Summer Open Night in Glasgow

[Paul Campbell]

June 13th: GLASGOW OPEN NIGHT

Thanks guys - glad you had a good time! 

There were several aims I had for last night, and I reckon I hit them all:

• To gather together Glasgow's various SF/fantasy fan groups (i.e. Word Dogs, Raw Terror, Glasgow SF Writers' Circle, etc) under one roof, in the hope they would have such a good time that they would become regulars to The Cask And Still Bar's 2nd-Thursday of every month meetings.
• To highlight not only this year's forthcoming Fantasycon but the BFS itself.
• To give Virgins Books superb dark fiction line the attention is deserves.

• To eat, drink and be merry!

As well as posters and leaflets on the walls and tables, each book sold contained a postcard for



as well as a bookmark



Also, I printed up some two-dozen membership leaflets which I scattered across all the tables



and I'm delighted to say that at the end of the night when I was clearing up, there was not one single membership leaflet to be found! So, hopefully, the BFS will get some members as a result of Glasgow's Open Night.

(The remaining stock of Virgin Books titles are being auctioned off  here during the course of the next month for anyone who is interested.)

[Paul Campbell]

July 9th: Cask & Still Bar - Glasgow SF fandom get-together

The first gathering of Glasgow's SF fandom since the Open Night took place on Thursday night there (the group meets on the 2nd Thursday of every month). I'm pleased to say that the evening was well attended, and it was particularly nice to see Dark Horizons regular Ian Hunter (http://www.ian-hunter.co.uk) who sadly missed out on the Open Night itself. As always with Glasgow's SF fandom gatherings it was a good night - and the gang will be meeting back up in a fortnight to run the 2-day convention Satellite 2, to be held at The Crowne Plaza Hotel, site of the 2006 Eastercon and 1995/2005 SF Worldcon. Iain Banks is the guest of honor and it is highly probable that Charles Stross and Ken MacLeod will also be in attendance, both of whom were at Satellite 1.

http://www.satellite2.org.uk/

All of the free Virgin Books A Glimpse Into The Abyss sample chapter booklets quickly went at the Open Night and further to that on Thursday night there I took along the remaining stock for anyone who had had a chance to read the sample chapters over the previous month. Several had and as a result many more of Virgin Books' dark fiction titles were sold.

There are now only a dozen or so of the books left, out of a total of 45. The remaining stock of Virgin Books titles are being auctioned off here for anyone who is interested. The auction ends this Monday and One by Conrad Williams is sold out. Also, there is now only one copy left of both Robin Baker's Primal and Thomas Ligotti's My Work Is Not Yet Done, with several of the others now down to just 2 copies - so be quick!