[Nov 19 – 21, 2010 Seatle, WA, US] This was the second installment of SteamCon. Still experiencing growing pains but it was an fun, although I would like to see the shortcoming corrected, such as: SteamCon ran between two hotels (Marriott and Hilton) and that caused the people to split up. A bunch hung around the Marriott and a bunch at the Hilton and there seemed to be less mingling of the two groups other than to attend events held at one or the other. Basically, SteamCon needs a much bigger venue and be under one roof for cohesion I think. The SteamCon Con Committee was unable to get either of the two hotels to allow for room parties. And you know what I think of cons without parties. FAIL.
There were only a few “non-sanctioned” parties and they couldn’t advertise in any way shape or form or keep their doors open, so it was a huge bummer. Only word of mouth and that was hard to come by. Hopefully the ConComm will get room parties sanctioned for next year. (And lock it down to one floor so that people don’t need to go hunting thirty floor in multiple hotels.) Apparently the dealers room was too small last year. It was bigger this year but it was still too small. If people actually stopped to look at dealer wares, the traffic flow clogged up because the aisles were way to narrow. So, they need to get even a bigger area. (Or allow in room dealers on a floor of one hotel or something.) Lastly, having a con suite in both hotels was also a failure. Both rooms were generally empty. There should be one big con suite in one location so that everyone know where it is so they go to one spot. Hopefully they will do a post-con review and fix the issues. Wow, that’s more than I usually write. Sorry for harping. It was a good con, just needs to iron out the wrinkles. And, I didn’t take too many pictures this time, sorry…
Nick Valentino
author of “Thomas Riley”
and girlfriend in the dealers room.