NorthAmeriCon ’17 - The Setup

We moved into the convention hotel today. NorthAmeriCon ’17 is being held at The Sheraton Puerto Rico Hotel and Casino here in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is a beautiful hotel, but also an expensive one. Like many of the larger hotels, it appears to cater mainly to tourists from the mainland.

We will be running the Con Suite. This is one of the social centers of the convention, where conversation and snacks are the order of the day. The hotel, to support its own eateries, limits what we can give away to non-alcoholic drinks and pre-packaged "finger food." You know, cookies and chips and such.

Almost all of the convention's activities will take place on the second floor. Here is a floor plan (copied from the hotel's website):

. We will be using Laguna 1 and 2, Bahia 1 and 2, San Felipe, San Cristobal and San Geronimo. The art show and dealer's room will be in San Felipe. Gaming will be in San Geronimo. Panel discussions and various other events will be held in Laguna 1 and 2, Bahia 1 and San Cristobal.

The Con Suite will be located in Bahia 2. The hotel staff has set up two rows of large (6') tables, with a few rectangular tables (6' x 2') along the front, back and right side of the room. The tables are all covered with heavy dark green table cloths. An iced water dispenser and a supply of disposable cups is located at the front of the room. The food has not arrived, yet. Someone is going to Wal*Mart to procure supplies and they will call us when they get to the loading dock. Once they get there, we will go down, unload the truck onto some carts, haul it up to the second floor and stow it in the right-hand corner at the rear of the room. Don't worry! — We are wearing our steel-toed shoes (Yeah, those were fun at airport baggage inspection...) We will open the Con Suite as soon as the food arrives and we get it stowed!

The festivities begin at 4PM with some panel discussions, but the real activities do not start until later. Due to recent events in the news, the Committee inserted a serious discussion at 6PM: Social Justice and SFF: It's Been There From the Beginning. The descriptive blurb reads:

Social Justice Warriors are destroying SFF with these new-fangled ideas! Um, no. SFF has always been used as a tool to examine social and political issues. Come discuss how works like 1984, Brave New World, Animal Farm, and the Handmaid's Tale explore oppressive regimes, and what, if any, hope SFF can give us.

At 6PM, another serious "current events" issue is covered. Working toward Social Equity in Speculative Fiction will look at the problem of getting voices from the minority community and from non-mainstream viewpoints heard and published. Well-known authors and content providers have little difficulty getting their latest works in front of the public. But publishing houses, movie distributors and such are very reluctant to take on the task for lesser known voices, including non-white creators, women and those with controversial social or political views. Money, of course, is the big issue — they fear that they will invest money in a project that the public will not buy.

The main events for this evening start at 8PM with Opening Ceremonies and the Meet the GoHs Ice Cream Social. For non-fans, GoHs stands for "Guests of Honor." Committee Chairman Pablo Vazquez will officially kick off the convention and introduce the Guests of Honor. An Ice Cream Social will follow. A big thank you to the DC in 2021 WorldCon Bid Committee for financial support towards the Ice Cream Social!