FanWorks 2021 dates and deadlines!
Jun. 20th, 2021 03:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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fanworksFanWorks 2021 will be happening online, October 1st - 3rd!
Registration for the virtual con will be $20. The cost of attendance pays for the platforms, panel captioning services, and other paid features we use for the virtual con, and goes toward defraying annual overheads in years without physical conventions.
We'll make an announcement here and on the con twitter (@fanworkscon) when registration opens; we plan to open registration in July.
Some things to know about this year's con:
●
Vidshows
This is an overview of shows that vidders can submit to this year! This is not inclusive of every vidshow or vid event we'll be having, so check back for future announcements on other shows, including themed vidshows. (If you're interested in submitting a themed vidshow topic for con programming, check the programming deadlines below.)
*
Non-premiering shows
Non-premiering vid submission deadline: August 15th
We experimented last year with having a themed vidshow in which the vids weren't chosen by the VJ, but were submitted directly by vidders ("Please Scream Inside Your Vid"). That format was a success, so we're going to do it again this year! This is not a premiering vidshow like Variations (which we'll be skipping again this year – look for it to return with our in-person cons), so you can submit any vid you've already made that fits the theme.
This year's open submissions themed show is "Comfort Blanket." Which of your vids give you the most warm fuzzies? Which do you go back to when you need something comforting to watch?
The Year in Vids and Vidder's Choice will also be returning. Vidders can submit any vid released since last year's con to The Year in Vids, and any vid released at any point in time to Vidder's Choice.
For all three of those shows – The Year in Vids, Vidder's Choice, and Comfort Blanket – standard submission rules apply: vidders can submit up to two vids per show (and can show up to three vids, if a third is submitted by a co-vidder). Vids must be your own work.
If you submit more than one vid, you'll be asked to mark your vids as first or second priority. We guarantee that we will show every first priority vid submitted by an attending vidder, even if it makes the vidshow run long; after that, second priority attending vids and first priority non-attending vids will be selected at the VJs' discretion to fill out the show if needed, typically chosen to help the flow of the vidshow, to even out the overall tone, to provide variety, and so on. Second priority non-attending vids will be shown if all other vids have already been included in the show and time allows.
If these shows run long, they may be broken up on the schedule rather than run in a single block.
*
Premieres
Premieres submission deadline: September 5th
Vids that have not been released before can be submitted to FanWorks Premieres.
Please! Please send us your premieres! The Premieres show is the highlight of the video track at FanWorks, and the added interactivity of vidshows in the virtual con format has been an absolute delight at our con and others. If you have the time and desire to make or finish a vid for FanWorks, we highly, highly encourage you to do so – and if you need help, we will work with you as best we can to get your vid to the screen.
Submission rules for Premieres are similar to those for non-premiering shows: vidders can submit up to two vids per show (and can show up to three vids, if a third is submitted by a co-vidder); vids must be your own work.
If you submit more than one vid, you'll be asked to mark your vids as first or second priority. We guarantee that we will show every first priority vid submitted by an attending vidder in the Premieres show.
If Premieres runs long, second priority attending vids and any non-attending vids may be rolled over to a separate Also Premiering vidshow, to make their debut at a different time on the con schedule. If you send us a premiering vid, we'll make sure we show it at FanWorks! Just please be aware that your second priority or non-attending vid may debut in Also Premiering rather than the main Premieres show if we run short on time.
(A clarification on what counts as a premiere: a premiering vid must not have been released before; a vid counts as previously released if it has been published or shared on any platform, or shown at any con. Your betas/cheerleaders don't count! Please do privately share your vids with your betas/cheerleaders!)
●
The con zine
Zine submissions deadline: September 5th
The con zine will be back this year, accepting submissions of fanfic, podfic, fanart, and any other fanworks that can be shared in a zine format. (Creators can submit meta, photo-documented 3D art, one-shot podcasts, gif sets – feel free to get creative with the format!)
