Cora’s Adventures at Iridescence, the 2026 Eastercon in Birmingham, Part 2: Good Friday at the Con

Over the Easter weekend, I was at Iridescence, the 2026 Eastercon in Birmingham, UK.

I’ve already chronicled my adventures in getting to Birmingham and wandering around the city in part 1. Now – after some delays caused by the Hugo finalist announcement, various Masters of the Universe trailers and life just happening – let’s get to the actual con, starting with day 1 or Good Friday.

Friday, April 3, 2026

Since I’d had a very long day on Thursday, I also slept fairly long and when my alarm went off at half past seven, I set it to snooze for another hour. As a result, it was already after nine AM, when I went down for breakfast.

Breakfast was included with my booking and the Hilton Metropole offered an extensive breakfast buffet. There was the full English breakfast, a selection of cereals, a pancake bar, crumpets, waffles, bread and rolls, cheese and cold cuts, a selection of jams, various vegetables and fruits, yoghurt as well as a selection and juices and coffee, hot chocolate and tea. The only thing that was missing was that the hotel only had skimmed milk (which I never drink), while I had been hoping for Channel Island milk. Apparently, this was part of some anti-obesity initiative (as if people are getting overweight from drinking milk) as is labelling everything with calorie counts, which has been a thing in the UK for more than ten years now and which I personally consider more of an encouragement for eating disorders than a useful strategy against obesity. Besides, it’s not as if people don’t know that e.g. sticky toffee pudding has a lot of calories.

Even though I’m theoretically continental, I did not once eat a typical continental breakfast of bread or rolls with cheese/jam/honey/cold cuts/Nutella. As explained here, I have never liked the typical German/continental breakfast of bread/rolls with something, nor do I like the typical German Abendbrot (literally evening bread i.e. dinner, which is the same bread with something, but usually more savoury), so I just don’t eat it, unless unavoidable.

And so I enjoyed the vegetarian parts of the traditional English breakfast (I don’t care for sausages or bacon), since I vastly prefer warm food anyway. I also had fruit and juice to get some vitamins and Greek yogurt with either fruit or olives to get some dairy and calcium, since they had no decent milk. I also had pancakes from the pancake bar on one day and a crumpet and waffle on another. The waffle was quite disappointing, but everything else was good, especially for a hotel breakfast.

The breakfast room was full of Eastercon people and so I always found someone I knew to sit with. In general, the entire Hilton Metropole had been taken over by two cons – Eastercon and Haruhi Con, a manga/anime con. The Eastercon and Haruhi Con members mingled a lot and fit together perfectly. There also were a handful of normies – often people who spent the night at a hotel before an early morning flight or after a late night flight. Those poor normies were utterly bewildered and clearly seemed to think they had wandered into some kind of madhouse. The children of the normies, however, were delighted at colourful people in costumes everywhere.

The lobby of the Hilton Metropole is full of Eastercon people.

After breakfast, I finally went to registration, which was open again, and got my badge. You can see it below – with lanyard, ribbons and tiny koala – dangling from a lamp at home:

My Iridescence badge with lanyard and ribbons and a tiny koala, dangling from a lamp at home. And no, that’s not the real Man with the Golden Helmet. Yes, someone actually did ask me that once. Because I obviously have a genuine Rembrandt – even one actually painted by one of his apprentices – hanging on my wall.

Once I had my badge, I went up to my room again to pick up the bag with all the chocolate I’d brought to give away at the Brisbane in 2028 Worldcon bid fan table, since I didn’t want to lug the bag to breakfast. Then I went in search of the dealers room and the Brisbane in 2028 fan table.

Chocolate for the Brisbane in 2028 Worldcon bid fan table at Eastercon. There’s an outlet mall with three different chcolate outlets about five kilometers from where I live, so I got plenty of chocolate.

The layout of the Hilton Metropole was somewhat confusing, though I eventually got the hang of it. Though I still wandered into the wrong corridor before I finally found the dealers room.

Officially, the con and the dealers room wouldn’t open until three PM. But of course people were already setting up their tables, so I got in without hassle. Someone also gave me a “dealer” sticker for my badge, so I’d get into the dealers room, even if there was someone at the door checking badges.

