The Ineffable Con is a not-for-profit convention run by and for fans of the Good Omens book and series. It is staffed completely by volunteers. Membership fees and any money raised during the event go towards running the convention, with any remainder donated to Alzheimer’s Research UK in memory of Sir Terry Pratchett.
We need to cover the cost of running the convention, but we want to be able to include everyone who wants to attend, regardless of their financial situation. We are therefore asking that everyone pay only what they can. Your experience at the convention will not be in any way affected by how much you paid to attend.
The convention is run entirely by fans, for fans. You can find out more about the organisers on the About Us page. Note that we are an unofficial convention with no connection whatsoever to the BBC, Amazon Prime or Neil Gaiman (though he has been kind enough to join us in the past).
The Ineffable Con 3 will take place entirely online from Friday, October 22nd to Sunday, October 24th 2021.
In Good Omens, the Earth celebrates its birthday on October 21st, so we are choosing to celebrate on the closest weekend.
We are building our own platform this year, so the convention will be accessed through this website. An entry link will appear on the TIC3 page half an hour before the Opening Ceremony, at 6:30pm BST on Friday 22nd October.
The convention will start at 7pm BST on Friday 22nd October. The closing ceremony is at 6pm BST on Sunday, 24th October.
The Ineffable Con is a UK convention, so our schedule will broadly follow sociable hours in the UK. However, we are certainly open to events being scheduled at all hours, if there are volunteers to run them! All talks and panels will be recorded and available on demand throughout and after the event, if you want to catch up on anything that happened while you were asleep.
The convention has been designed specifically to take place online and will be a virtual convention even if mass gatherings are permitted in October. Although we went virtual by necessity in 2020, we were excited by the prospect of including people who would not normally be able to travel to the UK for a convention, and are committed to remaining online in 2021. If we do go back to in-person conventions in future years, we will still keep an online component.
We recommend an up-to-date version of the Google Chrome browser for the best experience at the convention. All panels and exhibitor booths will be accessed through your web browser. If you want to take part in informal interactive activities with other convention members, you will need the Zoom desktop client or mobile app, version 5.3.0 or higher.
If you are attending panels and talks, these will be seen as videos in your web browser and you will not be visible or audible. We do have a Zoom lounge and an interactive exhibition available for those who want to participate, but this is optional.
Unlike a physical convention, we don’t have limited space, so The Ineffable Con 3 will not sell out (unlike 2019, which sold out months in advance!).
If you are just attending, you do not need to have a webcam; you can choose to interact with other members via text chat, or voice, or not at all. If you are speaking on a panel, we ask that you use a webcam in order to assist members who rely on lip-reading, but this is not compulsory. If you choose to take place in informal chat and games through our Zoom room, you can choose whether or not you appear on camera. Many people choose to interact via voice or text only if they are uncomfortable appearing on screen.
UK law prohibits us from taking personal data from anyone under the age of 13 without a parent or guardian’s permission. If you are under 13, you can ask a parent or guardian to register on your behalf.
Since the convention is taking place online, anyone sharing a computer to access the event only needs one membership. You only need to purchase separate memberships if you wish to use separate devices simultaneously, or wish to participate in the live chat features privately.
We are doing our best to replicate the physical convention experience as much as possible. This means a full schedule of talks and panels with opportunities to interact with the speakers, a vid show, quiz and cosplay contest, as well as an art show and dealers’ room. We will also have a convention lounge where you can chat with other convention members. Keep an eye on our Programme page, which will be updated as the event gets closer.
During talks and panels, you will be able to participate in live text chat with other audience members and also pose questions by text directly to the speaker(s), all from within your browser.
Our goal is to make the convention as accessible as possible, but we are on a limited budget. All talks and panels will have live subtitles, but automatically generated, so their quality will be variable. We have a team of volunteers editing the subtitles to improve their accuracy in the days after the convention, and recordings will remain available to watch with improved subtitles. If you are able to assist with subtitle editing, please get in touch!
In common with other fan-run conventions, The Ineffable Con is not a show that you buy a ticket to; it’s an event put together by a community of passionate fans. When you join, you become part of the convention and have the opportunity to make it yours! The Ineffable Con is entirely run by volunteers and we rely on some members volunteering their time in order to make the whole event run smoothly.
