Suffering From Con Overwhelm? Volunteering Can Help!

Kiwi-born, UK-based writer Lauren Broughton reflects on finally getting to her first Worldcon in Glasgow, and about the impact volunteering had on her experience.

I can still remember when I first heard about Worldcon, and it wasn’t as long ago as you might think. I’d heard of the Hugo Awards, of course, but not about the surrounding event until John Scalzi announced that he was headed to my hometown for Worldcon. After some fascinated googling, I bought a WFS membership and booked my space.

Unfortunately, my hometown is Wellington and the Worldcon in question was CoNZealand, scheduled for August 2020. Things didn’t quite turn out as expected back then, and so it came to pass – four years and one move halfway around the world later – I finally got to attend my first Worldcon.

Thinking back, a couple of weeks later, and I’m still a little overwhelmed. I’ve attended a ComicCon while on holiday in Canada and a few of our local con, Armageddon, but both seem to be about 90% dealers’ hall plus some expensive autograph and photo opportunities. Those felt like big marketplaces; Worldcon was something else entirely, a place for community and creativity, where guests of honour can be seen wandering the con floor and the person you sat beside at one event is a speaker on the next panel you go to see.

Overwhelmed and over-scheduled

From the very first day, I found myself furiously flicking between the interactive online schedule and the venue maps, trying to track down the various rooms, joining the stream of people flowing between SEC and Crowne Plaza – and back again, when the room I was hoping for was full. Such was my FOMO, I had at least one item slotted in for each time slot and usually at least two or three, even after some tough decisions. This spread of interests did lead to me wanting to be in multiple places at once quite a lot of the time, which I understand is not an uncommon problem. I got to consume a lot of quality content on quite a range of topics and I’m sure I missed out on many others that I would have enjoyed as well. My to-read list has ballooned, not to mention all the recorded panels I put off in favour of the in-person variety. I’ve even booked accommodation for Seattle 2025 already!

I was so busy on Thursday, I only got to visit the dealers hall from Friday between panels and of course was immediately tempted by everything. Reminding myself that I only had room to bring a few books home, I circled the tables of gorgeous books, incredible artistry, and yarn. Such beautiful yarn. I would find myself back in Hall 5 again and again, trying to fit the pretties into my budget and into my luggage allowance. I’m looking at my stack of books now – all twelve novels – and can’t believe I somehow got them all home and onto my bookshelf!

For my part, I’m a bit of a dabbler: I read more than I write, I write more than I watch, and I crochet more than any of the above though admittedly it can still be rather intermittent. Somehow Worldcon managed to cater to all of my interests, with even a couple of panels on musicals to fill my current obsession with the West End. However, with a wide spread of interests comes more shallow connections, as I flitted between topics and eschewed most meetups in favour of squeezing another panel in, and that half hour between panels isn’t a lot of time to make friends, especially when I already had sessions planned for afterwards. Not only that, but a lot of people seemed to already be happily fitted into groups that I felt too shy to approach. It would have been so easy for little introvert me to get lost in the crowd.

In the end (or from the start), there was one factor that made this Worldcon hang together as more than a collection of interesting panels, fannish shopping, and exhaustion: I volunteered.

(Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash)

Navigating a con as a solo newbie

Having joined a carpool with a few other folks from my hotel, I turned up bright and early on Thursday morning, picked up my badge and “My First Worldcon” ribbon, and decided to see what was the deal with volunteering. I’ve always had an affection for seeing what happens behind the scenes and had even signed up to volunteer at CoNZealand, so I decided to try again and dived straight in with ushering for the very first item on the schedule, Dune: the Musical. We expected a few hundred people; we welcomed somewhere north of a thousand and were thereafter invited to usher for everything else on the programme. After signing up to help with the Opening Ceremony – for some reason, held some hours after the programme had started – I dashed to watch my first panel and left my second one early to make the Opening Ceremony usher briefing.

Not wanting to commit to a single team – dabbling, once again – I also signed up to help manage Table Talks. These had the added bonus of being able to sit down once the tables were set up and ready for their guests. By the end of the day, I had already signed up to help again on Friday, so I would be able to sit down while still feeling useful.

I ended up volunteering all the way through the con, managing to get the tote bag and enough groats for a few free meals. I don’t know how I would’ve survived Worldcon without volunteering – it gave me a structure and purpose, a couple of teams who I could get to know instead of feeling lost among a sea of people. Not to mention it’s incredibly rewarding to be able to let people know when we’ve found a seat for them at the table!

For anyone attending a convention like this – if you have the time and the capacity, I highly recommend doing a bit of volunteering. My thanks to Marla and Dave for welcoming me onto the FOH team, to Mirrka for welcoming me to the Table Talk team, to my taxi crew of Nik, Brendan, and Victoria, and to everyone who I met who made this a conference to remember!

Thinking back I have a few final highlights: finding a tiny yellow duck on the freebie shelves. Getting to tell Seanan McGuire how much one of her characters means to me and receiving a related enamel pin. Being let into the full Best Cats in SFF panel after a few people left. And yes, I got to meet John Scalzi.

• Tempted by the con life after reading this? Join us at Fantasycon in October! Details are over here.
• Tempted to volunteer in the SFFH community? The BFS is always looking for more help! Express your interest over here.