My First Fantasycon: Why I’m So Glad I Went!

Scotland-based fantasy writer Carl Bayley let his curiosity get the better of him and grabbed a ticket to Fantasycon. Here’s how it went.

As summer progressed and inevitably yielded to autumn, there was a palpable and growing air of excitement to the BFS newsletters: Fantasycon was coming!

I’ll be honest, I’d never heard of Fantasycon before, and thought cons, or conventions, were really an American thing. Had I been living in a cave all these years you may ask? Sadly, the truth is far more sinister: I have been wasting my life studying accounting and tax instead of horror and fantasy!

Once my curiosity was piqued though, I decided a trip to Chester looked like a good idea and my partner (who is not usually into fantasy unless I write it) even volunteered to come with me in support (which was greatly appreciated). And, if I was going to go to Fantasycon, I thought I might as well throw myself in at the deep end and signed up for no less than three panels, a reading, and a launch for my first novel, Trinity of Souls (we called it the English launch, as we had one in Scotland earlier in the year).

As Fantasycon approached, however, I started to wonder if perhaps I had bitten off more than I could chew? Here I was, a debut novelist, only one published title to my name (apart from my twenty-plus tax guides), on panels with real experts, some of whom had writing credits as long as your arm, including Guest of Honour Priya Sharma.

So it was that we arrived at The Queen at Chester Hotel on a sunny Friday afternoon, not knowing what to expect. Would there be Klingons, Daleks, and Storm Troopers, like the American conventions I had seen in films and TV? What would everyone be like, would they be friendly, would we feel like fish out of water among these fantasy aficionados?

We needn’t have worried. Almost immediately, it became apparent that – while we were there to discuss alien worlds (among other things) – the world of Fantasycon was nothing like as alien as we had feared. It was all very normal, full of normal (well, normal-ish) people who love fantasy. Just like me!

My first engagement was as the only man on the ‘Female Representation in Horror’ panel on the Friday afternoon. After a pint of Guinness to help calm my nerves, we made our way to the Baba Yaga Room. Waiting outside for the previous session to end, who should be practically the first person we met but none other than Priya Sharma!

And, in that moment it became clear what a friendly, open, collaborative environment we had entered, because Priya was about the nicest, friendliest person you could hope to meet, immediately putting all my imposter syndrome fears to rest. The panel session that followed was great fun and, while there were some serious points to be made, and which we explored as much as our allotted time would allow, we also enjoyed some of the lighter sides of the topic (I don’t think I will ever forget the city-destroying vagina).

That mix of more serious issues and great fun could easily be said to sum up Fantasycon: where fantasy can be taken as seriously as you like; where horror can be fun; where science fiction meets publishing fact. My partner and I thoroughly enjoyed everything we attended. From more panels where we laughed about the threat of an attack by avenging dodos, whether there should be rules on what a vampire can and can’t do (of course not), and what’s more useful for an adventurer, a pair of armour-plated Pegasi or a magic book that can tell you anything you need to know, to more serious topics like how to make money from self-publishing, dealing with literary agents and commissioning editors, and the black art known as marketing.

Consideration and respect were an important theme too, both for the panels and the way the convention as a whole was conducted. While we agreed vampires were ‘up for grabs’ when it comes to tinkering with old concepts, we also considered some important cultural issues and the need to be careful when our creative efforts stray into territory others may consider sacred: nothing should be completely off limits in fantasy in my opinion, but one thing I learned from Fantasycon was that, when it comes to other people’s cultures, it is critical to proceed with caution, research as much as you can, and respect others’ beliefs.

Our Fantasycon finished as it had started, amid lovely, friendly people and a panel (The Adventurer’s Survival Guide) that mixed everything from the sublime to the ridiculous to produce a session that was great fun to be part of. After we’d reminisced about Douglas Adams, decided our favourite companion to take on an adventure was a dog (and woe betide anyone who hurt them), learned from a real adventurer that you don’t necessarily need a toothbrush, and discovered two of us shared a morbid fear of having to pack in a hurry, it was left to one of the audience to bring us back to Earth by suggesting the best things to take were a map and compass.

I’m so glad I went to Fantasycon: I laughed a lot, I learned a lot of really useful stuff about writing, marketing, and publishing, and I made a lot of new friends. You don’t often get all that out of one weekend. In the end, our only regret was that we didn’t get to see much of Chester.

We’re already planning for Fantasycon 2025! It’ll be held as part of World Fantasycon in Brighton; details here.