Doctor Who Blog

The Gallifrey (One) Chronicles

In summary: Great con. Great fans. Not much news. Lousy dealers room.

gallifrey-g16logo.jpgThe Sixteen Swashbucklers of Gallifrey One, the sixteenth iteration of what is North American fandom’s most significant and largest convention happened last weekend. Those Doctor Who Bloggers who were there intended to make postings from the con floor (or more appropriately the floor of our hotel room, where we retired after a long night’s drinking) but we never did. Partially this was because we never got around to it. Mostly it was because—although the con itself was excellent—there wasn’t much to say in terms of newsworthy stuff.

Two new series writers were there, Rob Shearman and Paul Cornell, but they couldn’t really say very much. Although representatives from BBC3’s Doctor Who Confidential, BBC Radio 2’s Project Who and even the CBC were there to shoot footage of the con and interview attendees and guests alike, the makers of the new series did not evidentally deign to send any promotional material along to show the assembled masses. This meant that while everyone had the new series on their lips, there wasn’t really much in the way of new information to discuss. Which was a shame as everyone else, it seems, were ready to court North American fandom in its finery…except the people who had the most good will to gain from it.

While many fans have a wait and see attitude toward the new series (especially American fans because they don’t know where and when it will air and if they’ll see it at all anytime soon) you can’t help but sense that there is a lot of enthusiasm out there for Who right now. Sales of Enlightenment at the DWIN table were brisk, and the conversations in the panels and in the bar had an excitement this blogger hasn’t seen in a while (compare this to, say, 2003, when the only big news was Shada on BBCi and you can see a marked difference).

The only other disappointment was the Dealer Room. The Gallifrey One Dealer Room is usually among the best anywhere, but this year, while the same purveyors of goods were present, there wasn’t anything new to sell. It was bizarre: no new books (fiction and non-fiction, I wanted to pick up Andrew Cartmel’s Script Doctor and was denied), no new audios (no sign of the BF February 2005 release and I’m still bitter that I couldn’t pick up the MP3 version of William Russell reading Doctor Who and the Daleks) and, more criminally, no new DWMs. It’s ridiculous to me that more care wasn’t taken to ensure a whole box of DWM 352 and 353 weren’t brought. They would have been sold instantly.

None of these deficiencies are the fault of the con itself, though. As ever, Shaun Lyon and his army of organizers put on a first-rate convention, with some great guests and some fantastic programming. Gallifrey remains to be one of the best opportunties for a real international fan community to come together. And next year’s con, with the new series actually transmitted will be even better, we are sure.

8 Comments...

According to the Shaun Lyon (con organizer) the final count for the convention was 742 people.  Not bad indeed. I wish I could have been there.  That’s more Doctor Who fans than I’ve ever seen in one place!  And as I say *EVERY* year, I hope to be able to go to the next one.  smile Seriously.

Posted by Rod  on  02/22  at  04:46 PM

I agree I was very dissappointed in the dealers room. It seems everything really cool that is coming out like Script Doctor, The Game, Doctor Who and the Daleks MP-3 and DWM #353 are shipping next week.

They didn’t even have latet BBC Audio release The Underwater Menace!

Posted by Ryan  on  02/22  at  05:22 PM

After reading the extracts of Script Doctor in DWM, I not sure if you could pay me to pick up a copy of the book. Ugh!

Posted by Luca  on  02/22  at  05:55 PM

Oh, definitely agreed about the dealers room.  But I think the dealers room suffered for the same reason as there wasn’t much real new series information—the convention was literally the calm before the storm.  Doctor Who is on hold until next month. 

I fully expect that next year we’ll see vast amounts of new merchandise.

I was surprised about DWM, though—they sold out of a whole stack of the 7th Doctor Special Edition, after all.

Posted by Michael Lee  on  02/22  at  05:56 PM

Regarding the Dealers Room, here’s the actual, honest-to-god story:

1) Half of Tenth Planet’s stock, including most of their stuff that was more recent, was again stopped at customs.  FedEx picked it up from them on Monday, failed to deliver it to Heathrow, and then when it finally got here it was stuck at customs all day Saturday.  They had it returned because they didn’t want to spend the money to sell it in half a day.  I think it’s a wise decision.

2) Alien Entertainment, knowing that Tenth Planet would obviously have a lot of duplicate items, didn’t ship as much here.  It costs money.

3) Ambrosia Books is out of business.  Ken Barr (the former owner) is getting back into things with mailorder but didn’t have much.

4) Ministry of Sound & Vision carried the Big Finish audios up to Juggernauts, but that’s all they carry, BF items.

So in a nutshell, this was a situation of circumstance.  Not much we could have done! smile

Posted by Shaun Lyon  on  02/22  at  06:19 PM

This has happned to them before. You’d think it migth occur to them to pack each box with an assortment of merchandise so that even if not all the boxes arrive they can at least have some of everything available. It always seems to be the boxes with the latest merchandise that get delayed.

Posted by Mike  on  02/22  at  07:06 PM

The guests and panels were all lotsa fun! Great work done by Shaun and the folks. It’s a shame events conspired to make the dealer’s room a dud. Thank goodness the Enlightenment table showed up on Sunday, or all I’d have to show from the dealers would have been a water-damaged DWM #83. Thanks guys, back issues of Enlightenment are always a treat at Gallifrey!

Posted by Sean  on  02/22  at  09:23 PM

I had an absolute blast at Gallifrey One this year. It was my first Gally. I spent far too much money at the Ministry of Sound & Vision table.  He was selling the regular BF audios 5 for $100.I bought 10 of the BF audios plus Nick Courtney’s audio memoir. On the last day, the dealer there sold me all 7 of the ‘Unbound’ audios for $50!

It was really cool to be able to pick up the latest Enlightenment from the DWIN guys.  126 was to be my last issue, so I went & renewed via Paypal tonight!

It was odd not to see copies of DWM #353.  I got my copy from WhoNA.com the Monday before the convention.  I did see a few copies of the first ‘new look’ issue, #352, on one of the tables.  #354 is due to hit UK newsagents on March 3. 

There were DWM 7th Doctor SEs at Gallifrey?!?!  They must have went really quick!  I was on site by about 3:00 pm on Friday! 

The con was great & the guests and fans were all very kind. 

Mr. Letts & Mr. Dicks were seated at the table behind our little Seattle group in the restaurant on Friday night and it was a pleasure to chat with the two great men for a few minutes.  Mr. Dicks spoke very highly of the steak!  Two truly kind, approachable gentlemen.

It was also a tremendous pleasure to chat with Bob May.  One of the hidden gems of Gallifrey One!
Many thanks to Shaun Lyon and the organizers! Next year looks like it will be even better!

Posted by David L. White  on  02/23  at  12:26 AM

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