Ten Essential Convention Survival Lessons

Originally published as a post titled “Day One: Balticon 44″ in 2010; slightly modified from original post

Lesson One: If an internet mapping site tells you a trip will take 4 hours, DON’T BELIEVE IT. New rule of thumb: add on an hour travel time for every major town traveled through. Two hours for Big Cities.

Lesson Two: Make sure the road snacks you packed for the trip are actually within reach of the driver’s seat while driving.

Lesson Three: If you’re scheduled for a reading on the first night of the convention, contact all friends who will be at the con a few days BEFORE you leave for the con to tell them about it … and to ask them to tell others, and so on.

Lesson Four: Whining in utter exhaustion sometimes makes the hotel staff nicer. (Don’t overdo it, though.)

Lesson Five: Plan on arriving AT LEAST four hours prior to any scheduled commitments in order to unload the car, unpack, eat, and wander the hotel to learn the layout .

Lesson Six: If you’re gonna unload the car, just do it all at once. Multiple trips to the car to get “one more thing” REALLY SUCK, because the critical item is never discovered missing until way too late at night to do anything about it.

Lesson Seven: Coffee machines in hotels are getting crappier and crappier every year. Bring your own. And your own coffee. And lots of bottled water in case the tap water comes out yellow. (Yes. Seriously.)

Lesson Eight: Hotel bathrooms are getting smaller, too. Large folk (as opposed to my 5 foot 1) be warned, you may not be able to shut the door if you’re sitting on the toilet. (No. I’m not actually being funny here.)

Lesson Nine: Vendor’s Row will always close earlier than you expect. So will the con suite. And the hotel restaurant.

Lesson Ten: The really cool panels that you desperately want to see will always either be at a time when you cannot attend due to your own scheduled commitments, or at such a late hour that you whimper just reading about it.