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Leicester Pride yesterday. Went early to set up the stall, and spent most of the day there, accompanied at different times by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wandra, the_maenad, lovingboth, and Adrian from Derby (who had organised booking the stall). We sold lots of badges, and gave away some unknown number of BCNs and BiCon booking forms. There were lots of people there, and I thought the festival had good vibes, although as so often there was a very noisy dance tent booming across the site, with hardly anyone (sometimes nobody) dancing in it until about 5pm. It was the most multi-cultural main stage lineup I think I've ever seen at a Pride.
One of the community stalls was an organisation called the National Coalition Building Institute. I'd never heard of it before but it looks v cool. They do all kinds of anti-racist and anti-prejudice-in-general stuff. I want to go to one of their workshops, although they do cost fifty quid. One of the topics is learning how to do a good intervention if someone makes a prejudiced remark out of the blue. I want that! It's so crap when you can't think what to say at the time and then later you wish you had! The workshops are in Lancaster, Lincoln, Peterborough or Leicester. If I do one, it'll be Leicester. Anyone been to one already? Anyone fancy it?
While we were sat at the stall,lovingboth and I had some negotiations about me doing a Single Bass gig on the Friday night of BiCon, and that looks set to happen. We still need to sort out some details like PA stuff.
Partly because of that, we went off at one point to the BiCon venue which was just up the road. We looked round, andlovingboth counted all the steps for the access information.
I can confirm that the place is indeed leafy! :-) The gardens start literally at the edge of the car park, a couple of minutes' walk from the hall's front door. If the weather's reasonable it is gonna be gorgeous hanging out there. Mm mm. And no mistake. ( More about the venue, and BiCon venues in general )
All in all, I am quite optimistic about it as a venue, and starting to have pleasant anticipatory thoughts along the lines of "ooh! It's BiCon soon!"
Also had an interesting conversation at the stall with Adrian about newbies at BiCon and how to support people in meeting people. I never really had the total newbie experience myself, because before my first BiCon I'd already met quite a few people at other things. But Adrian had seen more of that side of it, and met quite a few people at past BiCons who were struggling, and told me a sad story about a couple who'd left Manchester 2000 after a day because they hadn't managed to talk to anyone yet. It's not like there isn't already stuff with new people in mind, but it just made me think about what else could be easily done that would be helpful.
After Pride, went home on the train withwandra and the_maenad and on to Pizza Hut for food & conversation - v nice. When the bill came, they'd added VAT to the prices on the menu. Surely that's not normal? Somebody tell me if it is. I certainly don't think that's ever happened to me in Pizza Hut before and I've been there loads of times over the years. At the time I just went "Oh!", but this morning when I woke up I thought about it again and I think it's a swizz! I'm gonna complain about it I think.
Anyway, all in all a very good day.
wandra, the_maenad, lovingboth, and Adrian from Derby (who had organised booking the stall). We sold lots of badges, and gave away some unknown number of BCNs and BiCon booking forms. There were lots of people there, and I thought the festival had good vibes, although as so often there was a very noisy dance tent booming across the site, with hardly anyone (sometimes nobody) dancing in it until about 5pm. It was the most multi-cultural main stage lineup I think I've ever seen at a Pride. One of the community stalls was an organisation called the National Coalition Building Institute. I'd never heard of it before but it looks v cool. They do all kinds of anti-racist and anti-prejudice-in-general stuff. I want to go to one of their workshops, although they do cost fifty quid. One of the topics is learning how to do a good intervention if someone makes a prejudiced remark out of the blue. I want that! It's so crap when you can't think what to say at the time and then later you wish you had! The workshops are in Lancaster, Lincoln, Peterborough or Leicester. If I do one, it'll be Leicester. Anyone been to one already? Anyone fancy it?
While we were sat at the stall,
lovingboth and I had some negotiations about me doing a Single Bass gig on the Friday night of BiCon, and that looks set to happen. We still need to sort out some details like PA stuff. Partly because of that, we went off at one point to the BiCon venue which was just up the road. We looked round, and
lovingboth counted all the steps for the access information. I can confirm that the place is indeed leafy! :-) The gardens start literally at the edge of the car park, a couple of minutes' walk from the hall's front door. If the weather's reasonable it is gonna be gorgeous hanging out there. Mm mm. And no mistake. ( More about the venue, and BiCon venues in general )
All in all, I am quite optimistic about it as a venue, and starting to have pleasant anticipatory thoughts along the lines of "ooh! It's BiCon soon!"
Also had an interesting conversation at the stall with Adrian about newbies at BiCon and how to support people in meeting people. I never really had the total newbie experience myself, because before my first BiCon I'd already met quite a few people at other things. But Adrian had seen more of that side of it, and met quite a few people at past BiCons who were struggling, and told me a sad story about a couple who'd left Manchester 2000 after a day because they hadn't managed to talk to anyone yet. It's not like there isn't already stuff with new people in mind, but it just made me think about what else could be easily done that would be helpful.
After Pride, went home on the train with
wandra and the_maenad and on to Pizza Hut for food & conversation - v nice. When the bill came, they'd added VAT to the prices on the menu. Surely that's not normal? Somebody tell me if it is. I certainly don't think that's ever happened to me in Pizza Hut before and I've been there loads of times over the years. At the time I just went "Oh!", but this morning when I woke up I thought about it again and I think it's a swizz! I'm gonna complain about it I think. Anyway, all in all a very good day.