If you want to talk to us before submitting (questions about a type of fanwork, a specific fanwork, zine formatting, or for any other reason), you can email our zine coordinator sweetestdrain at fanworkszine@gmail.com. We also encourage emailing the zine if you're interested in putting long-form fanvid work in the zine (vids longer than 6-7 minutes, vid albums, etc.) – the zine is the best place to debut long-form vidding at the con.
●
Programming submissions
Vidshows
Submissions open: June 20th
Submissions close: June 27th
Playlists due: July 25th
Vidshows are fanvid showcases curated by VJs, with vids chosen on specific themes. Examples of past vidshows include "Foe Yay!", "Divine Intervention," "Queer as in Fuck You," and "Fan Made Credit Sequences." When choosing themes, more specific themes are better! Vidshow themes can be around specific tropes, archetypes, moods, genres – the main requirements are that the shows have cohesive themes, showcase a variety of fandoms and vidders, and have total runtimes of 45 minutes or less.
If you have an idea for a vidshow theme and want to put together a vidshow for the con, vidshow submissions are open until the end of the day Sunday, June 27th!
Submissions are taken via Google form, and will be open for one week, closing at the end of the day on Sunday, June 27th. You must be willing to VJ a show to submit it for consideration. A brainstorming post for coming up with vidshow ideas will be up all week during the submissions window – this is a great place to drop vidshow ideas that you might not want to VJ yourself!
Vidshows are selected by con staff, and will be chosen as soon as possible after submissions close. VJs will be notified as quickly as possible and given full instructions on how to put together shows for the con. Complete vidshow playlists will be due on Sunday, July 25th.
*
Panels
Submissions open: July 25th
Submissions close: August 1st
Panels are the core of FanWorks programming! Each panel is 45 minutes (or 2 hours with a fifteen minute break in the middle), and is a panel discussion, group discussion, presentation, or workshop on a set topic.
FanWorks has five programming tracks: audio, art & crafting, community, writing, and video. For the virtual con, we don't have separate panel tracks, but we still try to have a balanced assortment of panels across both days of the con. Past panel topics have included "The Art of the AU," "The Language of Vidding," "Fandom in Fibercraft," "Fashionably Late: Navigating Established Fandoms," and "Costuming with Craft Foam," just to name a few!
Possible topics in each track might include:
These are just examples based on the content and discussions of cons past! If you have a panel idea and aren't sure which track it might fit into, that's fine – we can generally figure that out on our end.
Panel selection will work similarly to last year, with the top five panels chosen through a survey sent to con attendees and the remainder of the schedule filled in through staff selection to ensure a good mix of topics.
If you want to submit one or more panel topics for this year's con, submissions will open on July 25th. You can submit topics without volunteering to moderate them, but only panels with volunteer moderators will be put on the survey sent to con attendees for panel selection; panel topics without moderators will still be considered when staff are choosing additional panels to fill out the schedule.
●
Deadlines
All deadlines are midnight Eastern.
Programming deadlines
Vidshow theme submissions: June 27th
Vidshow playlists due: July 25th
Panel submissions: August 1st
Fanwork submission deadlines
Non-premiering vid submissions: August 15th
Premieres and zine submissions: September 5th
Please note that because of the work involved on our end to get the Premieres show ready for the con, there will be no extensions granted on the Premieres deadline; we're already pushing it as close to the con as we possibly can. If you're a few hours late, we'll be understaIf you run into technical difficulties or need help of any kind getting your vid to the finish line, we recommend emailing fanworksvidtech@gmail.com as soon as possible.
●
FanWorks 2022
Our next in-person con is still contracted for the weekend of August 12th - 14th, 2022, at the SpringHill Suites O'Hare in Chicago, IL.
At this point, that has not changed. Our hope is very much that circumstances allow us to be back together in person next year. We haven't yet considered what attendance caps or safety measures might look like, because it's difficult to predict how things will look a year from now (or next January, when – we hope – registration for FanWorks 2022 will reopen). That said, if you are currently registered for FanWorks 2022 (or were registered for FanWorks 2020 and took advantage of the refund window last summer), your membership is set, and any future cap considerations will not impact that in any way.
