Crowne Plaza Hotel, Glasgow

26 — 29 March 2027

Contents

1. Chairs' Message
2. Our Guests of Honour
3. About the Programme
4. About the Hotel
5. Accessibility
6. The Access Fund
7. Volunteering

Chairs' message

Welcome to the first Progress Report from Unconfined — the 2027 Eastercon. We're incredibly excited to bring Eastercon back to Glasgow and to the Crowne Plaza. While 2014 was the last time Eastercon was in Scotland, I'm sure many of you have fond memories of 2024 Worldcon held in the Scottish Exhibition Centre and in the Crowne Plaza. We certainly do! The Hotel staff also had a great experience with SF fans during Worldcon, and are looking forward to hosting us again next year.

The team has been busy working on a convention that we hope you’ll love. Conventions are our meeting-place, our forum of ideas, the place where we come together, discuss and share our differing views with tolerance, with respect for each other and with good humour. This is a rarer thing to find than it should be these days, and we’re incredibly proud to be working on continuing this tradition.

Thank you to everyone who has joined the convention already — nearly 500 of you. Please tell your friends about us. And if you live in the Glasgow area, please come along and meet us at Bar Home, Albion Street, Glasgow on Thursday 30th July from around 6pm.

The final thing we'd say is that any convention always needs more help. Thank you to everyone who has already contacted us to volunteer. We will definitely be in touch. We are still looking for volunteers who live close to Glasgow, and for those who are looking to assist before the convention itself. Does that sound like you? Please get in touch.

Very best wishes,

Alan Fleming and David Bamford

Our Guests of Honour

We're excited to welcome our Guests of Honour. We’re love their work in fiction or in fandom, and we look forward to talking with them about it.

P. Djèlí Clark

Phenderson Djèlí Clark is the author of the novels Abeni’s Song, A Master of Djinn, and the award-winning and Hugo, Nebula, and Sturgeon nominated author of the novellas The Dead Cat Tail Assassins, Ring Shout, The Black God’s Drums and The Haunting of Tram Car 015.
His short stories have appeared in online venues such as Tor.com, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and in print anthologies including Griots and Hidden Youth.

You can find him on social media and at his blog Disgruntled Haradrim.

L R Lam

L R Lam was first Californian and now Scottish. Lam is the USA Today and Sunday Times Bestselling award-winning author of Dragonfall and Emberclaw (the Dragon Scales series), the Seven Devils duology (co-written with Elizabeth May), Goldilocks, the Pacifica novels False Hearts and Shattered Minds, and the Micah Grey trilogy, which begins with Pantomime. They are also a writing coach at The Novelry.

Lam has previously written as Laura Lam.

Mark Meenan

Mark’s first convention was Albacon II in 1983 in Glasgow, which he enjoyed so much he immediately started volunteering. His first committee role was for Albacon 85 in Glasgow, and since then has served on the committees of four Eastercons and for the Satellite series of conventions also held in Glasgow. He was Deputy Division Head for Logistics for Loncon 3, Deputy Division Head for WSFS for Dublin 2019 and Division Head for Facilities for Glasgow 2024. He was Site Liaison for the two previous Worldcons held in Glasgow: Intersection and Interaction.

He has a keen interest in the history of Glasgow fandom and in bringing new blood into conrunning. In 2018 he co-edited an Hugo Award nominated issue of the fanzine Journey Planet on forty years of Glasgow conventions. He was awarded the Doc Weir Award in 2014.

Tamsyn Muir

Tamsyn Muir is a horror, fantasy and science fiction writer. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling Locked Tomb series, which begins with Gideon the Ninth, continues with Harrow the Ninth and Nona the Ninth, and concludes with Alecto the Ninth (forthcoming), and the novella Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower. Her short fiction has appeared in Nightmare Magazine, F&SF, Fantasy Magazine, Weird Tales, and Clarkesworld. She has won the Locus and Crawford awards, and been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Dragon Award, and the Eugie Foster Memorial Award.

A Kiwi, she has spent most of her life in Howick, New Zealand, with time living in Waiuku and central Wellington. She currently lives and works in Oxford, in the United Kingdom.

About the Programme

Planning for our programme is well underway. We're working on a rich, imaginative and diverse set of items: panels and talks of course, but also workshops, crafting and even off-site activities.

But it wouldn't be a SF convention in Glasgow if there wasn't fun to be had too! There will be entertainment in the form of a ceilidh, a disco and various con parties and book launches.

