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CoNZealand Fringe
Aug. 3rd, 2020 06:09 pmSo I think everyone who cares about such things knows at this point that the Hugo Award ceremony for this year's Worldcon (hosted virtually by the team behind the bid to hold the event in New Zealand; the ceremony itself was hosted — with disastrous results — by George R R Martin) was a complete and utter debacle, and no doubt a real insult to the finalists and award winners. (For more details, see Natalie Luhrs's post on the matter.)
I didn't buy attending membership for Worldcon this year, partly because I was burnt out on videoconferencing (since I have to teach people through videoconferencing for my job) and suspected a lot of the live events would stream at inhospitable times for my timezone anyway. The fact that a lot of events seemed to be taking place through Discord sealed the deal: I just do not have the energy to add yet another platform to those I use.
However, one delightful thing to result from the rather shambolic pivot to digital is CoNZealand Fringe — a series of panels, livestreamed and recorded, thrown together at what I gather was very much the last minute, involving Hugo finalists and other pro and fan members of the SFF community, accessible for free.
The organisers of this fringe event put up all the videos as a playlist on Youtube, and as I've had the day off work I've had a great time dipping in. So far I've seen the panels on sensitivity readers, fanfic (a real highlight), and 'problematic faves', and have enjoyed all of them so far (although I'd say the third panel possibly needed a moderator who was stricter about managing the flow of conversation). I'm looking forward to making my way through all the other panels in the playlist, and I recommend them to you if you enjoy interesting panels on SFF and fannish topics.
I didn't buy attending membership for Worldcon this year, partly because I was burnt out on videoconferencing (since I have to teach people through videoconferencing for my job) and suspected a lot of the live events would stream at inhospitable times for my timezone anyway. The fact that a lot of events seemed to be taking place through Discord sealed the deal: I just do not have the energy to add yet another platform to those I use.
However, one delightful thing to result from the rather shambolic pivot to digital is CoNZealand Fringe — a series of panels, livestreamed and recorded, thrown together at what I gather was very much the last minute, involving Hugo finalists and other pro and fan members of the SFF community, accessible for free.
The organisers of this fringe event put up all the videos as a playlist on Youtube, and as I've had the day off work I've had a great time dipping in. So far I've seen the panels on sensitivity readers, fanfic (a real highlight), and 'problematic faves', and have enjoyed all of them so far (although I'd say the third panel possibly needed a moderator who was stricter about managing the flow of conversation). I'm looking forward to making my way through all the other panels in the playlist, and I recommend them to you if you enjoy interesting panels on SFF and fannish topics.
