Convention Review

Iridescence 2026

The 2026 British Eastercon
3rd – 7th April, Hilton Metropole Hotel, Birmingham.
Mark Bilsborough reports.

Eastercon this year returned to the slightly corporate surroundings of the Hilton Birmingham Metropole (just next to the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) for four days of panels, presentations, awards, mingling, drinking and general immersion in all things science fiction.  This one was called Iridescence for reasons that weren’t entirely clear – it all needed to be a bit more shimmery for that. But the colour came from the other side of the hotel – we were sharing the venue with an Anime con which turned out to be fantastic.  I recall from years back Eastercons used to be full of cosplaying, Klingons and steampunkers but not this year – but fortunately the Anime folks dressed up in spectacular fashion to show us what we should be up to with their fancy, spangly costumes.

The Hilton Birmingham Metropole

For those of you who’ve never been to this sort of thing, most of these conventions follow a similar format but have their own identities (and that’s usually down to their size). The core offering these days is a selection of panel events where writers, publishers and academics host sessions on things like ‘SFF and the Age of Sail’ or ‘Animals in SF and Fantasy’, or (perhaps my favourite from this year) ‘The Ghost in the Machine, or Ectoplasmodiegesis!’ etc. In addition to the core-offering panels, there were also talks, games, awards ceremonies, a dealer’s room, art show and Guest of Honour interviews.  Sometimes there are films, quizzes, dances and dinners. And real ale… Always real ale.

Just a small part of the art show at Iridescence Eastercon.

For the record, total registration was 940 though actual warm bodies on site was 813 this year, though if the many sparsely attended panels were an indication that there was little interest in them.  Indeed, activity was mainly panels (80) with one film, 4 readings, 17 Talks, 5 interviews, 8 book launches and a drama presentation.  The science programme was weak this year, with only the George Hay Lecture, Stranger Than Fiction: Creatures of the Deep standing out (though, of course, many of the panel sessions did have a science element). (Editor's note: the afore link is to George' SF Encyclopaedia entry as his Wikipedia page is incredibly lacking – someone involved with Wikipedia really needs to look at this.)

The BSFA lecture this year was From Reel to Reel – Film Locations Beyond the Screen.  Sunday night concluded with this year's BSFA awards for last year's works, with winners including E. J. Swift for Best Novel, When There Are Wolves Again, Tade Thompson for Best Shorter Fiction 'The Apologists' (Clarkesworld) and E. M. Faulds for Best Short Fiction 'Godzilla as a young man named Mike' (Podcastle).

Iridescence, though, felt a bit like Eastercon-lite.  My impression was that it was smaller than Eastercon’s used to be.  It is hard to be certain without seeing the figures, but every time I go there seem to be fewer people and less variety of activities.  It may be just the deception of nostalgia but from years past I remember convention dinners, stand-up comedy, film screenings, major publisher parties and presence and cosplay competitions and it’s a shame these don’t seem to have survived post-CoVID.

What there was, though, was entertaining, and I did enjoy meeting new people as well as folk I hadn’t seen for a while.  I hung out with the Milford crowd (we were launching an anthology: Hidden Shadows (available here) and we were all in fine form.