Due to the “name your price” model, it would not make sense to offer tickets to limited portions of the convention. All of the talks and panels during the event will be available to stream once they have happened, so you will have access to the entire convention, even if you can only attend part of it.
The great thing about a niche convention like this is that you have something very specific in common with everyone there! As this is a virtual convention, you can attend from the comfort of your own home and it’s entirely up to you whether you watch as a passive observer or join in with discussions and games. If you would like to join in but are nervous, we recommend volunteering at the convention; this gives you a specific job to do and a reason to talk to people.
All of our credit card handling is done by Stripe. Stripe has been audited by a PCI-certified auditor and is certified to PCI Service Provider Level 1. This is the most stringent level of certification available in the payments industry. Your credit card details are never stored on or even seen by our servers.
Check out the How Can I Help? page for a range of ways you can help with the convention, from volunteering an hour to guide people in the Lounge, to presenting a session, submitting work to our zine, art show, or vid show, or donating prizes.
If you’ve offered to be a volunteer, we’ll ask you to commit to a short amount of time when you can help us with a number of tasks. A full programme schedule will be available before we ask you to commit to a slot, so you can check you won’t be volunteering during any panels you particularly want to attend. Volunteers are needed for a range of roles, from streaming panels to helping people find their way around the Zoom lounge.
Yes, we welcome panel ideas! We have a form to submit programme ideas, or you can email them to us.
It’s up to you. We know that not everyone is comfortable running a panel, so it’s fine if you prefer not to.
Running a panel involves directing a discussion on one of the topics chosen by members. We ask for panelists in advance, so that members can choose which panel topic they’d like to run, and to give them time to prepare for it. You don’t have to be super-organized in advance, but it’s helpful if you run one with some knowledge of the topic and a few questions you’d like to pose. We’ll be giving panelists a handout with useful tips on how best to run a panel.
The convention will feature a virtual exhibit hall, where exhibitors each have a “booth.” Anyone who is a member of the convention can set up a booth in advance, and it can include video, images, and links to your website or store on another site. There will be an interactive virtual exhibition where you can meet and talk to visitors if you wish, but this is not compulsory. Your booth can also be accessed through a webpage.
To set up a booth, register for the convention and make sure you are logged in, and you will have the option to create a booth.
We are absolutely fine with adult work, but there will be under 18s present at the event, as well as adults who prefer not to see explicit content. You will be asked when setting up your booth to indicate whether it includes any adult (NSFW) content, and we ask that you say yes if there is any adult work. It will then only be visible to those who wish to see it.
If you have a mixture of non-explicit and adult content, you may wish to set up two booths, so that your non-explicit work is visible to those who do not elect to view NSFW booths.
Absolutely! Any member of the convention can set up a virtual booth in the exhibit hall, which can feature video, images, downloadable files and links to external sites. You can chat with visitors to your booth and host live interactive sessions.
To make everything easier, we do not handle sales ourselves, but you are welcome to link from a booth in the convention to as many external sites (e.g. Etsy, Redbubble, etc.) as you like.
To get set up, just make sure you are registered for the convention and then you can create a booth. Your booth can feature as many videos, images, downloadable files and links as you like.
Cosplay is the act of dressing up in costume. Cosplayers generally come as a character from the book or show. While members can cosplay at any time, Saturday evening is when we hold a cosplay contest.
The cosplay contest has six categories, which you can enter by submitting a photograph. There is also a cosplay show for those who want to show their cosplay non-competitively. The deadline for submission is 2nd October 2021. Full details and submission forms are available here.
Not at all – some people choose to dress up just because.
No, cosplaying is entirely optional.
A zine (from ‘magazine’) is a collection of stories and artwork produced by fans for fans. We produce a zine for the convention as a celebration of the creativity of the fandom. Anyone can participate, and the zine will be available free of charge as a digital download during the convention. If you wish to participate, submission information is available on the Zine page.
The vid show is a collection of videos produced by fans. Usually these are edited scenes from the show set to music, although handmade animation (animatics) have been gaining in popularity in recent years. If you are a vidder, you can see more information or submit to our vid show on the Vid Show page.
No, we’ll accept vids from non-members too! You’ll find everything you need to know about how to submit your vid on the Vid Show page.