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The average Eastercon has around 150 to 200 events/items on the four day schedule.

Programme tends to start early afternoon on Friday and continue through to late evening Monday.

The only event that is required at an Eastercon is the Bid Session to pick a future Eastercon committee (usually the one two years after the current one).

Item Types

Talks

One person (usually) stands at the front of the room and talks about something. They may use a laptop and projector or other visual aids, or they might just stand there and talk about some subject. For example I've heard talks on the chemical and physiological effects of chocolate, on working on Star Trek, on getting published as a writer and on being trained as a NASA astronaut.

Panels

Three or more people sit at the front of the room (often behind a table) and discuss a topic. Often there is a moderator who keeps the discussion focused and makes sure everyone gets a chance to contribute, as well as keeping things moving if people run out of stuff to talk about. I've been to panels discussing Diet and Fandom, Military SF, Convention Organisation and many other topics (one topic per panel!) Often the audience chips in observations and it is not unknown for an audience member who has obvious experience/knowledge to be called up to join a panel, particularly if they are a panellist short.

Workshops

A place for people to work on something, whether it is creating a Lego(tm) robot, or learning to do a Tarot reading. Writers' Workshops are particularly popular.

Interviews

Someone, usually one of the Guests is asked questions by an interviewer. This is a useful structure for a session because some Guests aren't comfortable standing up and just giving a talk ... so the interviewer has a set of questions (which the Guest may have already seen/heard and had time to think of answers to), and the interviewer asks the questions and teases out answers from the Guest/interviewee.

"Radio" Quizzes

Usually two teams, each team consisting of two to four players, plus a question master/host. It can be a standard knowledge quiz, e.g. How much do you know about the Hugo awards? Or it can be a silly quiz where being entertaining is more important than knowing the correct answer ... or it can be a totally silly one where there isn't a correct answer, just questions designed to let people on each team be witty/amusing. I've called them "radio quizzes" because there is usually very little visual about the item (unless there's a picture bonus round!) and they tend to be fannish equivalents of panel quizzes on BBC Radio 4, like I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue or Channel 4's Whose Line Is It Anyway?.

Major Events

Opening Ceremony

A chance to see the Committee, meet the Guests, be told about any special events, reminded about any convention policies, and informed about things like breakfast times in the hotel and requests for people to volunteer. See Opening ceremony

Plays

Not every year, but moderately often, Eastercon plays host to a theatrical production from a fannish theatre group.

Fancy Dress/Masquerade

See Masquerade for details

Bid Session

See Bidding for details

Closing Ceremony

A chance to thank the Guests and Committee for all their hard work, and for the Committee to thank all the people who made it such a great convention. Sometimes it's a chance to hand out prizes and awards as well. It usually includes a symbolic hand-over to the following year's committee. Not usually the last event of the convention, but held mid to late Monday afternoon to give people time to get home afterwards. There are usually other programme items after the closing ceremony, including the Dead Dog Party.

Weekend Long

Art Show

See Art Show

Video Programme

A room with either a video projector or a large screen television showing new and classic science fiction and genre films and TV epidsodes. There's usually a separate schedule posted up outside the video programme and often a printed version will accompany the ReadMe. Sometimes major films and premiers will be shown in the Main Hall instead.

Chaos Costuming

A room with cloth, odds and ends, sewing machines, needles, thread, pins etc. for you to repair, complete or create a costume for wearing around the convention or to enter in the Masquerade.

Chaos Robotics/Modelling

Some years there are competitions for robots, other years it's just a room to build fun objects over the weekend.

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