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I just returned from Balticon, the annual Baltimore-area regional science-fiction convention, less than an hour ago. Since I never managed to write about Penguicon, which I attended at the beginning of the month, it seems as good a time as any to talk about both of them. For those of my LJ friends who don't know or care about science-fiction fandom, I'll put the rest of this under an lj-cut.

Balticon runs for all of Memorial Day weekend, so it moves at a more leisurely pace than Penguicon. Unlike Penguicon, it has few parties. However, many East Coast fannish friends of ours make it to Balticon (as opposed to Penguicon, which is significantly farther west), so we have no trouble socializing, gaming, and seeing old friends.

Balticon:

* Is located very close to a suburban mall, so there's lots of good food nearby.
* Is located in a hotel of substantial size with lots of function space.
* Is near a light rail line and immediately off a major highway exit, so for lots of people traveling to the convention is easy;
* Has a large, varied dealer's room;
* Has a large art show;
* Has a *very* active, well-stocked gaming room;
* Has a lot of filking. I don't really filk anymore, but a trusted friend told me that this year's filk scene was very good, very high-energy.
* Had a large Masquerade, with a total of 28 entries!
* It has... programming. I didn't attend any of it because it didn't look interesting. I didn't even attend esrblog's programming items, because I got caught up in gaming.

Penguicon:

* Is located in a hotel of substantial size with lots of function space.
* Is located immediately off a major highway exit so that it's easy to drive to the convention, but public transit is nearly impossible;
* Has a smallish, but high-quality dealer's room;
* Has no art show, but there's so much to do at the con that I didn't miss it;
* Has a well-stocked, *very* active, gaming room;
* Had a significantly-sized Masquerade, with 18 entries (though it could have used better organization);
* Had a significant number (i.e., more than the 4 or so at Balticon each night) of very lively parties;
* Has a lot of very varied programming, including items geared to Linux enthusiasts and items geared to ordinary SF-fen. esrblog and I participated in several panels relating to law and the Internet which came off well and were well received.

I enjoyed myself at both conventions, but they are very different experiences. Balticon was more like a relaxacon, where we gamed and saw friends, but slept late each day and didn't feel impelled to keep running off to events. Penguicon, on the other hand, has much more to actively do and experience, and is more of a thrill ride.

In addition, this year howardtayler was a GOH at *both* conventions. It was great to say hi to him both times. Between the two cons, we bought three of the five Schlock Mercenary books. I highly recommend them; the paper and printing are extremely high quality, and if you follow the comic you know that the writing is not only excellent, but you get twice as much story for your money than is the case of any other comic I've seen republished in book format. As we were leaving Balticon, Howard gave us a copy of one of the pieces of his artwork he was using as a display sign, specially autographed for esrblog. I'm so glad he's doing well with Schlock Mercenary.

Finally, we finished off both events with a cookout. Our friends ssanfratello and Jordan M. had a cookout at Jordan's place after Penguicon. Unfortunately, it poured rain, forcing us to stay mostly inside Jordan's nice, but rather small, house. (It made gaming after dinner more of an exercise in fine motor coordination than we'd expected, too.) After we left the cookout, we stayed overnight at metalfatigue0's beautiful home, which was great because we were able to have a leisurely breakfast with him the next morning on the way to the airport while US Airways kept postponing our flight. (We finally made it back to Philadelphia by about 5 p.m.--more than 4 hours later than originally scheduled.)

The post-Balticon cookout was at the home of a friend of ours who moved to Delaware about 5-6 years ago whose new home we had not previously seen. The weather was hot and overcast, but not rainy, and there were few enough guests and enough space that conversation was rather pleasant. We left after making tentative plans for follow-up visits.

So these were the alpha and omega of May; Penguicon and Balticon. Both were a lot of fun in different ways. In fact, Balticon was livelier than it has been in previous years (despite the dearth of parties!) and gave me hope for its continued viability as a fun convention.