How Did We Manage It?
by Lydia Wood

View out the window of the Hyatt

We arrived late at night on the 1st of September, a Wednesday, and dumped our stuff off at our hotel room at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta. I am pretty sure I was not alive by this time, but still somehow managed to go out to a 24 diner to eat? I have no idea how I managed this? I know Paul, Wendy, Gabriel and I were there?

The Thursday? Yeah con time is a strange thing, I remember certain things happening, but not the order, or in come cases not even places? Our first full day in Atlanta I think was spent, shopping for hair, having a quick look around Atlanta and setting up the stall. I remember drinking alcohol, going to Wendy’s party, meeting up with some more of our guests and staff and then going back to the hotel and running around looking for people with Bruce and Gabriel, and then I think I drank more alcohol?

Friday, I don’t think I remember Friday. I know that was the day the con started. So I must have done panels, sat behind the stall, drank more alcohol, I think this was the day I ate a couple of corn chips and half a sandwich, so that probably explains the fuzziness. I know each night was spent in our hotel room, with vast quantities of alcohol, talking about how we would run our next con. (Yes we enjoy torturing ourselves.) It was still kind of bizarre seeing my American friends again; Peter the chairman from Lunacon, was among one of our new victims, it was great to see him again. It was also fabulous to see Bruce again, so I could plan world domination using David Bowie clones again and without this con the SVBB may never have been invented.

Saturday. Outsidedness is a word I use when describing some aspects of my Bowie obsession and today was very outsided. I settled down into con mode, that meant running between the two hotels Dragon*Con was being held in about 50 times. As the track room was in the 3rd floor basement of one building and the dealers stall was in the corresponding location of another, lots of escalators and elevators…

Sitting behind the dealers stall was a strange experience as we were sat between two Asian porn stars and a jewellery stand, opposite and to our left was Space Ghost, further down the row was Soupy Sales, (who I know as the Father of the other half of Tin Machine). All these things made it an odd experience, but that was only added to by been stalked by David Carradine. Kill Bill will never be quite the same again for me!

Sign we hung on the hotel room door

On Saturday night I went out of Pizza with Bruce and his sister, who was horrified by the fact that I never get to see the cities I attend cons in, so I thank them both from rescuing me from the clutches of the Hyatt for a few hours. I presume this was followed by more drinking? It might have been this night that our Grissecon One obsession with League of Gentlemen took over again. We had many local parties for local people, I can assure you!

Sunday was my day of many panels; I talked about Reiki, the Wraeththu Role-playing game I am co-writing and Chaos Magick.

I received good feedback from all my panels. By nature I am fairly quiet and shy, but when I talk about something I am passionate about such as David Bowie or Chaos Magick, I have no reservations at all. I think I shocked quite a few people that night; I must have got something from studying Performing Arts. We dragged half the Chaos Magick panel back to our room and I think I was actually the first to crash out that night at the early hour of about 3:30am!

Late night in the hotel room... our own private panels!

Monday, was one of those end of con days, trying to sell as many books as possible so we didn’t have to carry them back to England. I really am stuck as to what I did this day? I know I did another panel; no doubt drinking was involved, as many of the guests and attendees had left we were back down just to core staff. Ah yes we went to a very dull Dead Dog party, Rogue and Jessica from the Cruxshadows came and sat with us and we had a good natter. Rogue, I feel I must add was a complete star on our panels. I am sure we then ended up back in the hotel room drinking; I know S J Tucker turned up at some point and entertained us with some of her songs. She truly is extremely talented.

Tuesday we were all up bright and early, we went for breakfast, said our sad goodbyes. We had confirmed we were coming back next year and headed out for airport round one. To cut a long story short, we never did manage to get a plane that day; we were shuffled from one airline to the next, delayed in special security clearance and then lost half our group and our luggage had a nice trip around the east coast of America. So after about 5 hours we went back to Wendy’s, had a fabulous Chinese meal and watched Labyrinth, complete with sing-along.

Wednesday flights were slightly more successful, we had to go through the (completely random honest!) special security screening again, but got to New York for our connecting flight in plenty of time. After dancing around the tarmac for a few hours we finally made our way back across the Atlantic and to Manchester airport and then home…

Next up Germany, then New York than back to Atlanta for the next Dragon*Con!

About the Author:
Lydia Wood is a staff member at Immanion Press and a rabid David Bowie fan. She can be reached at eris@discord.wox.org.