Halcy-Con 2024
A part-logistical, part-emotional retrospective
When I got off the Galactic Starcruiser last year, I told people it was the best thing I’d ever done.
Halcy-Con may have topped that.
Obviously they are two differently shaped beasts. Very differently shaped. I played a very different role on the Starcruiser than I did at Halcy-Con. On the Starcruiser, I was a passenger. An active one! One who threw herself full-heartedly into the world and the events! Part of what made the Starcruiser so amazing was that the passengers did play such a crucial role in telling the story, and I loved it.
Halcy-Con, though, was something I got to help make, from the ground up. It was something I got to build in a very different way. The Starcruiser left me with a feeling of awe and wonder and appreciation; Halcy-Con has left me with a profound satisfaction and pride.
But maybe I should back up.
Halcy-Con? What’s a Halcy-Con?
I’m not sure it’s possible to have known me over the past year-ish and not know how much I adored my sole voyage on the Galactic Starcruiser, known in-universe as the Halcyon.
When Disney decided to close that experience, the community that had built around it was heartbroken—but also determined. Fan events were already springing up before the closure, and there have been more since. Martin and Kristine Smith, two of the three co-hosts of Starcruiser podcast Heroes of the Halcyon, spearheaded a couple of those meet-ups and eventually decided — hey! Let’s put on a con!
This was not meant in any way to be a re-creation of the Starcruiser, but rather a celebration of it. Martin and Kristine also wanted it to be forward looking, not only retrospective, embracing the future of immersive experiences and what can be built from this amazing community. I loved all of that, and I knew immediately that I wanted to be a part of it.
I had, truly, no idea what I was getting myself into last December, when I emailed Martin and Kristine, whom I knew from being a guest on Heroes of the Halcyon, and said, “Hey, if y’all need some help, I have some skills.” I genuinely assumed they already had somebody to run Programming and that I was volunteering to be that someone’s assistant. Surprise! They handed me the reins—or perhaps I should say popped me in the cockpit—and trusted me with a pretty huge component of the entire event!
Running Programming
At one point during the con, I teased Martin and Kristine, “Hey, remember when we thought we were going to have to do incentive campaigns to drum up interest?” We really hit the ground running in January, and the community immediately validated this wild thing we were doing. Tickets and rooms both sold out in record time. From there, knowing that, “Okay, this is really happening!”, the event team all had our own things to focus on—but we were also always there to support each other. The Sunday night meetings, first monthly, then twice a month, then weekly, became something I genuinely looked forward to, even when I was tired and loopy. From January on, we really did not have any “down periods” — we were just moving from one phase of planning and implementation to the next.
So. My job, for anyone who wants a little behind-the-scenes look at how this sort of thing can work:
There are a few different ways to solicit and arrange programming for a conference or convention. There’s the “guest application” model, where people who want to be a part of programming tell the con that, and based on the information they provide, the con pops them into programming that the con devised. Sometimes the sessions might be suggested by guests, but generally not directly — they get trimmed, massaged, and synthesized by the programming coordinators. Then there’s the direct submission method, where attendees send in proposals (or, in a more academic context, abstracts). And there’s the solicitation method, where the conrunners approach pepole they want to hear from and ask them to speak or join a panel.
We decided to blend those approaches. Which was… complex, I’m not gonna lie. It was a multi-step process, and thus more involved than other cons I’ve worked on. Oh—and we also decided to do a community vote to see what programming people were going to be most interested in (because, with this being such a unique event, we were flying without full astrogation charts, as it were), which added its own phase to the process.
We took suggestions and submissions. Some of them came ready-to-go, pre-set panels and presentations and games and workshops. Some needed a little zhuzhing, and I worked with folks on that—because we knew we would have a lot of folks who had never presented at a con before, some who had never even been at a con before, and we wanted to support them in building the best sessions possible. And some sessions needed people! We had folks who had pitched panels that they wanted to lead, but they didn’t have other panelists.
So, I got to filling in the gaps.
There were a few concepts that we knew the community would be interested in, but that no one had pitched—so I wrote up some descriptions for those. For those and the unfilled panels, we opened guest applications and made some direct approaches, because Martin and Kristine know, I’m convinced, everyone who ever voyaged on the Starcruiser, and thus knew who would be a perfect fit for certain topics.
I had to cull. It broke my heart, but that’s part of doing programming for a convention. There’s not always time and space for everything—and sometimes it’s not just about having the space, but having the right shape of space. Certain games and crafts needed tables. Lightsaber training cannot be done in a small space or one with low overhead.
