Even though it’s only a short ferry ride away, I actually have not been to Victoria since a high school field trip I took some 15 years ago. Well, I’m hopping back on a ferry and making my way over to the province’s capital this weekend for GottaCon. Dubbed “Victoria’s gaming convention,” GottaCon encompasses quite a bit of the gaming culture, spanning PC games, board games, trading card games and more. In some ways, you could say that it shares some characteristics with other events like LANcouver, expanding with contests, exhibitors, demonstrations and discussion panels too.
I’ll be there as part of the MEGATechNews and Futurelooks team where we will be manning a booth in the exhibitor area next to NCIX. You can check out the preview post on MEGATechNews for a little more on that, but the main idea there is that Futurelooks will be showing off some cool PC DIY goodies from companies like Creative, InWin and Kingston. It also gives us an opportunity to meet up with our readers in real life and hopefully make some new friends too.
In addition to my booth duties, I’ve also been volunteered to appear on two of the discussion panels. I’ll be talking about the future of gaming in one panel, looking at the impact that mobile devices like smartphones and tablets have had on an industry that had previously been dominated by consoles and PCs. The other panel is more of a massive grab bag, debating the advantages of digital media over physical media, for instance, and how streaming services like Netflix have made us rethink how we choose to consume our television.
GottaCon runs all weekend, wrapping up on Sunday evening when I’ll hop back on a ferry and head home. If you’re going to be around and would like to purchase a signed copy of Beyond the Margins, let me know. I plan on bringing along a few extra copies just in case, even if GottaCon isn’t exactly a “freelancing” conference.
Michael, did I see volunteer mentioned in this post? You are a professional, you should be getting paid for appearing on a panel. You have written about this and Freelancing, are you going against your own thoughts on “free?”
Perhaps I should rephrase. I am being compensated for my time here, but my participation in the panel means I won’t be spending that time otherwise occupied.
🙂 I kinda figured it was something like that….I was just giving you a hard time my friend.
I actually think there are times you should do a pro bono for the good will of your business. The circumstance needs to be right though.