By Rich Lynch:

OPENING CEREMONIES. Wayne Brown on stage. Alan Dean Foster (in straw hat) said this is the first convention of any kind he’s been to in ten years.

GoHs seated at podium, left to right: Suford Lewis, Tony Lewis, Nilah Magruder, Kaja Foglio, Phil Foglio, Alan Dean Foster.

VIRTUAL GUEST IS INTRODUCED. Cheryl S. Ntumi, all the way from Ghana.

And yeah, the real time closed captioning was (as usual) doing wonky things.

PANEL: EARLY FANDOM. Late afternoon panel about “Early Fandom in Upstate New York”.  David Ritter of the First Fandom Foundation described the 1943 Schenectacon and the 1944 Buffalocon, including mini histories of many of the fans from that era.  About a dozen in the audience, and we were all fascinated and entertained.

PANEL: ARE TRADITIONAL SF CONS DYING? Short answer: probably.

Randy Hoffman, Michael Ventrella, Tony Lewis, and David Stephenson expound on the topic.

HYBRID PANEL: An entertaining one: “Science Fiction in 60s Comics”.

Left to right: Stephen Wilk, Chuck Rothman, D.G. Valdron and (virtually) Martin Shoemaker