The room party

 There's a thing that happens at Sherlockian weekends that's never on the program, sometimes planned, sometimes spontaneous, sometimes big, sometimes small . . . the room party.

A few friends decide to gather in someone's hotel room after the official program is over, do a little Sherlockian gossip, and just chat with a few like-minded folk, often into the wee hours. And while our newfound Zoom-based weekend programs have replicated the cocktail hour with some free-form chat rooms, nobody has really come up with a substitute for the room party yet.

Having a private online party might come across as gatekeeping to some, which is a big difference from the "whoever happened to be around" sort of gathering at a hotel-based event. You aren't expected to announce to the whole joint, "Hey, everybody! Party in my room!" because that could just be a disaster. Plus, you've suddenly hit cocktail party level again.

Sooooo, it you're going to the Left Coast Sherlockian Symposium today and you're reading this blog, I'm going to invite you to my room party after the symposium is done. I want to record a little audio for the Watsonian Weekly on the symposium, but the recorder isn't going to be running the whole time, as there are always things to discuss we don't want on the record. I'll be starting my little room party at 8 PM Central Standard Time, and I'll send you the Zoom details if you email me. If you don't know my e-mail address, you can try "podcast at johnhwatsonsociety dot com." (Not making this easy, am I?)

This is something of an experiment, to see if we can get just the right number of folks for a proper post-symposium room party. There's a few hours of cocktail party chat before 8 PM CST, so I don't think most folks will feel the need for more. Heck, nobody at all might show up. I have no idea how many people are going to today's event, what time zone they're in, or who reads this quick enough to know this is going on.

But, hey, that's what make these things fun, right? And we're all still figuring out the tools for remote Sherlockian connection that we'll probably be using long after this pandemic is over.

So, long distance room party? Let's see what happens.