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Santacon
| Convention | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Santacon |
| Dates: | 1984, 1985 |
| Frequency: | |
| Location: | Leeds, England |
| Type: | |
| Focus: | multi-media, science fiction |
| Organization: | |
| Founder: | Sue Stuart assisted by Trisha O'Neill |
| Founding Date: | |
| URL: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Santacon was a British media and science fiction series of conventions.
1984
Santacon 1984 was held in December 14-16, 1984 at the (then) Dragonara Hotel, Leeds.
Guests were Nicholas Courtney, Jeremy Bulloch and Dennis Spooner.
From a flyer:
SANTACON is British Media Fandom's first-ever Christmas Convention. We will once more be invading the DRAGONARA, one of the most popular of all convention venues, which has, in the past two years, been substantially renovated and redecorated. The staff, bless them, are feeling suicidal enough to want fans back in the hotel again, so who are we to disappoint them?THE PROGRAMME will feature as many different aspects of SF-Media as we can cram into one short weekend, and will also include some of the more off-beat items not generally seen at cons in the past. We will be presenting comedy films as well as SF and Fantasy - some perhaps unintentionally comic as well as such gems as "The Time Bandits", films and videos, however, will not be the only entertainment available. We will also have Mike Wild's "FANTOMIME", a fannish Christmas extravaganza, a Costume Parade, a Disco, an auction, a Treasure Hunt and, of course, at least one guest speaker.· (We are making enquiries but have nothing to report on this front yet.)
ALSO, of course, there will be two Dealer's Rooms, an Art and Model Show, Trivia Quiz, Fantasy wargaming and much, much more.
THE CHARITY: All profits will be split equally between the Oncology Club Fund, which trains Doctors in Cancer Research, and a second charity, still to be arranged.
Con Report: 1984
It was a very foggy morning when our friend Steve picked us up to drive to the Dragonara Hotel in Leeds, but luckily despite not being able to see where we were going, we found the hotel alright. Once we'd dropped bags, coats etc in our room we whizzed off to the first port of call at a Con... the sales room. Surprisingly I only bought 3 items, so came out feeling rather proud of my self-control! I then had a stewards duty in the main hall, which coincided with the appearance there of the 3 guests Dennis Spooner ( who has written scripts for The Champions, the Avengers etc etc), Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett from Empire and Jedi) and Nicholas Courtney (Brig Lethbridge-Stewart in Dr Who), Santa Claus also put in an appearance! After lunch I had another duty in the main room, this time coinciding with Nick Courtney's talk.It was then announced that there would be a special autograph session for stewards ... not wishing to miss this I whizzed along to the room to find that there were 200 balloons ready for some 'volunteers' to blow up. We were told that if we wanted autographs we had to blow up balloons! The room was soon full of very redfaced breathless stewards and it was also full of balloons. The 3 guests signed autographs and also did their bit towards blowing up balloons. I took some photos but I'm not sure if there will be anything to see but balloons on them. It was quite a novel sight to see Jeremy up to his chin in balloons! At this point someone decided that the room wasn't big enough to accommodate 200 inflated balloons and that we didn't want to lose our guests permanently underneath them all, so it was decided to take them all downstairs into one of the (now closed) salesrooms. This proved even more fun than blowing them all up, as about 6 people tried to stuff the lifts full of balloons while the rest of us struggled downstairs, through about 4 firedoors and round some tight corners clutching handfuls of rather large balloons! At this point someone asked why we hadn't taken them all downstairs BEFORE blowing them up. Well, I suppose it would have been less fun that way... a lot more sensible though!
The costume parade was the usual high standard and the disco was very good (I enjoyed the Boy George look-alike contest!) I then had a video room duty from 12,00 till 1.00 am, after which I thankfully collapsed into bed.
Sunday began with a stint of duty on registrations, after which we sat and watched the auction (and I didn't buy anything... I felt REALLY pleased with my self-control!) We then had lunch, and walked round the salesrooms again, and this time I saw all the things I'd missed last time round and spent a fortune (I knew the self-control. We enjoyed the first half of a very entertaining music quiz then had to go on duty in the salesroom, unfortunately when Jeremy's talk was on! Happily I mentioned that I was sorry to miss this and 5 minutes later was released from my duty so I could go and see Jeremy after all.
The closing ceremony held a special surprise, it was Nick Courtney's birthday and a huge cake was brought in for him, which he divided up for us (it was delicious tool) Then a lot of Christmas crackers were thrown around so there was a mad 5 minutes with everyone pulling crackers and donning silly hats, before people started to drift away. We joined a friend for a meal in the restaurant, just to round off the weekend nicely - the 'ordinary' people in there looked a little oddly at us when we walked in wearing paper hats and streamers! (I can't think why, I thought they looked very nice!?) It was a wonderful weekend, made extra special by the Christmas atmosphere. Everyone was very friendly and happy (this being particularly good considering many were first time Con goers). The guests in particular made the weekend enjoyable, they were friendly and willing to mingle and chat, and join in with the fun, and each of them possessed a sense of humour that really did add to the general festive feeling of the weekend. I arrived at the Con not really knowing much about any of the guests, and came away feeling I'd made 3 friends.
A big thank you to the people who made the weekend so enjoyable. And the good news is, there'll be another one in 1986! (I'm saving up already!)
For any of you pp fans out there, I'll just make you a little jealous by saying that Paul Young was also at the hotel - I was sitting at the next table to him when we were having lunch!
Also good news for 'Robin of Sherwood' fans - a new series has been made to be shown 1985 and a 3rd series is planned. Jeremy will appear in both. (I know it's nothing to do with ST, but thought you might like to know anyway!) [1]
1985
Santacon 1985 was held December 5-7, 1986 at the Viking Hotel, York, with a guest appearance by William Gaunt.
cover of program book from 1984
a 1984 flyer
a 1986 flyer
1986
a 1986 flyer
References
- ^ from Beta-Niobe February 1985