Unconfined Newsletter March 2026
Welcome to the March Newsletter from Unconfined - Eastercon 2027 in Glasgow. Apologies for it being later than usual - life got in the way, as it has a bad habit of doing. But also, right now we are most excited about being at Iridescence - this year’s Eastercon, held in Birmingham. See you there hopefully!
What’s contained in this newsletter…
Meet with us at Iridescence!
Do you have children? Are you thinking of attending Unconfined?
We’ll be at other conventions soon, too.
Hugo Nominations
Teaser…
Newsletter Admin
Meet with us at Iridescence!
We’re looking forward very much to be at Iridescence. It’s less than two weeks away as we write, and we will have a fan table there at which you can chat with us, find out how our planning is going, and ask us any questions you might have. If you haven’t taken a membership with us yet, it would be the perfect time to do so! Not only because membership rates will be rising again not too long after Eastercon this year, but more importantly, we will again be stocking the table with a range of Tunnocks biscuits and tea cakes, as well as vegan and gluten-free alternatives.
We’ve also learned our lesson from last year - you loved them so much we almost immediately ran out of them so we’ll make sure we bring as many dark chocolate ones as we can find.
So please swing by, and say hi to us. We’ve a lot in planning, and we’re terrible at keeping secrets. Just saying.
And we plan to all be in the bar on Sunday night from around 8.30. Look out for the folk in ‘Unconfined’ t-shirts. Alan and David may even buy you a drink!
Do you have children? Are you thinking of coming to Unconfined?
This is really important to us. We want to have a convention that’s able to be attended by fans of all ages. That includes the young, and their parents. We’ve committed to doing so, but in order to help us plan, we need information. But not in a “The Prisoner” way.
If you’re thinking about attending with children, could you please fill in this form (5 questions, 3 mandatory) to let us gain an idea about what provision we need to make?
The form’s URL is https://forms.gle/RdcVfDfB7k3s27yC6 – please pass this on to anyone you know who might want to attend our convention and who has children. Thank you!
We’ll be at other conventions soon, too.
As well as Iridescence, we will be at quite a few conventions over the next few months:
NornCon 2026 – Friday and Saturday 9 and 10 May at the Belfast Hilton, Northern Ireland. We will have a fan table and full presence at the convention.
Satellite 9 - 22-24 May 2026 at the Clayton Hotel, Glasgow. Another major convention for us – in our home city – so expect a big fan table presence and lots of activity.
As the year progresses, we will also be featuring tables and/or presence at other conventions including Metropolcon, LACon, Octocon, Fantasycon and Novacon. More details of these in future newsletters.
Hugo Award Nominations
Nominations for the Hugo Awards close at 7pm UK time on the 28 March 2026. You may wish to consider nominating the following:
For best Novelette
P. Djèlí Clark - Cronus - Amazon Original Stories
Full details and criteria for voting eligibility can be found here: https://www.thehugoawards.org/2026/02/2026-hugo-award-nominations-open-through-march-28-2026/
Teaser...
Oh, we know we’ve drawn this out.
You have seen our main logo, and our spooky logo before. But the wonderful España Sheriff created four for us! So here are the full set of Unconfined logos - Science Fiction, Spooky, Fantasy and Steampunk!
Of course, that means more merch! We will be launching our full range of merchandise, with all these logos, on Tuesday 24th March. We can’t promise shipping to you before the convention, but you will have a memory waiting for you pretty much as soon as you get home.
But there is more than that!
If you haven’t got a membership yet, then at Iridescence would be the perfect time. Join then, and we will give you a voucher that will give 20% off all merch, usable until the end of April.
But of course for the really big reveal - make sure you’re there to cheer us on as we step into the shoes of being the next-happening Eastercon. We want people to be excited, we want people to share that excitement. We’ll be sharing it with you.
Thanks for reading. Please forward this on to friends who might be interested in our convention. We’d love to see them there.
Thanks to…
España Sheriff, both for our wonderful logo and the Iridescence logo.
Newsletter Admin
When you join Unconfined, you choose to have sent to you all communications or essential updates only. We are proposing to send out each Progress Report (maximum of four before the convention) plus final details to all members. All other newsletters — around one a month — will be sent to those who have chosen to receive all communications.
If you are a member of the convention and wish to change how often you receive mail from us, please log into the registration system and update your choice.