And then came my favorite part: actually arranging the schedule. It’s a lot pure logistics—making sure I don’t double-book anybody alone is a hefty part of it. A fair number of presenters were doing more than one session, and if one of theirs was a panel where someone else was also doing multiple sessions, then you quickly get into cascade failure territory when you try to move anything. I needed to think about which things were likely to both be large draws and be able to fill a large space, and which things would benefit from a more intimate setting and the ability to get close. I had to think about which rooms had AV (well aware that, as is always the case in these circumstances, half of the hookups were not going to work on the first try, no matter how well they were working the night before).
All of that is satisfying work, but where it gets fun is when I can arrange a “track”, even unofficially. When we’ve got multiple items of programming on a similar theme, and I can give someone interested in that theme a path to follow throughout the weekend. (The big ones for this con were immersive experiences, Sajas, and nostalgia.)
On the Floor
Of course, things did not go exactly according to plan. They never do! I knew that going in, and I started from a place of “prepare to pivot.” Admittedly I was not anticipating quite what a large pivot was going to be necessary at 7:30am on the first day of programming (before I had even had my cold brew, y’all), when external circumstances forced the withdrawals of a number of presenters.
But—we pivoted anyway. Through the generosity of so many individuals, the great grace of the community, and the willingness of all to go with the flow, we managed to shift in a way that was, while not invisible to the attendees, not something that derailed the experience.
I was extremely gratified to hear from so many people at the con that “It seems like things are going really smoothly!” because ideally, an event should always be like a swan: graceful and placid on top, churning chaos underneath. Honestly, I think a little chaos is necessary. Chaos is where creativity comes from. Chaos has its own energy that, when harnessed in the right way for the right causes, can do great things. And, frankly, it’s a place I tend to thrive. (This is why, though I am definitely not a Darksider, I also could never be a Jedi and would need to seek a different path in the Force. Come to think of it, I had this exact conversation with Saja Tycer on-board the Halcyon…)
I was in near-constant motion for three days. Clipboard tucked in my left arm (see above), I dashed from corridor to corridor, putting out fires where necessary, checking to make sure folks had what they needed, and—my favorite part—touching base with as many of my presenters as possible to make sure they felt confident and supported. While slip-streaming through the crowds, I only had full-on collisions with two people (sorry!), which I think was actually pretty good considering my speed and frequency. When I did stop moving for a minute, I often just folded down onto the floor, exactly where I was. (Floors can be very comforting sometimes.) I was running on caffeine and adrenaline and nerves, riding the edge of what Terry Pratchett called the “catastrophic curve.”
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
In My Feels
A few people asked me during the event, “Have you actually had time to enjoy anything?” And that’s… a weird question to answer! Because, in the traditional sense, well, I didn’t do many of the things I usually do when I’m just a guest at a con. The only panels I saw all of were the two plenary sessions and the sessions I was in. I didn’t indulge in a saber session. Even at the dance party, I was (attempting) to keep things more or less in line with the run of show doc.
But did I enjoy myself? Yes. Of course yes. A thousand times yes.
The fun of it for me was being part of the team that set things up, spun them into motion, and then stepped back to see what the community did with it. I really love making things, particularly things that other people get to take joy in. I love events, and making sure that everyone else is having a good time is what gives me a good time. And when it all comes off well, when the pieces fit together, when we reach the end and everyone is feeling joy and satisfaction—it’s just the best feeling in the world.
As, um, pretty much everyone at Halcy-Con witnessed (because it kept happening while I was on stage), I was in and out of tears for about half of the Saturday night gala—but always for the best and happiest of reasons. I’m a heart-on-the-sleeve sort of girl, always have been. My emotions live close to the surface. I cry at parades, at fireworks, at sappy commercials, at happy-ever-afters in Disney movies, at rally moments in adventure stories.
At Halcy-Con, my emotions were entirely overwhelmed by the joy and love in that room. I have truly never been in the middle of so many people who were all so ready to give of themselves: their energy, their expertise, their experiments. I will be forever grateful for that experience.
I also needed this in a way not a ton of people knew about. For personal reasons, I needed this opportunity to reclaim myself, my skills, memories of an amazing experience, a sense of pride, the untrammeled delight of imagination.
I went in knowing I needed that reclamation. I didn’t realize—until I was in tears sometime Saturday—how much I also needed the… well, the vibes. Except that term hardly seems to do justice to the magical energy that was in that room Saturday night. The unique atmospheric cocktail of excitement and nostalgia and connection, the “together as one” sentiment that drove us, the hope and faith that whatever may come in the future, this spark stays ignited. The thing that had 600 people circled up and swaying along to a heartfelt Starcruiser tribute song, then doing the Ryloth Slide with full gusto, then singing along to the Star Wars main theme. Whatever that energy was, I needed it, more than I knew, to get my heart opened up and full-blooming again.
Maybe it was the Force, flowing through all of us.
Oh, I'm glad you had such a lovely, revitalizing experience, Cass.