We do not anticipate having firm updates on the status of FanWorks 2022 this year, but things can change very suddenly these days, so we recommend following us on twitter at fanworkscon to get our latest updates on FanWorks 2021, FanWorks 2022, and all things con-related.
●
We're currently in the process of updating our website for this year's con, so please pardon our dust while we do so!
We also had some construction dust in the off-season: if you sent an email to any of our fanworkscon.com inboxes during the con hiatus (between November 2020 and June 2021), your messages may not have been received, as we had a mail server switch along the way. Those issues should now be resolved, so any email you send from this point forward is going to active email inboxes. (Apologies! It's been a long, exhausting off-season for all of us.) If there's anything you sent an email about that you did not get a response to, and you still need or would like a reply to your message, please email us again and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
Four ways to contact us about the information in this post:
jen@fanworkscon.com for questions about registration, policies, or FanWorks 2022, and any other messages for the con chair
fanworksvidtech@gmail.com for vid technical support and questions about Premieres, vid deadlines, or VJing
fanworkszine@gmail.com for anything related to the con zine
fanworksprogramming@gmail.com for questions about programming submission, panels, or vidshow topics
You can also leave a screened comment here, but please be aware that it may take longer to get a reply that way, as sometimes comment notifications can be hit or miss.
There are many ways to contribute to and participate in the virtual con, and plenty of time to do so. Make vids and art! Write and record fic! Brainstorm panels and vidshows! We look forward to seeing what you come up with. And we look forward to seeing you – no participation required; if lurking is your thing, please come lurk with us. Even when we're all just usernames in a con Discord, coming together as a community of fans is something we look forward to every year. We can't wait to see you in October!
Registration for the virtual con will be $20. The cost of attendance pays for the platforms, panel captioning services, and other paid features we use for the virtual con, and goes toward defraying annual overheads in years without physical conventions.
We'll make an announcement here and on the con twitter (@fanworkscon) when registration opens; we plan to open registration in July.
Some things to know about this year's con:
●
Vidshows
This is an overview of shows that vidders can submit to this year! This is not inclusive of every vidshow or vid event we'll be having, so check back for future announcements on other shows, including themed vidshows. (If you're interested in submitting a themed vidshow topic for con programming, check the programming deadlines below.)
*
Non-premiering shows
Non-premiering vid submission deadline: August 15th
We experimented last year with having a themed vidshow in which the vids weren't chosen by the VJ, but were submitted directly by vidders ("Please Scream Inside Your Vid"). That format was a success, so we're going to do it again this year! This is not a premiering vidshow like Variations (which we'll be skipping again this year – look for it to return with our in-person cons), so you can submit any vid you've already made that fits the theme.
This year's open submissions themed show is "Comfort Blanket." Which of your vids give you the most warm fuzzies? Which do you go back to when you need something comforting to watch?
The Year in Vids and Vidder's Choice will also be returning. Vidders can submit any vid released since last year's con to The Year in Vids, and any vid released at any point in time to Vidder's Choice.
For all three of those shows – The Year in Vids, Vidder's Choice, and Comfort Blanket – standard submission rules apply: vidders can submit up to two vids per show (and can show up to three vids, if a third is submitted by a co-vidder). Vids must be your own work.
If you submit more than one vid, you'll be asked to mark your vids as first or second priority. We guarantee that we will show every first priority vid submitted by an attending vidder, even if it makes the vidshow run long; after that, second priority attending vids and first priority non-attending vids will be selected at the VJs' discretion to fill out the show if needed, typically chosen to help the flow of the vidshow, to even out the overall tone, to provide variety, and so on. Second priority non-attending vids will be shown if all other vids have already been included in the show and time allows.
If these shows run long, they may be broken up on the schedule rather than run in a single block.
*
Premieres
Premieres submission deadline: September 5th
Vids that have not been released before can be submitted to FanWorks Premieres.