I did have a room plan, so I found the Brisbane in 2028 fan table without any problems, nestled between the fan tables for the 2027 Worldcon in Montreal, Canada, the 2030 Worldcon bid for Edmonton, also Canada, and the 2028 Worldcon bid for Nuremberg, Germany. So in short, we had four Worldcons/potential Worldcons in a row. LACon V, the 2026 Worldcon in Anaheim, California, and the 2029 Worldcon bid for Dublin, Ireland, also had fan tables, but in another part of the room. For non-Worldcons, there were also fan tables for MetropolCon in Berlin, the 2026 Eurocon, as well as for Octocon in Dublin, the Irish national convention, a British convention called FunCon and other cons.

I assumed that I’d need to do some set-up, but it turns out that Farah Mendlesohn had already done most of the set-up the day before. All that was left for me to do was put some chocolate in a bowl and set up the Australian wildlife figurines from Schleich that I’d brought along as table decorations.

The Brisbane in 2028 Worldcon bid fan table, as it looked on Friday morning.

To the left is the Montreal in 2027 Worldcon fan table, which is also already mostly set up. To the right are parts of the Edmonton in 2030 Worldcon bid fan table, though they were still missing a lot of their swag. In the background, you can see the fan table of the Science Fiction Club Deutschland being set up.

A bowl of chocolates surrounded by some Australian fauna at the Brisbane in 2028 Worldcon bid table at Eastercon.

The three PVC figurines (crocodile, kangaroo and koala) were supplied by me. The cute little clip-on koalas were swag we gave away (more on them later). The pineapple, the lobster and the hats were a sort of premium we gave to presupporters and then took a goofy photo. I also let kids cuddle the lobster and pineapple for free, because they’re kids. The ball belongs to Farah Mendlesohn who bought it at the con.

As you can see, the dealers room was still partly empty at this point. Some tables and stalls were already set up, while others were in the process of setting up. There were people wandering in on occasion, but there wasn’t a lot of traffic yet. And so I took the opportunity to walk around and take in what was already set up. I chatted with the lovely folks from the MetropolCon fan table (MetropolCon is also the 2026 Eurocon in Berlin) and the Science Fiction Club Deutschland fan table, admired some steampunk jewellery and bought an octopus necklace. Before the end of the con, I also bought the matching bracelet.

But what about Brisbane’s direct competitor, the Nuremberg in 2028 bid? Well, at this point there was nothing at all in evidence of the Nuremberg bid beyond an empty fan table and this box on the floor:

A box with posters for the Nuremberg in 2028 Worldcon bid on the floor of the dealers room.

I snapped that photo and sent it to the Brisbane folks, because I found the “Nuremberg Posters – Not Trash” labelling funny. Though it also shows the very oddly patterned carpet in the dealers room and the adjacent art show room, which made quite a few people seasick.  As for what those posters look like – wait and see.

I did get a few people stopping by the table, including Dutch fan and conrunner Paul Van Ark, who actually went on unofficially helping us out at the various Worldcon bid tables, handing out flyers, postcards, ribbons, etc… Paul told me that he actually attended Heicon ’70, the 1970 Worldcon in Heidelberg, Germany, and still has lots of photos, which would have been useful when I compiled my Heicon ’70 report for Galactic Journey. Later that weekend, I also met a Scottish fan who’d attended Heicon ’70 as well, bringing my tally of Heicon ’70 members I’ve met up to four (the two I met at Eastercon plus Rober Silverberg and Betsy Wollheim). Supposedly, there was a third Heicon ’70 member at Iridescence, but I didn’t meet them.

Around noon, my stomach started grumbling. I do need to eat regularly and lunch is traditionally the main meal in German and also my main meal, when I’m at home. And since the dealers room wasn’t officially open yet and not very busy, I decided to go for lunch.

So I headed to the Hilton bar, found a seat (and promptly neglected to remember the table number, when ordering) and ordered a pint of cider and a vegetable balti from the bar menu. I ended up sitting and chatting with several Eastercon folks, including speculative poet and artist Kim Whysall-Hammond.

Vegetable balti with basmati rice, naan, mango chutney and poppadom chips.

The vegetable balti tasted good, though not quite like what you could get at Birmingham’s own Balti Triangle. I’m also not sure if it’s really worth 19 pounds, but then I’ve no idea what you’d pay at the Balti Triangle these days either.

I did mop the rest of the curry up with the naan, though in Germany I usually feel a tad self-conscious about doing this, because Germany has pretty strong taboos about eating with your hands. If someone gives me a weird look, I usually reply “This is how they do it in the Pakistani neighbourhoods of Birmingham and what’s perfectly normal there can’t be wrong here.”

