Archipelacon

As many of you probably already know, there won’t be a Finncon next year. (This is just a one-year breather—there are already initial plans for 2016 and even 2017.) But 2015 won’t still be a year without a big convention in Finland. Archipelacon takes place in exactly a year: June 25–28, 2015 in Mariehamn, the capital of the Åland islands.

Archipelacon is a joint venture put together by a bunch of experienced conrunners from Finland and Sweden (with staff also from Norway and Germany). The event venue is the brand new Alandica Culture & Congress Center, and the flavor of the convention is internationally Nordic. There will be programming in Finnish and Swedish, but the majority of the program items will be in English. The Guests of Honor announced so far are Johanna Sinisalo from Finland and Karin Tidbeck from Sweden.

The con site

Mariehamn is a beautiful city with gorgeous sights, interesting museums, great shopping opportunities, and several excellent restaurants. The town is small so everything is conveniently close, and the convention will organize excursions to interesting sites outside town. (For more information, see for example Cheryl’s con report from Åcon 7 which took place in Mariehamn this year, or Åcon GoH Karen Lord’s blog post about Åland.)

Åland is quite easy to get to via Finland and Sweden, and there will be an inexpensive group travel opportunity by cruise liner to the islands. We are hoping that all of you who said you still want to come to Finland in 2015 after Helsinki lost the Worldcon bid last year will give Archipelacon some serious consideration: the more international crowd we get to the convention, the merrier!

As Archipelacon steps into the boots of Finncon for one year, the program will be of high quality, mixing serious, fannish, and fun items. The convention will also host an academic conference of the Finnish SF and Fantasy Researchers Network. There will of course also be a vendors room and a good bar on site, and the midsummer weather in Åland is usually warm enough that the con hotel’s pool bar should be put into good use.

The Archipelacon membership is 30 €, and there is also a youth membership (10 €) for people under 26. Go sign up and join the con!

If you want to have updates about the convention, you can follow @archipelacon on Twitter or sign up for an info mailing list that will keep you up to date with con-related stuff. If you’d like to take part in making Archipelacon happen, contact the organizers and let us hear from you!