2014 News stories and updates

photo by Jamie Drew at Nine Worlds 2014

We analysed all feedback from Nine Worlds 2014, and this report came out of the Feedback-o-tron. In finest geek tradition, it's very, very detailed. Enjoy!

The following recommendations come from the panellists, audience members and volunteers of the ALL OF THE BOOKS track at Nine Worlds 2014. Where possible, these were captured during the actual discussions -- which is why many may seem slightly tangential to the stated topic!

As with all reading lists, these are meant to be the beginning of a journey, and not exhaustive.

Nine Worlds 2014 ran from the 8th to the 10th of August at the Radisson Blu Heathrow, near London, with 330 sessions in 30 tracks over three days. The hotel was packed with attendees enjoying three days of parties, panels, talks, concerts, demonstrations, games, swordplay classes, tastings, workshops and competitions. To find out what people thought, we put together a feedback report. There are also many reports from elsewhere that we've gathered in one place for information:

This has been the first year of the Nine Worlds Film Festival Awards. We received submissions from all over the world, covering topics as diverse as alien invasions to bad hair days and it was an incredible honour to be witness to such a diverse array of new voices.

Here is the list of award winners for the 2014 Nine Worlds Film Festival.

Short: 0-10 mins:
Prelude (Dir. Mitra Shahidi)

Short: 10-30 Mins
The Developer (Dir. Robert Odegnal)

Short: 30-60 mins:
‘Aemorraghe (Dir. Patrick Devaney)

Image by Genki Gear

Our convention t-shirts will be supplied by the wonderful Genki Gear, and available for purchase in the Vendors' hall at the event.

Photo by Flickr user infomastern, via https://www.flickr.com/photos/infomastern/12407730413

We want everyone to have fantastic memories of Nine Worlds, so the Social Gaming track has made A Thing to help you with that! The game encourages you to visit different tracks, and see a wide range of everything Nine Worlds has to offer.

So many shiny things! Here's the full list.

This year, the Nine Worlds Film Festival has received short and feature submissions from all over the world and we are proud to be able to show our official selections throughout the weekend.

These films cover everything from the webcam-diaries of eight year olds to some deeply bizarre Japanese body horror, with topics covering everything from the end of the world to, well, the birth of the world, with plenty of board games, aliens, bad hair days and exploding heads in between.

We're running a few meetup sessions for folks to socialise and get to know one another, both independently and under various tracks. Here's a handy list!

Photo by Flickr user lauramary, via https://www.flickr.com/photos/lauramary/128422344/in/photolist-cmcum-eHo4uN-6nA58U-4YHSc-8ciniB-5CXrkP-9wSsWM-4pMsj6-61U1Zj-rz2iU-2byHDW-cmfEU-93kHwC-7mc5CH-5VeTJ6-3qDHGm-2rm6tu-8CLgq-aZepGX-dZCtLP-7kzgt6-8cViLr-7JrHp1-7T91S4-9NDgMs-dSZXry-dVyzQL-8wSha-cA5WBG-69bpWc-2mXvrn-3M6eVF-5jeQ2L-8d4fuT-5qW4iw-7wPdWN-6H19FR

After requests from several folks for a communication preference system, we'll be implementing a system, using red and yellow markers, this year for folks who sometimes find interaction with other people overwhelming.

We've got a whole bunch of stuff that you should be looking at now rather than later, or you risk missing out on some awesome funtimes.

English PEN logo

Following on from last year's successful partnership, we're pleased to announce that we will be raising money for English PEN from this year's event. This will include fundraising activities at the event itself and a donation from ticket receipts.

English PEN is the world's oldest human rights organisation. English PEN was the founding centre of PEN International, a worldwide writers’ association with 145 centres in more than 100 countries. For over 90 years, PEN has campaigned to defend writers and readers around the world whose human right to freedom of expression is at risk.

Delve into the weird and wonderful world of Longitude Punk’d, where sci-fi collides with 18th-century innovation - an immersive experience never tried before, in the last place you would expect to see it.

New to conventions? Some people find that meeting friendly faces can help them a whole lot in feeling secure and settled in. Join experienced con-goer and anxiety-wrangler Emma Newman for a relaxed cuppa and a chat with other nervous new people: all are welcome!

Our fabulous guests will be signing their work and meeting fans all weekend at the Forbidden Planet table, in Commonwealth West! Here's the full schedule.

These are centrally-organised evening entertainment events that aren't being organised by tracks. The tracks are also doing a whole lot of fabulous evening ents: have a browse through the track pages to see the full schedule!

We've just released the second wave of guests for ALL OF THE BOOKS, as well as all the track details! You can see absolutely everything over on the main track page.

MILTOS. After teaching a series of ridiculously popular water dancing classes at last year's convention, Miltos Yerolemou, the First Sword of Braavos, will be returning this year.

Pyjama Drama will be running geeky-themed drama and play sessions for kids (ages 2-5, and 6-10) all weekend. There'll be drama, movement, music and play, to help kids explore, and make sense of, their world. Fandoms include Doctor Who, Hogwarts, space, and The Gruffalo.

Hullo. It's time to let you know more about what we've got planned for this year, and what you should be doing now to get ready. This here's a handy dandy overview page.

Queen! Cheese! Rock Band! #PROMNADO! Space pirate cabaret! Glitter! Quizzes! Sing-a-longs! Science comedy! Weird films! Gosh!

Make a game and enter it into our competition. To find out more, play this making-a-game-game. Er.

We're running a whole lot of content this year designed for under-12s and their adults to enjoy together. As well as these programme items, we'll have a kid-friendly area set up in the main central Atrium: look for the are with the big brightly-coloured beanbags!

by wcdumonts on Flickr

In which we reveal The Plan for the cosplay contest. Also last-minute plans for creating cosplays. Basically, we've got you covered.

We're delighted to be working with Con or Bust to help more people of colour/non-white people attend Nine Worlds 2014.

We were looking for a photographer to capture the awesomeness of Nine Worlds Geekfest 2014. Applications now closed.

Room full of people singing and waving hands to piano tunes from Buffy - photograph by Curious Magpie Photography

Things behind the scenes at Nine Worlds have been all busy all the time for the last few weeks, and we're very nearly ready to share all the exciting details of this year's convention with you.

Dr Horrible cosplay at Nine Worlds Geekfest 2013

We're delighted to announce that we'll be holding a cosplay competition during the convention, with prizes to be awarded on the Sunday afternoon for the very awesomest kids' and adults' cosplays!

We're running a press conference in London on Thursday, 8th May: read on for details, and email press@nineworlds.co.uk to RSVP!

Image by the Nine Worlds 2013 event photographer, available on Flickr

The Conville & Walsh literary agency team have nobly agreed to spend a day (Friday, 8 August) at Nine Worlds Geekfest reviewing manuscripts and offering one-on-one coaching with budding authors.

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.

Title: Nine Worlds is your oyster
Event: Nine Worlds GeekFest, August 8th-10th 2014, Radisson Blu Edwardian, Heathrow

Submissions Info

Submit your film to the Nine Worlds Film Festival. The 2015 festival will run Aug 6-9, in London at the UK's largest annual residential sci-fi convention, Nine Worlds Geekfest