Registration for our 2023 virtual con will open soon

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Sept. 22, 2023, 12:02 a.m. — FanWorks Staff

FanWorks 2023: Now in December

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:

Con Staff

Your lead con staff for December will be:

  • verity, lead Discord moderator
  • Milly, panels coordinator & lead Zoom moderator
  • corbae, social media & communications

Jen and sweetestdrain are stepping back into supporting roles for the December con. Jen will be running the fanworksvidtech@gmail.com inbox; sweetestdrain will be busy with her new role as an actual con mom. In their place, you can reach verity, Milly, or corbae via the con inbox: fanworkscon@gmail.com.

Registration

Registration will open in October. Registration will be free, with an option to donate toward virtual con expenses and annual con overheads.

Con registration includes access to the 2023 con Discord, Zoom panels, and vidshow streams, as well as access to past FanWorks vidshow streams via the website dashboard.

Con Programming

The December virtual con will have an assortment of panels, vidshows, and activities, similar to FanWorks 2020 & 2021. Panels will take place on Zoom and Discord; vidshows will be streamed on the con website with live chats on Discord.

Panels
  • Panel submission deadline: November 5th

Panel submissions are now open.

Any attendee can volunteer to moderate a panel! There will be a Discord channel and Zoom room set up for your panel, and con staff will be on hand to monitor Zoom tech. We handle the technical details; the concept, planning, and panel moderation are up to you.

Panels traditionally fall into one of our five programming tracks (Art, Audio, Community, Writing, and Video), but if you have an idea for a panel that doesn't quite fit into one of those categories, you can submit it anyway. There are many examples of panels that have run at past cons in the convention archive.

Panel programming depends on attendee submissions, so if there are things you want to discuss at the con, please submit panel topics!

The full panel schedule will be available on Sunday, November 26th.

Vidshows
  • Themed vidshow submission deadline: October 8th
  • Non-premiering vids due: October 29th
  • Premiering vids due: November 26th

Themed Shows

Themed vidshow submissions are now open.

Any attendee can submit a vidshow! The overall theme and individual vid selections are up to you; we take your show and turn it into a vidshow stream with a live chat on Discord.

A vidshow can have any unifying theme. Examples of popular vidshow types include shows organized around source or music genres, character archetypes, relationship dynamics, tropes, moods, musical artists, editing styles / techniques, or any concept that can carry a 45-minute show. Many examples of past vidshows can be found in the vid database.

If you want to put together a themed show for the con, please submit vidshow themes!

Vidder-Submitted Shows

Any vidder can submit to these shows. Vidders can submit up to two vids per show, and can show a maximum of three vids (including works submitted by a co-vidder).

If there are high volumes of submissions, we can't always show all submitted vids, so please make sure to mark your vids as first priority and second priority if sending more than one vid. If you are fine with the VJ picking either vid if a choice has to be made, you can select no priority when uploading your vid.

Premieres: A showcase of vids premiering at the con.

This show only accepts vids that haven't shown or been publicly shared before. There are no thematic restrictions on this show, but please keep your vid runtimes under six minutes. If the show runs significantly over time and/or if there are a significant quantity of second priority vids sent in, we may create an Also Premiering show to break up the premieres over two days.

It Surrounds You: A house, a hotel, a car, a spaceship, a kitchen, an office, a battlefield, a forest, an ocean, a city, a galaxy – vids about places, settings, environments. You can focus on the setting itself, how people relate to it, how it brings together or divides a community, any aspect you want.

This show accepts both premieres and non-premiering vids. If the show runs over time, premiering vids will be prioritized.

The Year in Vids: Vids released since August 1, 2022.

This show only accepts non-premiering vids. If the show runs significantly over time, we will prioritize first priority vids from attending vidders.

Mystery Box: Open to any and all non-premiering vids.

The VJ will create a themed vidshow using only vidder submissions. Not all submitted vids will show, as the goal is to create a relatively coherent show around a single theme; this is more of a suggestion box than a traditional submitted show. The vidshow theme itself depends entirely on what's submitted and could be anything, so vids on any theme are welcome!

The full list of vidshows, including themed shows, will be available on Sunday, October 15th.

Deadlines

All deadlines take place on Sundays at 11:59PM Eastern. Please keep in mind that the Eastern time zone rolls back one hour from EDT to EST on November 5th.

Social Media & Con Updates

Things are Interesting right now in the world of social media! As things stand, FanWorks will still be posting on Twitter, but that may be subject to change given the evolving circumstances on that platform.

At present, we can be found:

The easiest way to ensure that you see con updates is to subscribe to FanWorks blog updates on your website profile, by ticking the box that says "I would like to receive an email when new blog entries are posted."

If you're on Dreamwidth, you can also subscribe to the FanWorks DW account, which will have links to blog updates.

Contact Us

For questions about FanWorks, con registration, panel programming, or anything else not related to vid tech, you can reach verity, Milly, and corbae at fanworkscon@gmail.com.

For questions about vidshows, vid uploads, vid submission deadlines, or vidshow streams, you can reach Jen and Ian at fanworksvidtech@gmail.com.