Mancunicon

When my Young Man came to stay last week, one of the important things we did was to book for Mancunicon, next year's EasterCon. We had so much fun at this year's EasterCon, at Heathrow, that we wanted to see what it would be like next year. Also, I can't go to Lincoln Asylum, which is now held over the August Bank Holiday weekend, because of work commitments, and EasterCon is something I can get to more easily.
It is, unsurprisingly given the name, in Manchester, at the Hilton on Deansgate, which is apparently the eleventh tallest tower in Britain, so we should be able to find it fairly easily!
A couple of years ago, we went to the CAMRA Winter Beer Festival in Manchester, just a short bus ride out from Picadilly, though we made the mistake of walking out to it, not realising just how far it was. We got the bus back!
We stayed, that weekend, at the Ibis hotel near Picadilly. It's a budget hotel, and it had everything we needed, so we'll be staying there again and walking across town to the main hotel each day. We might even get to ride on the new (new to me, anyway) Manchester trams! The centre of Manchester has changed quite a bit since I lived there, but Picadilly and Deansgate are still in the same places, so I don't think I'm going to get lost.
The guests of honour at Mancunicon include Aliette de Bodard - I haven't read any of her novels yet, but I have seen all the publicity about her new book The House of Shattered Wings, and I also came across an extract of another story set in the same world - which starts in a library, so that caught my interest straight away!
The Mancunicon website can be found at www.mancunicon.org.uk and they also have a Facebook page.