2013 News stories and updates

Nine Worlds 2013 was a huge success, taking over two huge London conference hotels for the weekend of August 9th-11th. It was the first Nine Worlds Geekfest, and was set up following a successful Kickstarter campaign earlier that year. Watch the video below for a tiny fraction of the awesomenosity.

We've also curated a playlist of videos recorded at Nine Worlds 2013.

Two attendees chat at Nine Worlds Geekfest 2013 - photo Curious Magpie

We analysed all feedback from Nine Worlds 2013, and this report came out of the Feedback-o-tron. In finest geek tradition, it's very, very detailed. Enjoy!

Nine Worlds 2013 attendee cosplaying Princess Mononoke

See photos from Nine Worlds 2013's Cosplay Contest on CosplayUK's Facebook. All winners should have been notified some time ago.

We're sure you're all going to look amazing at Nine Worlds, and you might like a photo record - we're delighted to have Ele, from Curious Magpie Photography, attending to make that record! Ele will be roaming around the event all weekend - she'll be the one in costume with the camera.

We accidentally left the steampunk session descriptions off the printed programme - oops! But, fear not: you can still see all the details online and on Lanyrd, and we'll also be printing a programme insert. Check the details here, and don't miss out!

We love costumes at Nine Worlds, and are very much looking forward to seeing all your amazing cosplays! Please make sure you follow the costumes and weapons rules to keep things fun and safe for everyone, and be sure to show them off as part of the cosplay contest - there'll be fabulous prizes and eternal glory!

Costumes and Weapons Policy

These rules exist to help keep the event fun and safe for everyone - we take them seriously, and expect attendees to do so as well.

Come and check out our totally awesome vendors' room, showcasing the very best in geeky crafts and collectables! Vendors range from tiny indie crafters to big shiny shops, and the hall will be open 3pm-6pm Friday, and 9am-6pm Saturday and Sunday.

In addition, check out our pop-up artists' and authors' market, running 3pm-5pm Saturday and Sunday!

Just a few of the awesome vendors you can see at Nine Worlds are below:

Hey there. We decided to extend the current ticket price for a few more days. This is just a sneaky manoeuvre to get more sales. We absolutely did not spend the past week sorting out cool stuff for the event, and fail to remind people about the price increase before it happened. Ahem. On the plus side, the extra work we've been putting in means the weekend will be more awesome. On the other plus side, the price isn't going up until Sunday night. So, nothing too bad, we hope. Seems to me you should buy a ticket.

In the last decade, Blake’s 7 has enjoyed a remarkable renaissance – first with a successful audio reboot and now with a possible major new television series. The audio reimagining featured Derek Riddell as Blake and Colin Salmon as Avon, with a host of top name actors in other roles. Now, a forthcoming 60-minute documentary reveals how the new Blake’s 7 audio series came about.

There are sessions all over the convention that families can enjoy together!

Three new sessions on Cyberpunk, Plagues and Crowdfunding means Nine Worlds will now host an impressive array of gaming-related events which will have many a gamer switching off their console to join in the action.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FAN-RUN SCI-FI EVENT BOOSTS GAMING OFFERING

Along with all of the drop-in content at the convention, we've also got sessions that require pre-booking. This can be due to limited space or because they start doing stuff for you before the convention actually begins. The following sessions require advance sign-up:

More than that, it's the complete convention booklet, with all of the information you might want about enjoying your weekend of awesome. Food, facilities, partying, the local area, access information, the code of conduct, cosplay rules, vendor information, maps of the hotels, and, er, details of the 400 sessions. It's a mere 68 pages long and comes in at a sylph-like 8 megabytes in size, in pdf format. You'll get a copy at the registration desk when you pick up your badge, along with various unspecified bonus items that may or may not be book-shaped.

We're still finalising all of the evening entertainment at Nine Worlds, but here's a preview of what we've got lined up for you. In additional to dozens of evening talky session run by many of the fandom tracks (don't miss the New Voices panel with All The Books), great science lectures (Dr. Meg Barker's lecture on Future Sex looks really interesting), lots of gaming going on (social gaming, LARPs, board games, and RPGs), and non-stop movies until late late with the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Film Festival, we've also got these great items.

