My second con this year was KON_gres 2025. It is a conrunning convention that I attend every year. This time it came back to it’s cradle – Wrocław. Yet instead of being held in the library on the Main Square, it took place in the conference centre at the city stadium.
Meeting People
The localization of the venue could be described with a title of Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel – Very Far Away from Anywhere Else. I am exaggerating, but only a bit ;). The venue’s placement had some downsides but it also came with certain pros. As the stadium was far away there was only a single hotel nearby and this meant most of us stayed there. Also we didn’t have a large selection of pubs/bars for socializing, and thus it was easier to meet other members.
Convention venue in it’s full glory.
We arrived on Friday before the con and we spent the first evening in the hotel room of a few of our friends. It was quite crowded with like ten of us occupying a room for three. The hotel was Ibis Budget, so I must mention that it was not a very spacious room. Still it was a good evening with a lot of talks. I went to bed rather early (and way before others), but I found this evening amazing nevertheless.
The second evening was a proper and “official” evening at a bar. I didn’t spend too much time at the bar, but I managed to talk with a few friends. We also had the chance to celebrate birthday of one of my close friends. Once again I decided to go to bed early, as I was tired after the long day of conventioning.
Of course apart from those two “big occasions” there were plenty of other opportunities to socialize. Breakfasts in the hotel were one of those. Then the impromptu tea room organized by Phoe in a wide corridor. And I cannot forget about the time between the programme items. All in all I had plenty of time to talk with other fans.
Phoe and his impromptu tea room.
Learning The Craft
KON_gres 2025 was a convention for conrunners and it was visible in the programme. As expected not all items were “how to do XYZ at a con” but such were also available. I managed to attend six programme items (some lasted for two hours) so not too many for a two-days long con. Out of those I best remember two. Coincidentally those were the first and the last items that I attended.
I opened Saturday with Michał presenting results of the survey he did among Polish fans. He pinpointed some key differences between fans of SFF and Manga&Anime. It was interesting to see which things are important to the fans. The item that marked my end of KON_gres 2025 was held by Julianna and Vinga. They ran an Event Storming 1.0 workshop. It was a new technique that I may potentially use in the future. The two hours I spent on the workshop were not enough. I would love to train working with this methodology for a few more hours. Still it was a very valuable programme item!
Michał presenting results of his research.
Council of Fandom
KON_gres is one of the cons where Council of Fandom takes place. The one we had in Wrocław was a bit tough. We have an umbrella organization called ZSFP that associates local SFF clubs. When a new club wants to join we need to vote on that. As far as I recall we agreed to all the clubs who wanted to join. This year, however, was different. The club that wanted to join was controversial. The consensus was that we need to get answers to some questions before the voting will take place. The concerns expressed by different clubs were serious. It was a long and difficult discussion. I feel sorry for the three representatives of the club who were not able to answer all of the concerns. They also had to accept the critique for the club’s doing while the problems were not their fault. For the future it would be way better to have someone from the board to represent the club at such occasions.
The room for the Council of Fandom was quite full.
During the Council of Fandom we also voted on the nominees for Piotr “Raku” Rak Award. Surprisingly to me (and I believe to most other people in the room too) two candidates were vetoed. As per the Award Rules vetoes are anonymous and the club vetoing did not mention why they decided to do so. I am very sorry that this happened as per my knowledge they were both splendid candidates. This situation sparked some discussion during KON_gres and it continued online. Most probably we will soon change the rules for the award will.
A Good Trip
All in all I enjoyed KON_gres 2025. There were some interesting programme items that I attended and some more that I didn’t manage to visit. I spent a lot of time talking to people and enjoying myself and the company of good friends. There were some minor issues and some difficult moments but I consider that weekend a good one.
My next post should appear after Easter.