To whom it may concern.

Time and time again I found myself wanting to write this letter , but I stopped myself .
I have decided to break my "relationship of silence" with the Aguda and speak my mind after watching the same mistakes been done over and over again year after year.
The mistakes I am talking about is the Conventions the Aguda is making .
True, when we started doing those conventions (i.e. Sector 972- and not Icon as it is called now ) the Aguda was short on cash so we had to go with what we could find and thus the convention was stationed in the Cinematuqe with the main issue - screening of movies and episodes.
That was done due to pressure from the location's management - not due to our desire to display movies or ST episodes.

I won't go into the events that followed to the inception of the Fantasy film festival ( i.e. the ancestor of what is called today "FantasyCon" ), But suffice to say - that the majority of the Aguda board at the time was against me even trying to do ANY Fantasy activity.

The years have passed and the Aguda has reasonable funds to put a REAL convention into being - so why do you dwell on a non convention format where the main issue is movie and episode screening ??

The word "Con " is from "Convention " - - which means a gathering of people to talk and meat and interact regarding a common topic.

I have watched the brochure for the upcoming Icon - and to my dismay you neglect to put the emphasis on the social aspect of the event.
The more social driven events are not mentioned in most of the publicity and most of the centralized events are still surrounding movies screening and episodes showing .

The screening should occur - but as a SIDE thing - not main event - a small room with a round the clock screening of Sci-fi/Fantasy related movies/shows is what it should be - that is the way it is done in conventions all around the world.

I know that you may say - "this is what is expected , and that is what the audience wants " - of course that is what they expect - they do not know better - it is your duty to educate them - so the future generations will improve on that and not fall back to out_dated_format that should have perished after the first time it was used.

As to the argument -"what if people will be bored from " enter event here"? " - SO WHAT ? they will get back in to the hall form a group and talk about what they want - hurray - point achieved - people in a convention doing a social activity discussing a common topic - wow - what a concept.!!

Those are just a few points you should think about .