We're very excited to be joined by the Wireless Theatre Company, who specialise in creating original, exciting radio theatre productions, both for existing radio lovers and for the 'Facebook Generation'. They'll be speaking on writing, directing and producing radio for the Creative Writing track, and on Spring-Heeled Jack, the subject of their best-known radio series, as part of the Skepticism track.

In Conversation With The Wireless Theatre Company

Roll up! Roll up! We've released day tickets for Saturday and Sunday at Nine Worlds. 24 hours of fun await those brave souls who dare venture into our Worlds of Mystery. Alternatively, you can read the draft programme and completely dispel any confusion about what's on. The second draft will be out in a few days, with new tracks including role play, LARP and more partying. Come and get your tickets now!

Some quick answers about day tickets:

Swordplay masterclass! Learn water dancing with the Game of Thrones dancing master Syrio Forel, the former First Sword of Braavos, who teaches Arya to fight in King's Landing. Pre-booking essential!

Science! Going where no human has dared go before! Science! Join us to hear just a few of these brave and intrepid explorers share their stories about the unknown, the unusual and the totally awesome!

We're calling on artists, graphic designers, comics creators and general art geeks to take part in designing some limited edition Nine Worlds 2013 t-shirts!

We’re looking for interesting & exciting art work which delves into the world of Tolkien’s mind, to be displayed as part of the Tolkien track at Nine Worlds 2013.

Registration is now closed.

Come into the Split Worlds…

Dynastic families feud across the ages, furthering the agendas of their supernatural patrons.

Innocents are protected by monsters and the beautiful ones are not what they seem.

Come into the Split Worlds and experience the blurring between the magical and the mundane…

Ever tried dressing as a zombie but struggled to get authentic-looking injuries? Perhaps you'd like to enhance the realism for a play or video? Fancy recreating the special effects from your favourite scary movies? Learn to create realistic and terrifying wounds for costume, film and fun!

We've rustled up a whole weekend of unadulterated knitting-based pleasure! Check out the schedule here.

We're very pleased to be joined at Nine Worlds by Quidditch UK, who will be running open games on Saturday afternoon so you can learn to play!

Update - No longer available sorry! We've just launched our brand-new shop, with our official convention shirts! Our shirts are printed just for you in London, and cost £13.50

To celebrate the 50th anniversary year of the Doctor, we're planning discussions, showings, panels, and one or two surprises. Join our team of writers, critics and geeks to discuss all things Who, including religion, racism, villains, the Classic series, spin-offs, and lots more.

We're very excited to be running two theatre-style LARPs over the course of Nine Worlds, to which beginners are very welcome.

Nine Worlds’ track for everything SFF announces new guests and two exciting new events today! Learn about FINDING AN AGENT Juliet Mushens and Den Patrick, and celebrate the launch of brand new fantasy from Tom Pollock and Snorri Kristjansson at our LAUNCH PARTY.

We're collaborating with London On Board, London's premier board gaming club and host to over 2000 members, to bring a schedule of exciting and unusual board games to Nine Worlds, including free gaming, playtesting and themed demonstrations.

We're very pleased to be hosting a full academic conference as part of Nine Worlds - our Academia track will host a series of lectures, discussions and paper presentations by students, researchers and academics who study Science Fiction and Fantasy. Lots more abstracts are on their way, and see the main track page for the full descriptions, or see the summaries below!

Hadaly: The First Android

Video games are an incredible, evolving art form which offer emotional attachment, moral exploration and team building like no other medium. Join guests including Rhianna Pratchett, Cara Ellison and James Swallow to discuss video game culture and community, game development, story, and lots more. Check out the main track page for full descriptions, and join the conversation on twitter - see you there!

