Hay lecture

Secondly there was The George Hay Lecture: Battling Cancer in 2024 with Dr James Flanagan, introduced by Graham Sleight.

Causes of cancer

As a recovering bowel cancer surgery patient, this was of some personal interest to me. It was heart-warming to see how positive the findings were with some major cancers in serious likelihood of imminent defeat.

Cures will always be less effective than prevention. Early diagnose is always imperative. Half a million lives are lost annually through lung cancer linked to smoking. End smoking and those lives will be saved. (No mention of vaping.)

With as many as half the World likely to get cancer, its eradication is of paramount importance. Some cancers are already in retreat. Calls for cervical cancer screenings and vaccinations are being heeded and that variant of the disease could be extinct within a decade.

The NHS (the UK's world-leading National Health Service) is struggling to maintain targets. The aim to get anyone diagnosed with cancer into surgery, Chemotherapy or Radiotherapy within 62 days is often not being achieved, sometimes with tragic consequences.

Some initiatives under way sound as futuristic as anything in an SF novel. Lollipops that can take saliva for testing when being licked are coming into use and there are experimental toilets that can inspect and read into urine and stool releases to check for signs of cancer in our digestive systems.

Research that can really save lives like this shows just how important the sciences and the George Hay lectures truly are.

There was comedy, quizzes and David Wake resurrected his Captain Scarlet parody character Captain Tartan, for the 25th anniversary of his first of several Eastercon stage appearances.

Tributes were paid to the fans and guests lost over the last twelve months, including Christopher Priest.

The biggest surprise came at the closing ceremony when the Doc Weir Award for a fan contributing greatly to convention life went to David Langford. The gasp of astonishment was not because the Ansible editor was chosen, but because he has never received it before.

A marvellous Eastercon, breaking in a new site that we may well return to over the years, a lovely warm up to the 2024 Worldcon in Glasgow, and next year it all happens again in Belfast.

Arthur Chappell

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