Accio MONEY!!!
Mar. 26th, 2005 06:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ffuturesThere are flyers around the convention for "Accio 2005, The First Harry Potter Conference in the UK", which seems to be somewhat confused about its aims and objectives.
It's presenting itself as a "conference for Harry Potter fans and academics" at a university site. There are going to be serious academic talks - from such luminaries as the author of "The Wisdom of Harry Potter" (the what???) - combined with a "trial of Severus Snape", a Quidditch game (yeah?), gnome tossing, feast, etc.
The price for this educational extravaganza? Two hunded quid for a residential membership (two nights), £235 if you actually want a room with a loo and shower, and a whopping £160 for non-residential membership. All of this in the University of Reading, a site best known for repeated car crimes and muggings, and not very palatial when I was last there - though I should admit bias, the ony time I've had a motorbike stolen was on that campus.
Meanwhile I've paid rather less for membership of the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow a couple of weeks later, including membership in the con and five night's accommodation on a nearby university site, and the university games con I'm attending a week earlier is about half the price. If this was a genuine academic conference the price wouldn't be unreasonable, but it looks like a fan con with academic pretensions, and that's a very different thing.
Anyway, their site is at http://www.accio.org.uk - judge for yourself. I won't be going.
It's presenting itself as a "conference for Harry Potter fans and academics" at a university site. There are going to be serious academic talks - from such luminaries as the author of "The Wisdom of Harry Potter" (the what???) - combined with a "trial of Severus Snape", a Quidditch game (yeah?), gnome tossing, feast, etc.
The price for this educational extravaganza? Two hunded quid for a residential membership (two nights), £235 if you actually want a room with a loo and shower, and a whopping £160 for non-residential membership. All of this in the University of Reading, a site best known for repeated car crimes and muggings, and not very palatial when I was last there - though I should admit bias, the ony time I've had a motorbike stolen was on that campus.
Meanwhile I've paid rather less for membership of the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow a couple of weeks later, including membership in the con and five night's accommodation on a nearby university site, and the university games con I'm attending a week earlier is about half the price. If this was a genuine academic conference the price wouldn't be unreasonable, but it looks like a fan con with academic pretensions, and that's a very different thing.
Anyway, their site is at http://www.accio.org.uk - judge for yourself. I won't be going.
