The Switches Gathering 2 convention took place on October 18th to 20th in Brussels. This was the second convention run for Motherland Fort Salem fans by Nevastalgia. Last year’s convention had been one day in Paris. This year was bigger, longer and had more guests.
Several fans, including me, arrived on the Thursday. This was partly to avoid travel problems – like the storms in the US before Witchbomb – but also to allow some time to explore Brussels itself. I have to say that the journey from the Eurostar to the hotel was easier than the journey from Gare du Nord to the hotel in Paris last year. One local train, 5 stops and an 8 minute walk.
As I was arriving, I met one of the Belgian fans who told me the news about Jessica Sutton not being able to come due to passport problems. At the time the announcement was that she would definitely not make Friday or Saturday and the chances of her making Sunday were very low. Not the start we wanted.
The Van Der Valk Brussels hotel was lovely. My only complaint was that it was too warm. Even with air con, I couldn’t get my room cool enough. But others liked the fact they were warm.
The convention room and all the activities took place on the 7th floor. So, it was lovely when we finally got the signs put up by the hotel. It really was time to get the party started.
Before the con events, there was the pass withdrawl. This was really complicated by Jess not being there because people had extras to swop or get credit notes for and with the scanning, it made things take longer than expected.
This was a perfect opportunity for people to engage with the Switch Welcome Desk. There was a desk on the 7th floor labelled Welcome and that seemed the ideal place. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a photo of it. But there were pens and book marks to give away, including a pen especially for the occasion.
There were also wedding cards to sign as Kandyse and Amalia had both got married during September.
The card for Kandyse and Claureinne was designed by @mfsarchive. Many thinks to her for doing this at short notice.
There were some additional cards for Amalia that had been saved from Witchbomb, so that those who were not at Witchbomb had the opportunity to add their congratulations. The cards for Amalia were given to her during the convention, the cards for Kandyse will be posted to her.
Friday evening had two activities, the Cocktail Party and the Selfie Lounge. For the cocktail party, there were standing tables and people were grouped around them while the guests visited each table in turn. There were drinks served and hors d’oeuvre, which the guests were happy to partake in too.
Of course, as soon as Amalia arrived at our table, we all wanted to get a good look at the wedding rings. We weren’t allowed to take photos at that event, so although we got a good look, we couldn’t share it.
Having had to leave the outfit I had intended to wear for the cocktail party at home because there was a limit to how heavy a suitcase I could manage, I was in my male witch army bomber jacket and one of the army belts. These have red tabs. But I couldn’t work out exactly how to wear them, so I asked.
Ashley’s answer boiled down to ‘It’s complicated’ but seemed to indicate that it involved a lot of effort to ‘get it right’. Amalia told me I was wearing it wrong because the red tags weren’t visible – I knew that. But did move the tags through belt carriers, not easy, so they were at the side, but now covered up by the jacket. I continued to fiddle with it and asked Taylor, who said that the production people kept changing their minds. The tags were originally intended to hang things from. She seemed to think I was now wearing it OK. I thought that if anyone had the answer, it would be the people who actually wore them. But this is Motherland, not simple!
We also discovered that Cat is a hugger, she was hugging everyone. Ashley followed Cat around the tables, so she got a hug from her ‘mom’ as well. I should say that Ashley had brought her real mother to the convention too.
However the big surprise was talking to Ashley about this being her first convention and finding out that she had never been asked to a convention before! Talking about it afterwards, so many of us had independently believed that she didn’t want to do conventions. But that was totally wrong. She does want to do conventions and was very excited about coming and meeting the fans and doing the con. None of us could pinpoint how we ‘knew’ that she didn’t want to do them, but serious misinformation had been going around. So, hoping that Ashley gets invited to Witchbomb next August.
And, of course, when there are a lot of Switches in one place, that place is usually the hotel bar. And, this being Belgium, there was Belgian beer to drink. You just have to sample the local produce.
To be continued.
ReturntoFortSalem 