So when I dunked my naan into the curry, I was about to say that and then realised, “I literally am in Birmingham right now and eating my balti as intended.” Which led to a discussion of Indian food in Germany or the lack thereof, including someone (I forgot who) sharing a story about some German people in an Indian restaurant being befuddled by poppadoms and unsure what to do with them.

After lunch, I returned to the dealers room and found that the row of Worldcon bid tables was no longer quite as empty as before, because Carolina Gomez-Lagerlöf, representing both Montreal and Nuremberg, and Amanda Wakaruk, co-chair of the Edmonton bid, had arrived by now. There was a lot of hugging and helloing as well as reshuffling of flyers, bookmarks and ribbons. At this point, the Brisbane fan table had some postcards and bookmarks as well as tiny koalas, chocolate and various Australian goodies, but no ribbons. Edmonton was also missing a lot of their swag. Amanda told me that someone named Colin had the Brisbane ribbons and Edmonton swag and was supposed to drop it off after three PM. However, it turned that Colin was delayed, so we had to make do for now.

Farah Mendlesohn, who’s also on the Brisbane team, arrived as well. She’d been at the museum and art gallery in the city centre for the morning. Farah also had more swag and candy. Meanwhile, Colin was delayed.

So we settled in, chatted and handed out whatever swag/merch we had. Montreal had a lot of different kinds of ribbons as well as maple syrup candies, Edmonton had postcards and vegan dinosaur gummies, which are actually from Germany and were remarkably popular. There was one kid who kept coming back and taking some. Which is perfectly fine, since that’s what they’re for. As for why dinosaur gummies, Edmonton is famous for the many amazing dinosaur fossils found in the region and also has a great dinosaur museum, which I for one did not know.

Meanwhile, Brisbane had chocolate, Tim-Tams (Australian sweets) and tiny koalas that you can clip to your lanyard. The Tim-Tams were really popular, but those tiny koalas were the biggest hit and quickly colonised the con.

A tiny koala is hanging out at the Wizard Tower Press stall.

When the opening ceremony was over and the con and dealers room officially opened, things quickly got busy. We handed out candy, swag and koalas, explained how site selection voting works and why Brisbane (or Edmonton) would be a great location for a Worldcon. Meanwhile, there was still no sign of the mysterious Colin, though he texted Farah that he was delayed.

Two cosplayers check out the offerings at the Eastercon dealers room

The Elsewhen Press table, the table of author David Cartwright and the fan table of FunCon, a British con in Buxton, at Eastercon. I’m not entirely sure why the FunCon people are dressed up like bees and never got around to asking them.

There was also no sign of the Nuremberg Worldcon bid team. Eventually, Tammy Coxen arrived to man the table and finally, Florian Bailey, co-chair of the Nuremberg bid, also showed up. Turned out he had miscalculated how long the train ride from London Euston to Birmingham New Street would take. Or rather, he’d gotten a slow train that stops at every milk can like I did back in 1995. I really wish there were some way to tell apart slow and fast trains in the UK, so you can calculate travel times. But if there’s a way, I’ve never found it.

We asked someone to take a photo of all the assembled representatives of the different Worldcons and bids, which you can see below:

Here we have yours truly in a She-Ra shirt, representing the Brisbane in 2028 Worldcon bid, Farah Mendlesohn, representing Brisbane and the Edmonton in 2030 Worldcon bid, Carolina Gomez-Lagerlöf, representing the Montreal Worldcon in 2017 and the Nuremberg in 2028 Worldcon bid, Amanda Wakaruk, co-chair of the Edmonton in 2030 Worldcon bid, Florian Bailey, co-chair of the Nuremberg in 2028 Worldcon bid and Tammy Coxen, representing the Nuremberg in 2028 and Edmonton in 2030 Worldcon bids.

It’s a great photo, but it caused a minor uproar, when Montreal’s social media person posted the photo on BlueSky with the caption “Worldcon Volunteers from Montreal and Brisbane, together at Eastercon”, omitting Nuremberg and Edmonton. I’m pretty sure this was a mistake, since Montreal’s social media person most likely doesn’t know most or even any of us, let alone who is affiliated with what Worldcon bid, and went by the banners in the background. However, it upset a few people, so I reposted Montreal’s post with all the correct names and affiliations. I would have posted the photo myself, but Farah had sent it to my e-mail account rather than WhatsApp. And my travel laptop as well as the hotel internet were slow as molasses, so I couldn’t download and post the photo.

