Con booklet
The 2008 con booklet is now
available for download. There will also be shed loads of
copies at the con - if I remember to transport them there.
Breakfast confusion game may be over
We hear that the hotel has dispensed with the breakfast
buffet and gone to the more traditional waiter/waitress
service. This does mean greedy guzzlers can't make umpteen
visits to the bacon hot plate but also means there won't be a
400 yard queue for the Heath Robinson inspired toast making
machine.
Book via the hotel
It is now too late to book rooms at the Thistle Birmingham
City hotel via the booking form so if you want a room you will
have to contact the hotel directly. Try the web site
or try calling them on 0870 333 9126. When booking a
room, don't forget to mention you are with MidCon
otherwise you will not get the cheaper convention room rate.
You can, of course, still book online to pay the registration fee.
The price is now £18 per person for the full week-end since
it has gone past 1 November. Alternatively, you can just turn
up and book on the day.
Brains in the bar
Once again we have gone to a lot of effort to get some real
ale in the bar for the duration of the con. This year we have
instructed the hotel not to keep the existence of the real ale
a secret on the Friday so hopefully we won't be left with
seventy pints or so of the stuff left undrunk on the Sunday,
as we have to pay for it whether it is drunk or not.
As per last year, the ale will be provided by Brains,
the Welsh brewer. It's the official beer of Welsh football,
apparently, but don't let that put you off.
Quiz in search of a quiz-master
We are devastated to learn that Dan Lester, quizmeister
extraordinaire, will not be able to attend MidCon this
year, He has to go to New York or somewhere transatlantic to
work on a soup kitchen for investment bankers.
Dan will be providing the quiz questions but as happened at
ManorCon a couple of years back, some other poor sucker will
have the unenviable task of presenting it. At present, that
sucker appears to be our fearless leader, Jeremy Tullet.
Bring & Buy
If I get my act together I may bring along a lot of cheap
copies of Breaking
Away to sell. I suppose I ought to mention that, touch
wood, a proper games company will be licensing the game
from next year so I will have to stop selling it. I am not
sure if that makes the Fiendish Games version a collectors
item or a dead duck.
If anyone wants to let me know in advance of the games they
will be selling, contact me on john~fbgames.co.uk (replace the
~ with an @)
Late start in the Ariel suite
Although the con starts officially at 4:00pm on the Friday
we have become used to getting access to the main gaming
suites from about noon each year. This should still be the
case this year for the big room, the Wroxton suite, but the
Ariel suite has been booked by Bromsgrove & District
Catholic River Wideners club or some such corporate outfit on
the Friday, so will not be available for gaming until
6pm.
Convention handbook
I really must get around to doing the 2008 handbook.
Last year the demand for these was so great we had to print
more. If you want to see what all the fuss was about it is
still available for download
in duplex PDF booklet format. This means you will need Adobe
Acrobat Reader to view it, then a duplex printer to print
it (or you could just print both sides manually).
You will need to print the map
off separately. The key to the locations on the map is
on the back page of the con handbook.
The best reason for printing off the convention handbook is
so you can contribute updates to it. If you found a
particularly good restaurant or a free place to park or you
have a nugget of information that would be useful to other
attendees, please send details to
us.
Peter Berlin, Richard Beattie
& John Harrington leave a French restaurant in Birmingham,
the name of which escapes me ...
Real beer
We went to a lot of effort last year to get some ale
available and despite heroic efforts by many of the MidCon
committee, we ended up with dozens of pints left over.
This was partly due to poor publicity on the Friday (the big
"hello, how are you?" drinking day in my experience)
but probably more likely due to a slight difference in profile
between MidCon attendees and those who attend
other cons such as ManorCon. We're not saying you are all a
bunch of wine-drinking dilettantes but the average number of
pints consumed per MidCon attendee is lower than
that of your average ManorCon attendee. As a result, we may
have to scale down and only get one barrel in this year.
Bring & Buy Sale
The Bring & Buy sale was a bit too successful
last year, with a few gamers inconvenienced by the amount of
space the stall took up and the number of punters milling
around. This year we have rented a syndicate room which will
be purely for the Bring & Buy sale which, as in previous
years, will take place over two sessions on the Saturday on much the same
lines as before. Please note, however, that if you want to sell brand
new games, you may not sell products that are being offered by
the "official" games stall of MidCon.
If in doubt, contact the committee via the Queries button in
the left hand margin.
If you'd like to help ...
Just make sure you make yourself known before the event to
John Harrington (short chap, wearing glasses and probably
other things - such as clothes - besides). You can even e-mail
him before hand: you can find his e-mail address on http://fbgames.co.uk
Games that will be on offer
If you want to give punters advance notice of the games you
will be bringing along to sell, contact John via http://fbgames.co.uk
or, if you can't be bothered to visit that web site you can
probably work out his address by rearranging the following
elements into the right order:
- @
- john
- fbgames.co.uk
Clue: Put them in the following order: 213, with no spaces
in between!
Since the Diplomacy
tournament died, convention supremo Jeremy Tullett has had to
console himself with registration duties
Will there be a Diplomacy tournament?
The short answer to this is "Only if there is enough
demand."
The format of any tournament will depend on how many people
want to play but there will probably only be rounds on the
Saturday and Sunday.
In the mood for a quiz?
There will be just one quiz this year as we will be
jettisoning the Pop Music quiz on the Friday. However, I am
sure the General Knowledge quiz on the Saturday, run by the
charismatic Dan Lester, will have some music in it.
If only you did T-shirts
Hard though it is to believe, we did not sell out our
entire stock of MidCon T-shirts last year so
they will be on sale again.
These are high quality jobbies, because we know you like to
make your clothes last for decades ... The cost will be £12
each. The shirts will be available in navy blue, cardinal red,
olive and charcoal in sizes ranging from Small to XL. 
|
Please drink as much real ale as humanly possible as we have
to pay for any undrunk ale. Hangover sufferers: seek out John
Harrington if you need aspirin.