Good Times! #20 Blue Box 4 and Battlefield 6 2001

Blue Box 4(first published in Fringeworld 2001)

Bristol is not Mars but for the country's beleaguered public transport system it may as well be. Why else would I have to board the 9.13 train (itself a journey up to town from where I live) a full 24 hours before the event began? Arriving at 12.30, I had to wait two hours to meet Neil Hutchings from his London train and, after exploring the city for a while, the moment came to find the venue. Most conventions are within a stone's throw of a town or city centre but the Aztec Hotel is approximately 15 miles away in a bleak, deserted industrial park served by one bus; the only option as a taxi fare would have been prohibitive. Tallying all this up with the registration fee for the weekend, £45 and the (admittedly very favourable for a 4 star hotel) £30 per night room fees, something like £125 has been spent before a single person asks Wendy Padbury what its like in space. The real bone cruncher, however, comes as it gradually becomes clear that the Aztec holds a monopoly on all food and drink in the area. There is a lovely country pub opposite owned by them which has marginally lower prices, but check these out - a pot of tea £2.50. Sandwiches £6.95, buffet £10. Any money saved on the room rates is soon clawed back because there is nowhere else to eat or drink; even the alcohol is higher than London prices. So, let's face it, overpriced photos of Sylvester gurning with a stuffed ferret are the least of our worries!That said the Aztec is an excellent hotel full of wooden floors, beams, low ceilings and faux Tudor decoration. The staff are tremendously helpful and friendly more so than in any convention hotel I've been in. Hopefully they get a fair cut of all that cash flowing in. 

Good Times! #19 Battlefield 5 and Resurrection 2001

Battlefield 5 (first published in Faze 2001)

The best thing I saw all weekend? Well, actually it was a band called Mr Bridger playing at the Rocket pub, just round the corner from Coventry station. Funky Hendrix-like with a touch of Nirvana, they made US style rock seem like it could be interesting though for all the attention the Friday night punters were paying, it might as well have been Mr Bridger's Dixieland Showband. It wasn't that they were bad; it was just that they were the wrong group for this crowd. Two days and many panels later, I've come to a similar conclusion about Battlefield 5. The temptation to go on and on with anything creative is always strong but sometimes you need to sit back and remember the sparks that brought the subject to life in the first place.
Battlefield began as a feisty alternative to the established convention lore, which stated that huge gaps would elapse between panels, there would be as much behind the scenes stuff as front of camera celebs and that evenings would consist of funny videos and large scale parlour games. The convention scene needed this boost and it worked well at first. Never had the two-day event seemed so jam packed with stuff nor had it ever passed so quickly. Now ambition has inspired the team to extend the latest event to a three day stretch, the glitzy celebs are still, for the most part, the same people who've been to all the others and the cabaret has mutated from the slightly old school music hall mentality to amateur hour at a nightclub.