ONLINE: Visioning WisCon

media release: We're holding an online not-quite-WisCon! Join us in a group video chat space, complete with a bar (virtual) and a pool (also virtual) and sofas (you guessed it: virtual) on Saturday and Sunday of Memorial Day weekend!

Multiple virtual rooms mean that we’ll be able to have spontaneous programming, and, less spontaneously, discussions of what the future of WisCon should look like. And even less spontaneously, we will be hosting a few of WisCon’s familiar special events — including the Otherwise Auction!

Come meet up with the folks you miss seeing at WisCon in person, hold a spontaneous panel, attend an event or two, and help us to use some of this time to talk about where WisCon has been and where we should be headed. More details at wiscon.net.

All attendees are subject to WisCon's Code of Conduct.

Our base ticket price is FREE! Tickets priced at $10 help us make the next in-person convention happen; $60 tickets go to our Member Assistance Fund, helping folks attend in 2022; the $200 tickets help assure that WisCon can keep happening past 2022. The program space will be open 4pm to 11pm Central time, Saturday May 29 & Sunday May 30.

Events include: 

• Otherwise Auction to benefit the Otherwise Award, Sat 5/29, 7pm Central time
• Reading & more with Zen Cho, Sun 5/30, 7pm Central time  
• Vid Show, Sun 5/30, 8pm-11pm Central time 

Register here to join us May 29 & 30 at Visioning WisCon!

The Otherwise Auction

Unless you knew already that the Otherwise Award was born at a WisCon, lo those many years ago! (In 1991, which is thirty, more or less! Don't come for my math.) In that case, maybe it's more of a happy reveal than an actual surprise.

The Otherwise Auction supports the Otherwise Award, and it's always a good time -- famed Otherwise auctioneer Sumana Harihareswara will be reprising her role, and she has some fun stuff planned, including a game!

Unlike last year, we'll be using actual money for this auction. (If you have no idea what we're talking about, ignore this whole paragraph! You never saw us, we were never here.)

The auction will start at 7pm Central on Saturday night (5/29), and will end when Sumana says it's over. We're really excited to have a chance to support the Otherwise Award, even without an in-person convention this year, and to have fun doing it!

Sneak Preview: Guest of Honor Zen Cho

Just for us, next year's Guest of Honor Zen Cho will be recording a reading and more with the help of Dave Ring. Come get super-stoked (do people still get stoked? Is that still a thing? It's clear from context, right?) -- it's our 7pm Central event on Sunday (5/30)!

You can read more about Zen Cho and the other three guests we have lined up for 2022 here on WisCon's website.

Vid Show

Even though we aren't having a convention in the Madison Concourse Hotel this year, we've got the technology, and we can share feelings from afar -- experiencing WisCon's 11th Vid Show, but: online!

The Vid Show will be Visioning WisCon's closing event, and we've cleared out three hours just in case everyone's feelings overflow like some sort of bubblebath-related mishap, except with more neurotransmitters and zero heavy perfumes. Do we have enough vids for three hours? Do we have enough opinions and thoughts for three hours? HAVE YOU LITERALLY EVER MET ANY OF US? (Maybe you haven't! Maybe all of your WisCons so far have been virtual and you only lurked! That's totally legit, but trust me: yes, we could do it on opinions alone.) It's kicking off at 8pm Central time on Sunday night (5/30), and winding down around 11pm.

For the uninitiated, "vids" are fan-made remix videos with something to say. As is usual for the WisCon Vid Show, there will be subtitled vids, a sing-along portion, and short shows on various themes.

The big difference this year is that since we'll be using Kumospace, you can chat to your neighbor by voice or text within the convention space WITHOUT bothering anyone else and accidentally making a life-long nemesis! More details soon on how that will all work (making screenshots: so boring, so necessary), so stay tuned. 

In the meantime, whether you miss hanging out in a darkened hotel room watching vids with your friends or you've never been able to make it in the past, join us -- we hope you're as excited to watch some curated vids as we are!