Interaction regrets to announce the cancellation of the previously advertised preview of the latest anime from Hayao Miyazaki, “Howl’s Moving Castle".

Whilst Interaction had received the support of Studio Ghibli in presenting this preview, we have unfortunately not been able to obtain permission from the UK theatrical distributor whose agreement is also required.

Interaction will be continuing with the remainder of its anime programme as planned, including showings of recent movies Appleseed and Interstella 5555 as detailed in press release 36.

Looking for some fun. Want to brighten up a few days, well we have the job for you.

But seriously folks, for anyone who is in and around Glasgow in the days leading up to Interaction we would appreciate all help to set up the convention. This would be during the days of Mon, Tues and Wednesday with Tues and Wed being the busiest. There will be lots for all to do. It is a great way to meet people and see how it is all put together. So please if you have time pop along.

Alice Lawson & and Move-In Team

Interaction is pleased to announce that its provisional programme schedule is now available online for download in PDF format
from http://www.interaction.worldcon.org.uk/program.htm.

Key events include Guest of Honour events at 2pm on Friday (Jane Yolen), Saturday (Robert Sheckley represented by Gail Dana) and Sunday (Christopher Priest) and Fan Guest of Honour events at 3.30pm on Friday (Greg Pickersgill) and Saturday (Lars Olov Strandberg); the premiere of GamerZ on Thursday night; the Interaction play Lucas Back In Anger on Friday night; the Masquerade on Saturday night and the Hugo Awards Ceremony on Sunday night. The programme also includes over 500 further hours of panels, talks, video and anime presentations spread across some 15 parallel streams and featuring several hundred programme participants.

While this schedule reflects Interaction’s best intentions at this time, changes may occur at short notice due to unforeseen events and programme participants appear subject to professional commitments. Those intending to attend for specific items are urged to check before making travel arrangments. Updates will be posted to the Web site as available.

Some information about the Interaction media programme is now on our web site.

Due to the need to complete the processing of all pre-registered memberships before the start of the convention, we will not be accepting postal memberships via our US office after 20th July. You can, of course, still join online.

The last of our pre-convention pubications, Armadillo Dreams #3, is now in the mail. It contains all that important stuff about how the get to the con, where to find registration and so on. If you can’t wait for it to arrive, it is available online here. But…

IMPORTANT: For those of you who haven’t been to Worldcons much before, we use the mailing envelope for the final newsletter as our primary means of ID. Bring it with you. If you forget you may have to prove who you are when you get to registration.

Interaction is delighted to announce that we will be showing the premiere of gamerZ, a fantasy-themed comedy film produced in Glasgow. More details here.

Just like London buses, you wait forever and suddenly they all come along at once. We’ve just added over 200 programme participants to our web site. The name that will probably leap out at people is Anne McCaffrey, but we’ve added many other authors including Julie Bertagna, Donna Hanson, Graham Joyce, Katherine Kurtz, Glenda Larke, Kimmo Lehtonen, David Levine, Fiona McIntosh, Diana Paxson, Michael Swanwick and Freda Warrington

For comics fans we have Fiona Avery, Alan Grant and Bryan Talbot. We have artists such as Les Edwards, Fangorn, Sue Mason, Franz Miklis and Martina Pilcerova. There are famous critics such as Joan Gordon, Farah Mendlesohn and Gary K. Wolfe. We have Patrick Gyger of the Swiss SF Museum, Maison D’Ailleurs. And there are major figures from the publishing industry such as Malcolm Edwards, Tim Holman, Stephen Jones and David Pringle.

I’ve probably missed a whole bunch of famous people going through the list too, for which my apologies. But there are over 200 of them. And that’s just the additions.

Do you have pictures of people engaged in a Conspiracy? Specifically we are looking for pictures of the 1987 Worldcon held in Brighton and commonly known as Conspiracy. We’d love to have some for our Past Worldcons Exhibit. If you have some, please contact Peter Weston (pr.weston-at-btinternet.com).

The third and final issue of our pre-convention newsletter, Armadillo Dreams, is now available online here. This issue is currently at the printers and will be sent out by normal post, not the slow US bulk mail. However, it will still only arrive around 2 weeks before the convention so we have made it available online as soon as possible. It does contain important information, including that vital “how do I get there?” and “where is registration?” stuff.

Hi everyone. Just a friendly reminder that voting for this year’s Hugo Awards closes at midnight (British Summer Time) on July 8. That’s just over one week to go. If you want to find out how to vote, pop over to http://www.interaction.worldcon.org.uk/hugo.htm. There, you will find links to the Hugo shortlist as well as our online voting system. If you don’t want to vote electronically, you can download a ballot for printing out. But if you want to go that route, then get those ballots in the post NOW! We have to have them in our hands before the deadline to count them.

The winners will be announced at the Hugo Award Ceremony on Sunday August 7 2005.

Interaction is proud to announce that the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists (ASFA) will be presenting the Chesley Awards in Glasgow. Although the Chesleys are often presented at Worldcon, this is the first time that they have been presented outside of North America. More details here.

Pre-con registration rates end on June 30th. After that, at-the-door rates apply. If you don’t have your membership yet, buy now.

Thanks to our friends at NESFA Press and the Science Fiction Foundation, Interaction will be making available not one, not two, but three new books by/about our Guests of Honour. These will be:

“The Masque of Mañana” - a collection of short stories by Robert Sheckley
“Once Upon a Time (She Said)” - a collection of short stories, poems and essays by Jane Yolen
“Christopher Priest: The Interaction” - a collection of essays on the work of Christopher Priest

More details here.

Interaction is delighted to announce that we have secured a discount for members on admission to the Glasgow Science Centre (GSC - http://www.glasgowsciencecentre.org/). The GSC is located directly across the Clyde from the SECC/Moat House Hotel complex and is one of Scotland’s newest and most exciting attractions.

Each Interaction member is entitled to one voucher (available from the Information Desk) that entitles two-for-one entry (for two adults, one goes free; for adult and child, child goes free). This reduces the entry cost from £6.95 per person to under £3.50.

The tickets are for the Science Mall, the main interactive science exhibition. They do not include the IMAX cinema at the GSC, but they do allow Interaction members to attend a planetarium show for just £2 extra.

Interaction would like to thank the management of the GSC for making this generous offer possible.

More news from our site team:

As the number of unbooked rooms in our block continues to diminish, Interaction has made arrangements with Infotel, our housing agent, to provide bookings through the convention web page directly into the hotel reservations systems for a number of conveniently located hotels in a
variety of price ranges. Those rooms are available now, and should continue to be available after our blocks are filled.

As with rooms in the convention block, you can book these rooms via the special Worldcon booking page set up by Infotel at http://www.infotel.co.uk/worldcon/index.aspx.

Alternatively you can contact Infotel via email worldcon@infotel.co.uk or telephone +44 (0)1775 843403 Mon-Fri 9am-5pm BST.

Tickets for Interaction’s Friday Night Play have gone on sale to the public via our web site. Convention members can, of course, attend for free. However, members of the public may also buy tickets at £5 each.

Day memberships can now be purchased online.

Unfortunately, due to ongoing medical complications, Robert Sheckley will be unable to attend Interaction. Full details here.