FantasyCon in Chester

This will be the first of several blog posts - I had a fantastic time, and I want to write down as much of it as I possibly can!

This was the first FantasyCon I'd been to. I wasn't able to go to EasterCon this year, and I'd heard some customers in the bookshop where I work saying how much they enjoyed FantasyCon last year, so I decided to go - and it was brilliant! My brain isn't used to working quite so hard these days - I went to lots of thought-provoking discussion panels - so now I'm really tired, with a lot of new information to digest, and a large number of books to read!
I wasn't sure what to expect when I arrived, but FantasyCon seems to be very much about getting authors and small presses and editors and agents, and a surprising number of PhD students and academics, all together in the same space, and seeing what happened.

And this is where it all happened:

The Queen's Hotel, Chester, conveniently just opposite the railway station.

I was not staying there - I thought I'd be trekking in from the other end of City Road, but as it turned out, the Belgrave Hotel was just across the road from the Queen's:

My window was the narrow one at the far end of the first floor. Some of the corridors in the Queen's Hotel were wider than that room, but it had everything I needed - tea and coffee making facilities, a TV, a bed, shower and toilet, so I was quite happy. What the Belgrave didn't have over the weekend was a working kitchen, but I had been assured that there were "many cafes" nearby which did breakfasts. That was probably true, if you were prepared to walk up into Chester city centre. Fortunately for me, there's a large pub called the Town Crier, also facing the railway station, which turned out to do excellent breakfasts. I also went there for other food during the day - they did a very nice sausage and mash which kept me going for the rest of Friday, served with a pint of Greene King IPA.

The holiday really started on the train, a tiny two coach affair that goes all the way round the coast of North Wales eventually. I sat next to a lady who was reading a Terry Pratchett novel, Unseen Academicals, and who was just coming back from a holiday in Glastonbury, all the way to Criccieth. So we had a lovely chat.

Once I'd checked into my hotel, and had a substantial lunch in the Town Crier, I headed for the registration table in the Queen's. They didn't have the Convention programme book yet, but they did have sheets showing the timetable. So I started off with a cup of coffee from a table by the dealer's room, to see what events I wanted to go to.
The dealer's room was off a corridor which runs round a courtyard with tables, and a variety of interesting statues, and it was warm enough to sit out there all over the weekend, which felt very civilised.