Please! Please send us your premieres! The Premieres show is the highlight of the video track at FanWorks, and the added interactivity of vidshows in the virtual con format has been an absolute delight at our con and others. If you have the time and desire to make or finish a vid for FanWorks, we highly, highly encourage you to do so – and if you need help, we will work with you as best we can to get your vid to the screen.
Submission rules for Premieres are similar to those for non-premiering shows: vidders can submit up to two vids per show (and can show up to three vids, if a third is submitted by a co-vidder); vids must be your own work.
If you submit more than one vid, you'll be asked to mark your vids as first or second priority. We guarantee that we will show every first priority vid submitted by an attending vidder in the Premieres show.
If Premieres runs long, second priority attending vids and any non-attending vids may be rolled over to a separate Also Premiering vidshow, to make their debut at a different time on the con schedule. If you send us a premiering vid, we'll make sure we show it at FanWorks! Just please be aware that your second priority or non-attending vid may debut in Also Premiering rather than the main Premieres show if we run short on time.
(A clarification on what counts as a premiere: a premiering vid must not have been released before; a vid counts as previously released if it has been published or shared on any platform, or shown at any con. Your betas/cheerleaders don't count! Please do privately share your vids with your betas/cheerleaders!)
●
The con zine
Zine submissions deadline: September 5th
The con zine will be back this year, accepting submissions of fanfic, podfic, fanart, and any other fanworks that can be shared in a zine format. (Creators can submit meta, photo-documented 3D art, one-shot podcasts, gif sets – feel free to get creative with the format!)
If you want to talk to us before submitting (questions about a type of fanwork, a specific fanwork, zine formatting, or for any other reason), you can email our zine coordinator sweetestdrain at fanworkszine@gmail.com. We also encourage emailing the zine if you're interested in putting long-form fanvid work in the zine (vids longer than 6-7 minutes, vid albums, etc.) – the zine is the best place to debut long-form vidding at the con.
●
Programming submissions
Vidshows
Submissions open: June 20th
Submissions close: June 27th
Playlists due: July 25th
Vidshows are fanvid showcases curated by VJs, with vids chosen on specific themes. Examples of past vidshows include "Foe Yay!", "Divine Intervention," "Queer as in Fuck You," and "Fan Made Credit Sequences." When choosing themes, more specific themes are better! Vidshow themes can be around specific tropes, archetypes, moods, genres – the main requirements are that the shows have cohesive themes, showcase a variety of fandoms and vidders, and have total runtimes of 45 minutes or less.
If you have an idea for a vidshow theme and want to put together a vidshow for the con, vidshow submissions are open until the end of the day Sunday, June 27th!
Submissions are taken via Google form, and will be open for one week, closing at the end of the day on Sunday, June 27th. You must be willing to VJ a show to submit it for consideration. A brainstorming post for coming up with vidshow ideas will be up all week during the submissions window – this is a great place to drop vidshow ideas that you might not want to VJ yourself!
Vidshows are selected by con staff, and will be chosen as soon as possible after submissions close. VJs will be notified as quickly as possible and given full instructions on how to put together shows for the con. Complete vidshow playlists will be due on Sunday, July 25th.
*
Panels
Submissions open: July 25th
Submissions close: August 1st
Panels are the core of FanWorks programming! Each panel is 45 minutes (or 2 hours with a fifteen minute break in the middle), and is a panel discussion, group discussion, presentation, or workshop on a set topic.
FanWorks has five programming tracks: audio, art & crafting, community, writing, and video. For the virtual con, we don't have separate panel tracks, but we still try to have a balanced assortment of panels across both days of the con. Past panel topics have included "The Art of the AU," "The Language of Vidding," "Fandom in Fibercraft," "Fashionably Late: Navigating Established Fandoms," and "Costuming with Craft Foam," just to name a few!
