The Ineffable Con is a convention for the Good Omens fandom, run on a volunteer basis mostly by two women, Rachael and Bethany. They’ve been at this for years now, and announced a few months ago that this would be the last TIC that they run. Which honestly makes me really glad that I got tickets. The queue was insanity – hundreds of people trying to grab about 120 available spots – so I got really lucky with my place in line. (We all queued up beforehand, then were assigned spots in line randomly. I was in place 67, and I got some of the last tickets available with occupancy. People were buying for groups, myself included. Rainstorm, CS, and I were all in line, and we decided that whoever was lowest in the queue would buy for all three of us. That was me.)
Day 1 – Aug 21: After the Finnish Invasion finished at the British Museum (without heisting anything), Rainstorm, CS, and I took the underground out to Cookham. We checked into the hotel, gathered our TIC swag bags and name tags, and separated for a bit before festivities began. That night, I got into cosplay as Asa Fell. There were two others (that I knew of) also dressing up as Asa Fell that night, and we all planned to get together to make the Spiderman meme, heh. There was dinner and a welcome ceremony, and then the Big Event of the con took place: a streaming of Good Omens the Musical. The musical has not been released anywhere as it’s still in the making. However, quite some number of years ago – back before Terry Pratchett died, I believe – there was a concept preview of the show that was filmed. Pieces of this have been posted on youtube, but this was the first time the full musical was streamed. Given that I’m not a huge fan of musicals, I didn’t expect to particularly enjoy this one, despite it being GO-related. I was wrong. This was so funny, and the characters, while being in some ways very different from the book or the show, were endearing in the best way. Musical!Omens has definitely found a place in my heart. And the hearts of many, many other viewers. (This event had so much draw that thousands of people paid the £5 for an online TIC ticket** just to see the musical, which was only available for 24 hours.)
Day 2 – Aug 22: This was another cosplay day, and the longest day of TIC. I dressed as Bad!Muriel (same as during the karaoke). Rainstorm dressed as sleeping-bag!Crowley (iykyk). There were so many good cosplays around: Slorch(es), Agnes Nutter, multiple color-changing Bentleys, Jesus, the M25, Newton Pulsifer, Madame Tracy, War, the Bookshop… all that plus a million varieties of Aziracrow and other assorted characters. During the cosplay masquerade, I paired up with Obliquity, who dressed as Slorch, and I led them down the aisle to the tune of Bad by Michael Jackson. Ha! Other highlights of the day: seeing Mary, the 1926 Bentley (like a real car, not a cosplay); getting to write a short story via a letter-writing class (including fountain pen use!); coloring in tiles for the Big Art; a few more Spiderman memes; cosplay meetup; Jesus handing out gummy pizza slices (iykyk); escaping the Escape Room; an international snack exchange; buying waaaaay too much in the exhibitor’s hall; and just generally meeting up with folks I hadn’t yet gotten to see in the days leading up to TIC.
Day 3 – Aug 23. Another big day. I chose not to cosplay this day, though Rainstorm went as Eric (same as karaoke). My panels that day included a queer media lecture, a create-your-own-naked-man-friend (iykyk), and (the big one) a long panel with Rob Wilkins and Maggie Service. This panel healed a lot of hearts, I think. I’m not going to say much more about it, especially as one of the conditions was that this was not recorded. There was also the raffle (I won a book!), meeting the second of the two Good Omens Bentleys (this one from 1933), seeing Jim’s coat (iykyk), another cosplay meetup, and more Spiderman memes. I had three people hire me (beforehand) to do a short portrait session, so I did those in the evening after the official con ended.
Day 4 – Aug 24. Last year, Rainstorm and I did not stay overnight on Sunday, not realizing how much we would miss out on. We didn’t make that mistake this time. We spent Sunday morning saying goodbyes. I’d brought my GO Journal along for people to sign, and it was really nice to have a slow morning to really talk to people. Most of TIC is pretty hectic, which is why we plan so many pre- and post-con events, but Sunday morning was just slow. Sweet. Quiet. I don’t have any photos of that morning, so instead, I’ll leave you with this:
The big thing I did all through the weekend (and some pre-events) was a photo project. I’d brought my Instax camera and a bunch of film, as well as a ton of frames Rainstorm and I had decorated. Each one had a different quote from the show and a drawing to go with it. We got pictures of people in and out of cosplay, and they each got to choose a frame to keep them in. We then got photos of their photos in the frames, and once we got home, Rainstorm collaged all of these into a giant mosaic for TIC7. It was our joint project to honor the last Ineffable Con, and while it was tough and it made things really chaotic for me at times, I’m really glad we decided to do this!
**Note: All TIC proceeds go to Alzheimer’s Research UK, so this ended up raising a lot of money for research. In the 7 years of running programs, over £100k has been raised, which is phenomenal for a series of events essentially run by a handful of volunteers!
