Unconfined Newsletter November 2025
Welcome to the third newsletter from Unconfined, the 2027 Eastercon.
What’s contained in this newsletter…
Membership Rates rise 1st December
What, where when
Death by Kazoo – Why I love Glasgow – by David Bamford
L R Lam book release!
Volunteer
Merch!
Don’t forget about Iridescence
Teaser…
Newsletter Admin
Membership Rates Rising
Our rates will be rising on 1 December 2025 – now is the time to get your membership and make sure your friends know too!
FULL ADULT rises from £90 to £105
DISCOUNTED ADULT rises from £60 to £70
YOUNG ADULT staying at £25
UNDER 13 staying at £10
If you’re not a member yet, you can sign up here.
What’s been happening
Since our last newsletter we have continued to build our team:
Lesley Scott has joined us to help out with Volunteers.
Sandra Battye who’s working with Marc on all things Ops
Rosie Murray has also joined to help out with promotions
Gi Hurford will be working tech magic on registration and memberships
Our wonderful website contains details of our full team.
Where you can talk to us in person
We had a great time at Novacon earlier in the month, as you can see. Interest was very high and lots of questions were answered at the desk and throughout the con – especially in the bar.
Our last convention appearance for this year will be SMOFcon 42 5th – 7th December – Dieselverkstaden, Stockholm, Sweden. A few of the committee will be there – with all the usual merch and advertising – a great opportunity to hobnob with the organising team.
We’ll be at many cons in 2026 - we’ll list them all here first!
Death by Kazoo
Why I love Glasgow by David Bamford, co-Chair.
Glasgow is a city that wears many faces.
It is a hard city, an industrial port town, a place known for its pitch-black sense of humour and strong work ethic. The people here are friendly, curious and quick to embrace new ideas - which makes it the ideal city in which to hold conventions and celebrate fandom.
As a relative newcomer to fandom (my first convention was Mancunicon in 2016), it was only when Alan and I actually moved to Glasgow in 2022 that I started properly participating in the running of conventions and developed a particular interest in the production of programme.
Christine Davidson, co-chair of long-running Glasgow convention Satellite asked me to be on a panel at that convention in 2023. It was my first ever panel appearance, and was about the end of the world and the death of the human race. If it sounds like that may have been somewhat heavy going for a first panel, it was – though the stress was alleviated by the fact that we were the other side of a thin partition wall from a quiz being run by Michelle ‘Cuddles’ Drayton–Harrold, the greater part of which involved audience participation on kazoo.
Needless to say, what began as a Serious Business Panel on our side quickly dissolved into the panel’s and audience’s barely stifled giggling in the face of death.
That’s the thing I love most about living here – the people. Glaswegians love seeing the funny side of things. They love talking. They love bringing new people into the fold, they really like people who want to come here and be part of everything – after all, as you’ll see on billboards all over the city, People Make Glasgow – and that’s why Glasgow works so well as a place to hold conventions. It is a hard town, on the surface at least, but if you dig a little deeper, you will find it is full of welcoming people who believe in the potential of others in their local community, and will always help someone else out. Almost every opportunity I have had in fandom – from that initial panel to being Area Head for second stage Events at Worldcon in 2024 and beyond – has been given to me as a result of knowing people involved in the Glasgow SFF community, and having them spur me on. I love and believe in this city, and I am so excited and honoured to bring Eastercon back to Glasgow in 2027.
It’s going to be incredible.
Guest L R Lam – book release
L R Lam’s novel Shadowplay (book 2 of the Micah Grey trilogy) has just been re-released in a beautiful new, revised edition. The last book in the trilogy, Masquerade, will be released next year. The books are a whimsical, cosy-adjacent gaslamp fantasy - with an undercurrent of danger, and well worth a read.
Come help us?
We are still actively seeking volunteers! Conventions are run entirely by volunteers. At a convention, there are a huge number of things happening that are done by a person volunteering some of their time, but before the con, there are many things needing attention too.
In particular, we’re looking for people interested in creating content for our website and for Social Media. Can you take a good short video? Able to create a Tiktok? Know the ins and outs of setting up advertising on Insta or Tiktok? If so, we'd love to hear from you. We’re also looking for people who have experience in managing and moderating public-access discussion platforms, especially Discord.
Click here to fill in our volunteer form, or if you don’t want to fill in a form but still want to talk about volunteering, or for anything else, mail volunteers@easterconglasgow.org and we’ll respond as soon as we can.
Merch
Buying merchandise from us directly supports our convention. And the advertising when you wear or use it is good for us too, of course. It’s your last chance to buy our spooky logo Unconfined t-shirt - we’re removing these from the shop at the end of the month!
Don’t forget about Iridescence!
Unconfined is the 2027 Eastercon, but that doesn’t mean that you should forget about 2026. Iridescence is next year’s Eastercon, to be held at the Hilton Metropole Hotel in Birmingham (the Hilton at the National Exhibition Centre) between the 3rd and 6th of April 2026. Don’t forget to join.
Teaser… Continued.
We’ve got some fantastic ideas lined up as we head into Iridescence next Easter and beyond to get you excited about our convention! Watch out for more news here and on social media real soon now.
If you missed any of our previous newsletters and want to catch up, you can find them here.
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, for both our wonderful logos and the Iridescence logo..
David Bamford for his reminiscence - there will be more about Glasgow.
Newsletter Admin
When you join Unconfined, you choose to have sent to you all communications or essential updates only. We will send out each Progress Report (four in total 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.