We’re now less than two weeks out from the convention. We’re working on getting programming finalized and posted to the website in the next few days. If you are coming here due to hearing about the convention elsewhere, please check out the rest of the website to see what all we have going on. We’ve got a couple of announcements to tell you about now:
Charity Auction – We’ve got a lot of neat stuff in the Charity Auction, so please check it out. We have one item in particular that we are very excited about being donated by our Artist Guest of Honor Charles Vess. It is an original painting used for the Neil Gaiman Blueberry Girl picture book (which you can see a video of like the one done for Instructions). Being a special item, it will have a starting bid of $300, but we would like to see if go for much more than that. It is from page 18 in the book, which goes with the text ”Let her tell stories and dance in the rain, somersault, tumble and run,” Proceeds from the auction will be split between the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and City of Hope.
Registration – We have extended the $40 pre-reg rate to Sunday, May 7th if you pay online via PayPal.
As a special incentive for those who are pre-registered, we will be having some programming on Thursday night for pre-registered members only.
At 7:00 pm we will be having a Thursday night edition of the Barry Bard Memorial Movie Previews with movie trailers and movie swag!
At 9:00 pm, we’ll have a special panel with Artist Guest of Honor Charles Vess and Author Guest of Honor George R. R. Martin focusing on the limited edition of George R. R. Martin’s A Storm of Swords that Charles Vess did the art for. The book is no longer available from the publisher, but you’ll have a chance to see the art that Charles did for the book.
Hotel Rooms Still Available
We still have rooms available at the Phoenix Marriott Mesa at the convention rate of $99 S/D/T/Q plus tax. Use the code “leplepa” at their web site or call them at 1-480-898-8300.
Please post a schedule of events as soon as possible. I need to make my plans in advance and not having a schedule yet makes it more and more likely that I won’t be able to attend at all.