Colin also finally arrived and apologised for the delay, so Brisbane now also had ribbons to hand out and Edmonton had more swag in general, including beer mats and honey candy.

We’d assumed that the dealers room would close as six PM, but it stayed open until eight PM. However, Farah, Amanda and I departed after six to go to dinner and asked Carolina, who was still around, to watch the table. Florian and Tammy had also left by this point.

We met up with Edward James, British con-runner Mike Scott and a bookseller named Erzebeth whose surname I have unfortunately forgotten and headed to Resorts World for dinner, this time taking the long way around the lake. We met some Canada geese who did not seem to be quite sure what to make of these weird Eastercon people. But then, those geese have probably lived there since long before there was an NEC or a Hilton Metropole or a Resorts World.

Canada geese on Pendigo Lake.

After some debating about where to have dinner, we ended up at Karaage again. This time, I had stir-fried rice with tofu and teriyaki sauce, which was served with miso soup and Japanese pickles on the side. I think I enjoyed this dish more than the yakisoba the day before.

Stir-fried rice with tofa and teriyaki sauce, miso soup and Japanese pickles.

After dinner, we walked back to the Hilton, this time taking the short way around the lake. We parted ways, since some folks wanted to go to a karaoke party, while I headed to the bar with some others and had a pint of cider.

When I heard that there was a karaoke party going on, I thought, “Wait a minute, it’s Good Friday. And there’s a karaoke party going on? Amazing.”

Because in Germany, Good Friday is a so-called silent holiday, where dancing in public is forbidden and all the clubs must close. Football matches and other sports events are also forbidden, fun fairs (including Bremen’s Easter fair, which loses an entire business day of the two week runtime) and amusement parks must close, cinemas may only show select movies that have been approved as suitable for a such a solemn holiday. Many movies don’t have this approval, so cinemas often close altogether. Pubs and bars close and many restaurants do as well. The reason behind these rules is to appease the Christian churches who have decided that because Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, everybody must mourn him by staying at home and doing nothing at all, including people who are not Christian or not religious at all.

Those rules are outdated and completely ridiculous, but the Catholic and Lutheran churches defend them tooth and claw like all their privileges. We have the “Can we maybe get rid of those outdated rules that are foisted even on people who don’t believe in that particular religion?” discussion every single year and every single year you get responses like “A day of quiet and contemplation and without partying or consumption won’t hurt you. On the contrary, it will probably do you good.” – Maybe, but people should choose for themselves whether and when they want quiet and contemplation and not have it forced upon them by someone else’s religion. “If you won’t play by the rules of our religion for our holiday, then just go to work.” – Actually, lots of people would rather work on Good Friday than be stuck with a dead holiday where you can’t do anything or go anywhere.

As a result, it was incredibly refreshing to be in a place where you can have a karaoke party on Good Friday and no one bats an eyelash, let alone calls the police to shut you down. Cause in Germany, Eastercon most likely wouldn’t even have been possible on Good Friday at all and a karaoke party definitely wouldn’t have been allowed. The bowling alley, casino and arcade at Resorts World would have been closed, the cinema and many of the restaurants possibly as well and it’s quite likely that the whole complex would have been closed down altogether.

In general, this Easter weekend in the UK felt a lot less like Easter than usual. Yes, there were chocolate Easter eggs in the shops, but otherwise it might just have been a regular weekend. Of course, I spent the weekend in the somewhat isolated bubble of Eastercon, but I suspect it wouldn’t have been much different elsewhere. There were karaoke parties and everything open on Good Friday. On Easter Saturday, I only remembered that there would have been an Easter bonfire (see this post for an explanation) at home, when I saw photos of Easter bonfires on social media. Luckily, I had closed the ventilation slits to avoid my house smelling of Easter fire, when I got home. And on Easter Sunday, I went down to breakfast and wished everybody at the table a “Happy Easter” – which again is totally normal and polite in Germany – and everybody just looked at me as if I literally just sprouted Easter bunny ears. In short, I highly recommend going to Eastercon, if you want to avoid the holiday trappings of Easter in Germany.

In fact, I briefly considered going to the karaoke party just to be a very, very naughty girl and make Baby Jesus or rather some joyless priests and church officials (since I believe Jesus would have been cooler than that and probably would have gone to the karaoke party) cry. But Eastercon members don’t deserve being exposed to my terrible voice just so I can stick it joyless German church officials and politicians. And so I just went to the hotel bar, which would have been no-no in Germany as well, though not quite as taboo as – gasp – having a party.

I finished my cider and went to bed.