We're still open to suggestions for programme items. Is there something you want to do? Please let us know!

Gaming

We know convention members love gaming. We will have at least one substantial room dedicated to games, and of course there will be RPGs of some form too. Do you have thoughts on what we could do? Please contact us via the programme suggestion form — we'd love to hear from you.

Virtual Programme

We will of course be running a robust virtual programme from the main programme rooms, to which all members will have access.

If you know can't make it to Glasgow, don't let that stop you enjoying the convention! We are offering online—only memberships at a discounted rate. With this you will get access to all of the virtual programme, as it happens.

We already have our Unconfined Fan Discord, where people are already chatting about things.

Art Show and Dealers' Hall

We've had a lot of interest already for spaces in the art show, for dealers' tables and for fan tables.

At the moment, we're in the process of finalising the layout of the Art Show and the Dealers' Hall. We are still taking requests for space in the art show, dealers' tables and fan tables, so please get in touch if you have not already done so.

Thinking of exhibiting in the Art Show? Click here to contact the team.

Would you like a table in the Dealers' Hall? Click here to contact the team.

About the Hotel

We are getting close to opening bookings for convention hotels. We have 200 rooms reserved in the Crowne Plaza, and many more rooms in other hotels nearby on the Scottish Exhibition Centre Campus.

For the Crowne Plaza, rates will be as follows:

• £145 per night for a double–occupancy room, including breakfasts
• £170 per night for a single–occupancy room, including breakfast.

These rates will be available from the 24th to 30th April and in line with the Crowne Plaza's standard terms and conditions, the first night is non-refundable on cancellation. Parking will be available at a rate of £12 per night.

Rates vary in the other hotels, and will be published closer to the opening of bookings.

The Booking Process

Hotel booking will be made available by links in the convention registration portal. There will be one link for the Crowne Plaza and another for the other hotels. We expect to announce the date on which these will be available in our next newsletter.

Bookings will be made available to those with access needs shortly before general release. If you have a specific requirement for your hotel room, please contact us to make sure your needs are met.

Visitor Levy

Glasgow City Council has recently introduced a visitor levy, similarly to some other cities in Scotland and in England. This will be in force by the time of the convention. This is currently proposed to be 5% of the accommodation element of your stay, and will be collected by your hotel when you settle your bill.

Accessibility

Unconfined wants to be a convention that both is inclusive and accessible. We are committed to taking access needs into account both during the planning of the convention and during the convention itself.

If something would make it easier for you to attend the convention, then please let us know. If you're not sure, then please also let us know!

Our full accessibility policy is here. You can contact us about accessibility issues at access@easterconglasgow.org

The Access Fund

All conventions aim to welcome equally every member of our community, but we recognise that some people are less able to attend or to participate than others.

In order to assist people who have barriers to their attendance or participation, Unconfined has a fund provided by current convention members and by previous conventions, in order to provide attendance grants (also known as bursaries).

We will announce how to apply to the access fund for grants later in 2026. We will do this on our social media, our website and in this newsletter.

Donations to our attendance fund are always most welcome. Please click here to donate. Thank you for any contribution you can make.

Volunteering

Why volunteer? Volunteering is a great way to gain or build on your experience and knowledge. Getting involved in the running of a con can make it more interesting for you. Plus there will be freebies for volunteers!

Here are a few roles we’re looking for right now, but there are many others. If any sounds like they’re up your street, please do fill out the form

Discord Moderator/Administrator: Hey Discord kids, this one’s for you! If you have a spare hour a week (more at-con), we’re looking for Discord mods and admins to help manage the server and keep an eye on things. Previous experience desirable.

Leaflet promoters: Are you a bookstore regular? A game café denizen? A library loiterer? How about dropping off flyers at your local fandom hotspots to let people know about us. Help us create an un-bee-lievable buzz!

Childcare Coordinator: Coordinate with Tinies Glasgow to provision childcare and coordinate with parents. A vital role to make attending the con accessible to parents.

MIMO coordinator: Planning, coordination, communication of Move In, Move Out. Ability to plan and manage both sides of this operation and all the helpers is essential.

If you would like to help out in any way, click here to go to our volunteer form, which asks about your skills and the roles you may be interested in. Don’t be afraid! Even if you have no idea what you want to do, fill in what you can, and we’ll talk about roles with you. You can also email us at volunteers@easterconglasgow.org, and we can tell you more.

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.