Virtual Access Portal

And That’s a Wrap!

Thank you all for coming. This was fun and felt like a family reunion for many of us. MUCH NEEDED during the extended quarantine conditions we are still operating under.

Make sure you get your take-home items! If you have not yet picked up a copy of the Souvenir Book, here it is.

And don’t forget your 2020 NASFiC convention T-Shirt! Available for just $22 from OffWorld Designs.

Some of our Art Show artists also contributed to a Coloring Book to help you through the rest of the pandemic.

There are still lots of great deals in the Dealer’s Room! You don’t even have to haul your loot into the car to get it home!

Finally, make sure you take advantage of the chance to buy a “Virtually” autographed book (or many!) at the 2020 NASFiC program participants’ book “shelf” of the Author, Author! book store. All signed books will feature a custom 2020 NASFiC Bookplate, with art by Artist Guest of Honor Stephanie Law.

Books can be purchased through that site from now through September 10, 2020.

The Columbus NASFiC Discord will stay open for a while, and you are welcome to stroll through the other program rooms and times to see the “writing on the wall” of all the program item conversations.

As for seeing the programming that you missed, we hope that will be possible as well, but we have to check the quality of the recordings and do a bunch of video editing to get ready to re-run those talks and panels. Watch our social media, and this space right here for updates on that later this week.

As always, volunteers made the convention happen: we could NOT have done it without you, and we really appreciate all the time people put in to make it so, not just over the weekend, but also meeting up virtually beforehand to get trained on this new way of doing things.

Thanks again, and we’ll see you at the Dead Dog Party!

--The Virtual 2020 Columbus NASFiC Concom and Crew

8/21/2020

(…slightly past Midnight…)

Well, we have made it through the first day of the first fully Virtual NASFiC, and all of you have helped it be entertaining, inspiring, touching, imaginative, and all of the best bits of SF and fannishness that bring us together. This NASFiC is the most International one yet, with attendees from 21 different countries so far, and we are proud and delighted to have every one of you here.

We had only minor technical difficulties with the Zoom rooms and streaming on Friday UNTIL very near the end of the day when rooms started to go bust – our tech crew is working hard to revamp our approach to try to avoid a repeat tomorrow. Thank you for your patience.

Meanwhile, Editor Guest of Honor Chris Garcia and his family have unfortunately had to be evacuated from their home in California, which is threatened by oncoming fires. Chris will be unable to attend the rest of the convention. Our hearts go out to him and his family at this difficult time.

Fortunately for all of you, Chris went ROGUE and created a Rogue NASFiC Podcast before the convention even began. You can access that at https://rogue-nasfic.pinecast.co/ and at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7gMvgB8g8QbTBR-ypQ78Ug It is full of fun interviews and collaborations that Chris has been doing over the summer, and we are glad that you can still get a taste of his awesomeness despite his needing to focus his energy and attention elsewhere for the next few days.

For those wishing to get to know our other Guests of Honor better, the Sign Up Sheets for their Kaffeeklatsches are UP - a bit later than we intended, but better late than never, right? Right.

Links to the available Kaffeeklatsches can be found in the Guest of Honor profiles on the page of who’s appearing. The first Kaffeeklatsch of the day Saturday will be at 10 AM with Scientist GOH Marc Millis. Sign up now.

You can also find those links and other important news on the # Announcements channel at the # INFO DESK on Discord. If you have news you want to share with the rest of us, you can post it there, and also be sure to drop it off at # newsletter-submissions so Newsletter Editor Tammy Coxen can run it in NASFiC News.

Tomorrow we will post the grand announcement of how to “attend” our Virtual Mass Autographing Session at 12:00 PM on Sunday in the (infinitely large) # consuite (and for two weeks via our internet bookseller), and of course there will also be the exciting reveal and showcase of the Chesley Award Nominees.

And in case you were wondering WHAT to do with yourself between or after the Saturday night NASFiC parties, there is now the option of attending the popular time-traveling book review show Galactic Journey, on stage in the Auditorium at 9 PM Saturday night!

Good night, sleep tight, and we’ll see you in the morning.

08/03/2020

Dear Members,

We have put a great team together to make this NASFiC totally VIRTUAL! In the next two weeks we will be solidifying those who are participating in the program, the Art Show, the Masquerade, the Dealer’s Room, and the writer’s Workshop, as well as who will be hosting club tables and parties. If you want to do any of those things, please contact us ASAP. None of this works without volunteers, just like in the real world, so please, volunteer early and often.

And of course we still have our wonderful Guests of Honor:

Toastmaster and Filker Tom Smith

Editor Chris Garcia

Artist Stephanie Law

Authors Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

Scientist Marc Millis

Fans Steve and Sue Francis

Ring of Fire Guest Eric Flint

Opening Ceremonies is at 3 pm on Friday, August 21st. That evening will also include a memorial to the great author, editor and mentor Mike Resnick, who unfortunately died this past year. Mike was a regular at Ohio cons and we are honored that his wife Carol and daughter Laura are trusting us with this event.

Other highlights for the weekend will include the Announcement of the Chesley Awards Nominees, and the Prometheus Awards. Please give yourself a break from the mundane world and join us, for the 2020 North American Science Fiction Convention!

07/22/2020

Dear Members,

Along with ongoing negotiations with our Hotel, we’ve been exploring the possibility of providing an Online event for all of you. We are happy to announce that this is now a reality. We have a small team working hard to put together the best online event we can for you to enjoy at the end of August. Due to our transition we’ve revised our dates to reflect the limit of our planning capabilities at this point; they are now Friday, August 21st-Sunday, August 23rd.

As you may know, the skills required to run a virtual event are different from those required to run an in person event. We held off on announcing this digital transformation until we were able to confirm with enough of our staff and guests that they were able and willing to help with a virtual convention that we knew that we’d actually be able to provide you with content.

In recognition of the difficulty of these times we are offering this event for Free with optional donation. We will be reaching out to all our paid members to make sure they have the opportunity to enjoy the content we’re putting together, and are also going to be opening it up to other’s who would like to join.

If you would like to volunteer with us in this challenging transition please fill out our volunteer survey. If you would like to join us as a program participant please email program@columbus2020nasfic.org .

Thanks

Lisa Garrison, Chair
Dale Mazzola, Vice Chair
Kim Williams, Treasurer

Columbus 2020 NASFiC.

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