The convention is now in full swing and I am at the main venue. There are thousands of kids here, many of them in fabulous costumes. For the first time Finncon has a venue (just) big enough to cope with the numbers, and it has sprouted a Worldcon-sized dealers’ room to take advantage of the crowds. Despite the vast size of the venue, the con committee is looking nervously at the hordes and wondering what would happen if it rained and they all wanted to come inside at once. Thankfully most of them are outside photographing each other.

Our Swedish friends are here, and there are posters around advertising both the 2011 Eurocon and this year’s Swecon, whose GoHs are Liz Williams and Graham Joyce. I’m told that there are also Russian fans here, but I haven’t seen any yet.

My first job here will be to check out the rooms where my program items are. After that I’ll go take photos until 5:00pm when the all-GoH panel of writing is due to start. After that, dinner and pub.

By the way, I am writing this thanks to the free wi-fi at the convention. Yet another thing that Finncon has got right.