FanWorks Blog

The con schedule is here, and a guide to programming is here!

There's a lot going on during the con weekend. This con guide is by no means exhaustive; if you have any questions, you can ping us on Discord in #ask-the-staff at any time during the con weekend.

Guide to the Con

I. Con Essentials: The Con Dashboard, Time Zones, Safety, Captions

II. Discord: Getting There, Rules for Chat Spaces

III. Panels: Zoom, Discord, Camera Etiquette

IV. Vidshows: Discord Channels, Streams

V. List of Discord Channels

Now that the FanWorks con schedule is live, let's check out this year's vidshows, panels, and events!

Con time is Eastern Standard Time.

Thursday

8:00PM | Discord Opens

The con Discord will open on Thursday night. Server invites will go out to registered attendees via the con dashboard (viewable when logged in).

The con dashboard is also where you can find vidshow information and streams, the panel schedule, and Zoom links! It's our virtual con hub, so make sure you're logged in for the weekend.

Thursday night will be a casual open with no scheduled programming, but we encourage dropping by if you can so that you can be sure your server invite works before the weekend starts! If you run into any difficulties getting in, email us at fanworkscon@gmail.com.

FanWorks 2023 starts this Friday, December 8th!

Registration will remain open through the con weekend, but we strongly recommend registering by Thursday, December 7th. (Sometimes there are issues with Discord invites not populating correctly, and it's always better if we can catch those on Friday, so that you aren't missing any key programming!)

The con schedule is still being finalized, but in the meantime, here are some things to know:

• Con time is Eastern Standard Time. All times given are in EST.
  
  
• The main platforms for the virtual con are Discord and Zoom. Discord invites will go up on the con dashboard for registered attendees; Zoom links for panels will be found on the con dashboard and pinned in the channels for each panel on Discord.
  
  
• The con Discord will open on Thursday night at or around 8pm. This is an informal opening ahead of the con weekend, so if your Discord invite isn't immediately available, please be patient with us while we get things moving!
  
  
• The first scheduled events of the weekend will be a Craft Together Zoom Social at 4pm on Friday, and Pictionary at 9:00pm on Friday night. These are casual icebreaker events; panel and vidshow programming starts on Saturday.
  
  
• Main programming runs from 12:00pm to 6:00pm each day, with a break from 2-3pm.
  
  
• FanWorks Premieres runs from 7:00 - 9:00pm on Saturday, with a replay on Sunday morning from 9:00 - 11:00am.
  
  
• The con Discord will be moderated on Thursday night for the server opening, and from Friday (12/8) through Sunday (12/10) during con programming hours. It will remain open to messages until Monday night (12/11), and then will go into read only mode for the rest of the week, closing on Saturday (12/16).
  
  
• The FanWorks Code of Conduct is in effect at all times, in all con spaces. Attendees are required to read and acknowledge the code of conduct when registering for the con, but we encourage everyone to re-read the Code of Conduct before the con weekend.

We'll have the schedule of panels & vidshows up shortly! We look forward to seeing everyone at the con this weekend.

Registration is now open for FanWorks 2023!

The FanWorks 2023 Virtual Convention is free to attend—there is no registration fee!

In order to be able to make this year's virtual con free, we're taking donations to help cover the costs of running the virtual con and keeping up with our annual overheads. Any and all donations are greatly appreciated!

Read more below on upcoming deadlines and opportunities to get involved.

The full slate of vidshows for FanWorks 2023 is here!

Hi all!

It's been a few months since our announcement that we were doing a virtual con the weekend of October 7th. Unfortunately, those have been incredibly rough and life event-filled months for members of con staff, and we were unable to get the con off the ground for October.

The 2023 FanWorks virtual con has been rescheduled to December 9th & 10th, 2023.

Read on for an overview of December con staff, registration, con programming, panel & vidshow deadlines, and where to find us on social media these days:

Hello!

This is a long delayed update on FanWorks 2023 – our apologies! We didn't intend to leave the con's status a mystery for so long, but life has been very exciting for con staff.

We'll go into some detail here about what's been going on since the last con and what will be happening this year. The key information is:

• The next FanWorks con will be fully virtual October 6th – 8th, 2023.
  
  
• The October virtual con will be free to attend, with optional donations to help us cover operating costs.
  
  
• There will be no in-person FanWorks con this year.
  
  
• Returning to annual in-person cons remains a priority for us. We're focusing on getting back in-person next year, but at this point we can't guarantee that will happen.

More details:

Hello, everyone!

First, a note on this and future updates: we're going to be moving away from Dreamwidth a bit. The primary home of announcements, updates, info posts etc. will be here on the FanWorks blog, to keep as much information centralized on the con website as possible.

Announcements will be linked on Dreamwidth (rather than fully mirrored); planning posts requiring discussion (like panel brainstorming) will likely be kept on Dreamwidth for now. The easiest way to ensure that you have the latest updates is to follow us on twitter @fanworkscon, which will link to blog updates / announcements.

On another housekeeping note, exit surveys are now out to all Chicago and online attendees; if you didn't get an exit survey link to your registered email address, email us at fanworkscon@gmail.com and we'll get a survey to you.

(We'll start looking at survey responses this weekend, but we'll continue to check in on them at least through September, so there's plenty of time to respond!)

We're going to take this wrap-up post in three stages:

• A look back at the con planning process for 2022, aka "how we got here"
• A brief overview of the weekend, including things we think worked well and things we are already planning on tweaking for next year
• A look ahead at where we're at in con planning for 2023, and what you can expect from us next year