Major-General Kate Duncan (59th Ready Reserves) has requested that if
anyone is in these locations and can help, please e-mail her privately at
kduncan@planetx.com. Ditto if you happen to have any media contacts (local newspaper, radio, TV). She said:
The 247th Industry Insyderz First Solo Flight
Loscon 24, the annual convention of the Los Angeles Science Fiction
Society, was held November 28-30 at the Burbank Hilton in Burbank,
California. The Space Ready Reserve was represented by its Southern
California squadron, the 247th Industry Insyderz. Manning the table
for the Insyderz was Lynn Loschin, Barry Caldwell and Kyril Rodgers.
Liz Mortenson, one of the con organizers, greeted us early in the day
and thanked us for coming. Overall, attendance was a little slow,
thanks to a competing Babylon 5 Creation Con just a few miles away in
Pasadena. Due to this conflict, as well as the fact that Loscon is
primarily a literary science fiction convention, the SRR decided to
attend on Saturday only. While greeted with the usual snobbishness
from certain people who don't watch any television, the overall
reaction was better than expected. We had a steady stream of visitors
throughout the day, and since the ads just started running that week,
most were still unaware of the upcoming reruns of Space on the Sci-Fi
Channel. But, as expected, most of our visitors were thrilled upon
hearing the news. In fact, several attendees who didn't subscribe to
cable TV have now decided that it's worth it.
Due to a noncompetition clause with the dealers, we were very limited
as to what we could display and sell at our table. A funny thing,
since none of the dealers carried any Space merchandise, except for
one guy selling scripts. But our SRR patches and dogtags sold very
well, much better than expected. Many people purchased dogtags for
friends who couldn't be there. The new Incoming newsletters were also
very popular. Also on display were Operation Demios flyers, sample UPN
letters, and Episode Guides.
We met lots of people who were big fans of the show and had seen
nearly every episode, as well as a large group who had only seen a few
episodes early on and had lost track of it thanks to Fox's bad habit
of pre-empting and rescheduling it on odd nights with no notice. But
both groups were very excited that they were going to be able to see
the show again in 6 weeks. We also met the organizer of an upcoming
Babylon 5 con in May of 98, who invited us to attend and possibly
present a panel on Space.
Late in the day, we were honored to be visited by the Chig Ambassador,
Kristian Sorenson, and Glenn Campbell, Area51 Special Effects God,
both of whom stayed until quitting time and helped us close up shop.
As this was only my second con, I don't have much to compare it to, my
only other experience being Fantasticon last August, which is a tough
one to top. :) But things went better than expected, and if I do say
so myself, our little ragtag crew handled itself quite capably.
Barry Caldwell
Space Ready Reserve,
247th Industry Insyderz
