Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 22:47:21 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Ship-Con and Camp-Con (was: Re: [WSFA] Re: Balticon in 2006 - Hunt Valley Inn)
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 09:05 PM 3/14/05 EST, MarkLFischer at aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 3/14/2005 4:23:41 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>omni at omniphile.com writes:
>
>>Seriously!  Put the hotel on a cruise ship and dock it in cities  as needed.

>
>I'm going to refrain from citing Coast Guard issues, since that would lend
>an air of legitimacy to this whole thread :-)

Such as?  (not that I was all that serious to start with, but I'm curious...
 :-)

>I'll just note that, knowing fen as I do, there would be a mass  gafiation
>ten seconds after the invoice arrived for the first periodic drydocking and
>bottom maintenance.  Nothing has succeeded in destroying fandom to date,
this
>might just manage it.

You are assuming things....who said this had to be a condo arrangement?

>Perhaps groups and better-heeled individual fen could invest in old RVs of
>whatever age and opulence they can afford, and a couple of old circus
tents.
>My background in Fandom on a Shoestring is tickled by the image of  an
>itinerant Okie convention swarming around the country like Vulcan-saluting
 locusts,
>periodically settling on some luckless community to strip their stores  bare
>of snack foods, and leave SF-shaped holes in their second-hand  bookstores.

Sounds reasonable to me...maybe tech-fandom would even be willing to jump
in on tent pitching, as it's a complicated enough process with enough
chances to hurt yourself that I shudder to think of some of the
less...mechanically inclined...fen trying it.  Also, without elephants,
we'd need some heavy equipment or really creative rigging to get the poles
up.  Maybe we should just look into inflatable tents?

I've wondered for a while why there aren't more "camp-cons", where you pick
some state park or private camp ground and just take over a section for a
few days.  The SCA does that for things like the Pensic Wars, and it's a
blast.  Much healthier too than a typical con...you walk several miles a
day getting around the place, but since it's not all at once you hardly
notice it.  Food is cheaper than restaurants, as you cook it yourself over
a campfire, and lodging is very cheap compared to hotel rooms.  Of course,
you only get air conditioning in the winter months...

Maybe base one on the idea of apocalypse?  "Civilization gone?  Left on
your own?  Come to Camp-Con and learn how to survive without TV!"

>Permanent Floating RiotCon, anyone?

Your Niven is showing...

-- Mike B.

--
Budget: A method for going broke methodically.