All things geeky and feminist, from discussing gender roles in speculative fiction, to looking at women's representation in gaming, film and TV, to working out how to make geek spaces and industry more inclusive. We will celebrate our storytellers and female superheroes, and we will look forward, and discuss how we can make geekdom a better place for us all. This will be an intersectional and varied programme of panel discussions, talks and socials, with guests including Laurie Penny and Zoe Margolis, and we welcome you to join us!

Utopias and dystopias, heroes and villains, reinventing mythology, writing horror, getting published and lots more will be covered in the ALL OF THE BOOKS track.

A multi-fandom track designed to appeal to lovers of any or all things fanged, with references to Anne Rice, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, True Blood, Lost Boys, Let The Right One in/Let Me In, Carmilla, The Anita Blake series and more.

We're very excited to be hosting a full track on Game of Thrones / A Song Of Ice And Fire - this track will celebrate both the books and the TV series, with workshops, gaming, discussions and lots more, and the session descriptions include content warnings and spoiler warnings.

Hear ye! Hear ye! May 31st is the deadline for early bird ticket sales. If you wish to come to Nine Worlds this August, now is a very good time to purchase.

We're collaborating with the Victorian Steampunk Society to run a full schedule of workshops and discussions on steampunk, as well as an art show, competitions, traders, a photo Wall of Fame, and more. We'll also have under-12s sessions and a crafting space for kids.

We at Nine Worlds absolutely love it when folks come along in costume - so much so that we're hosting workshops on costuming so everyone from newbies to seasoned cosplayers can learn something new on all sorts of aspects of costume creation and design. Our costuming workshops aim to be accessible and fun, and will be curated by Lee and Rose, the team at Cosplay UK. Find out more on the Costuming track page, and remember that tickets for the whole weekend are just £75 until May 31st!

The Nine Worlds queer track will be a comprehensive, intersectional exploration of queer themes and characters throughout SFF media and fandom, with discussions, workshops, talks and socials covering all things queer and geeky. Expect discussions of everything from explorations of sexuality and gender in science fiction, to queer representation (or lack thereof) in your favourite fandoms, to the role of fandom itself in queering media and culture.

We're very excited to be collaborating with The Skeptic Magazine, the UK's longest-running and foremost skeptical magazine, to bring Nine Worlds a series of talks and discussions on science and critical thinking. Join us to pick apart stories of supernatural beings, claims of the paranormal, the psychology of conspiracy theories and lots more. We'll also be joined by the immensely popular Pod Delusion podcast, who will be doing a live podcast recording.

We're delighted to announce that we'll be hosting a comprehensive, full-weekend, all-singing all-dancing fanfiction track at Nine Worlds. As well as the usual introductions to fanfic, we'll have a fanfic workshop just for kids, discussions of crossovers and AUs, a reading group, conversations about female characters and femslash, exploration of other fanwork media, a talk from the Organisation for Transformative Works and lots more - check out the full programme here: http://nineworlds.co.uk/track/fanfic

We’re very pleased to announce that our Harry Potter Academia content will be headed up by the team behind HARRY POTTER AND THE AGE OF ILLUSION, the first full-length undergraduate module on Harry Potter, based in the University of Durham’s Education Department. The team will be delivering lectures and seminars on all things Potter to Nine Worlds attendees - check out the updated webpage for full session descriptions and biographies! http://nineworlds.co.uk/track/harry-potter-academia

In the recently finished Kickstarter, we offered a reward tier for those who did not want tickets, but still wanted to show their support. By their sacrifice shall we know them:

Our Kickstarter campaign ended on 3rd March. Thanks to everyone for their support, in pushing us to 232% of target! You can still visit the Kickstarter, but it is now closed. Instead, buy tickets right here on our website!

The obvious way to celebrate the final 24 hours of our Kickstarter crowd-funding drive is to put on a really big free party for all our supporters with the the world's best space pirate steampunk band The Mechanisms. Saturday March 2nd from 7pm.

If you're thinking about submitting a film to the Nine Worlds Film Festival, here's the basic Submissions Info, or you could go right to Withoutabox, our submission service.


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