Possible topics in each track might include:
- Audio: podfic, podcasts, fan music, fanmixes, filk
- Art & crafting: cosplay, digital art, graphic design, artwork in physical mediums including modeling and fiber art, home decor
- Community: fannish platforms, exchanges, events, archival and curation work; topics on community itself, identity, creative processes, and fannish history
- Writing: fanfic, meta, poetry, writing for wikis, fanzines
- Video: fan music videos (fanvids, edits, AMVs, machinima, etc.), meta and fan reaction videos, fan filmed content, supercuts
These are just examples based on the content and discussions of cons past! If you have a panel idea and aren't sure which track it might fit into, that's fine – we can generally figure that out on our end.
Panel selection will work similarly to last year, with the top five panels chosen through a survey sent to con attendees and the remainder of the schedule filled in through staff selection to ensure a good mix of topics.
If you want to submit one or more panel topics for this year's con, submissions will open on July 25th. You can submit topics without volunteering to moderate them, but only panels with volunteer moderators will be put on the survey sent to con attendees for panel selection; panel topics without moderators will still be considered when staff are choosing additional panels to fill out the schedule.
●
Deadlines
All deadlines are midnight Eastern.
Programming deadlines
Vidshow theme submissions: June 27th
Vidshow playlists due: July 25th
Panel submissions: August 1st
Fanwork submission deadlines
Non-premiering vid submissions: August 15th
Premieres and zine submissions: September 5th
Please note that because of the work involved on our end to get the Premieres show ready for the con, there will be no extensions granted on the Premieres deadline; we're already pushing it as close to the con as we possibly can. If you're a few hours late, we'll be understaIf you run into technical difficulties or need help of any kind getting your vid to the finish line, we recommend emailing fanworksvidtech@gmail.com as soon as possible.
●
FanWorks 2022
Our next in-person con is still contracted for the weekend of August 12th - 14th, 2022, at the SpringHill Suites O'Hare in Chicago, IL.
At this point, that has not changed. Our hope is very much that circumstances allow us to be back together in person next year. We haven't yet considered what attendance caps or safety measures might look like, because it's difficult to predict how things will look a year from now (or next January, when – we hope – registration for FanWorks 2022 will reopen). That said, if you are currently registered for FanWorks 2022 (or were registered for FanWorks 2020 and took advantage of the refund window last summer), your membership is set, and any future cap considerations will not impact that in any way.
We do not anticipate having firm updates on the status of FanWorks 2022 this year, but things can change very suddenly these days, so we recommend following us on twitter at fanworkscon to get our latest updates on FanWorks 2021, FanWorks 2022, and all things con-related.
●
We're currently in the process of updating our website for this year's con, so please pardon our dust while we do so!
We also had some construction dust in the off-season: if you sent an email to any of our fanworkscon.com inboxes during the con hiatus (between November 2020 and June 2021), your messages may not have been received, as we had a mail server switch along the way. Those issues should now be resolved, so any email you send from this point forward is going to active email inboxes. (Apologies! It's been a long, exhausting off-season for all of us.) If there's anything you sent an email about that you did not get a response to, and you still need or would like a reply to your message, please email us again and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
Four ways to contact us about the information in this post:
jen@fanworkscon.com for questions about registration, policies, or FanWorks 2022, and any other messages for the con chair
fanworksvidtech@gmail.com for vid technical support and questions about Premieres, vid deadlines, or VJing
fanworkszine@gmail.com for anything related to the con zine
fanworksprogramming@gmail.com for questions about programming submission, panels, or vidshow topics
You can also leave a screened comment here, but please be aware that it may take longer to get a reply that way, as sometimes comment notifications can be hit or miss.
There are many ways to contribute to and participate in the virtual con, and plenty of time to do so. Make vids and art! Write and record fic! Brainstorm panels and vidshows! We look forward to seeing what you come up with. And we look forward to seeing you – no participation required; if lurking is your thing, please come lurk with us. Even when we're all just usernames in a con Discord, coming together as a community of fans is something we look forward to every year. We can't wait to see you in October!
