Swecon Is Go

We’re in Stockholm for Imagicon 2, this year’s Swecon. There is a good-sized delegation of Finns here (12, plus 2 children), including a couple of first timers which is always great. The ferry trip was fun as usual, and there was time in Stockholm for a really thorough breakfast, some shopping (did manage to do almost no impulse shopping at SF bokhandeln and Comics Heaven, and discovered that Uppsala’s famous English Bookshop now has a store in Stockholm as well), and a really nice Swedish meal at a pub. Then it was time to go see the convention for a few hours, although arriving in Sweden at way too early an hour (wakeup call at 5:30) took its toll on the Friday evening festivities.

Imagicon seemed again to have a better handle on organizing things than the average Swecon—there even were guide signs from the metro station to the local library/culture center where the convention is held. Everything was in place when we arrived, registration went smoothly and the printed program booklet and badges awaited the members.



The culture center is not very big but is quite well suited for hosting a small, cozy convention. There are a couple of rooms for programming, a hallway where the vendors are (not many of those, the Alvarfondet book sales tables take up most of the space) and there’s also a cafe/bar that offers some vegetarian dishes and a very attractively priced selection of beers (some ciders too).



There was some programming on the first day, but I didn’t see much of it; instead the evening was well spent meeting friends and chatting in the bar. Today I plan to go see at least the GoH speeches and interviews, and there were a couple of other program items too that seemed interesting. Plus also Jukka’s “Never mind the Buzzaldrins” quiz, lifted from Åcon, and is of course a must. The beer is not expensive and the books sold at the con are even cheaper, so this looks to be shaping into a great little convention.