Report and Feedback on BiCon 2022

The purpose of this report is to help future teams run BiCons, and also to add community accountability. Some information from forms has been made vague to avoid identifiability.

Report compiled by Rowan, Natalya, Bethan and Anna.

Summary

BiCon 2022 was held on 11-14th August at Leeds Becket Headingley Campus. This venue was booked pre-Covid and the booking carried forward two years in a row. This meant this year’s team had no choice of venue, which saved the work of sourcing a venue but meant we had to adapt the booking to the current situation when fewer people booked than previously planned.

Attendees

Booked	195
Cancelled	16
Attended	180
Stayed on Site	107 (59%)
Online only	32 (18%)

Summary of attendees

Financial

See summary of accounts for more details.

BiCon 2022 expected to make a loss as we knew we would have fewer people than when the venue was booked pre-Covid. In the end we made a very small surplus. This was due to:

Team members choosing not to claim expenses (In accounts as donations.)
Not needing an event nanny due to parents deciding not to bring children
Negotiating a better deal with the venue for our smaller numbers
Some generous donations to the Access Fund also mean that there is a surplus which will be ring fenced for Access Fund in future

This year we used a new booking system which used Stripe rather than Paypal. This worked very smoothly although some people needed to pay in other ways which we allowed. We recommend using this system again as it was very straightforward to use with minimal training.

Sliding scale summary

Band (disposable income per month)	£0	< £50	£50 – £100	£100 – 200	£200 – 300	£300 +	Org+ support
Total bookings	23%	8%	19%	12%	7%	26%	4%
Residential	21%	10%	15%	13%	7%	28%	4%
Non-residential	27%	7%	17%	12%	5%	29%	2%
Online	25%	3%	34%	6%	9%	16%	6%

The BiCon Team

This year it was more difficult to find and form a team than it was before Covid, and a few people dropped out or significantly changed their roles over time and some people needed significantly more support to do their roles in part because community expertise has been lost. The person who would have been in charge of the desk couldn’t attend in the end which meant there was no-one onsite with an overview of desk jobs and able to manage gofers effectively. In hindsight the team should have recruited a replacement desk/site manager and more people to help with online aspects of the hybrid event. As always it was also hard to get the necessary post-BiCon jobs done as people were burnt out.

Team Roles

Anna	Tech
Bethan	Team leader, welfare, comms, venue (etc!)
Daria	Finance
David	Bookings, tech, sessions
Fennec	Logo, t shirts
Katy	Ents, room allocation, comms
Olli	Listening team
Rachel	Anti racism
Ruth	Comms
Sophie	Venue liaison, Public speaking
Yvonne	Local/venue, comms
Rowan (advisory)	Advisor

Team feedback

Venue and Accessibility

BiCon was run face to face at Leeds Beckett Headingley campus using five workshop rooms plus a bar and games space across a distance of 340 metres. Breakfast was included for people who booked accommodation.

Venue staff were responsive and friendly and overall people enjoyed the small site which we had to ourselves. Due to heatwave conditions some rooms were very hot and the games room was underused in part because of this. Some sessions were moved outside, both because of the heat and for Covid related reasons. Other venue issues included bitty and annoying access to wifi which needed to be logged into repeatedly.

We are aware of issues with access regarding:

Excessively heavy fire doors.
Use of the grassy area for some meetings/picnics was less accessible for people with mobility impairments.
Unreliable lifts meant some people had to go a long way round through other flats to access their rooms.
Distance between buildings (particularly the breakfast dining room and bar from the accommodation.)
Kitchen doors set off loud piercing alarms when left open for even a short amount of time, which made it difficult for some disabled people given the length of time the doors needed to be kept open to allow people to get through. We feel the flats on the ground floor ought to have their alarmed doors turned off, so as to help people with wheelchairs be able to get out in case of a fire.
Building works created obstacles.
Narrow corridors made it harder for some.
The artist set up at the narrowest point near the bar making the way to the loo that would've been wheelchair accessible no longer accessible;
Wheelchair accessible rooms being so small attendees having to sleep with their bedroom doors open because they couldn't get the wheelchair in fully.
Insufficient food venues after 10am on site.

Venue positives commented on included:

Breakfast.
Accessible rooms.
Range of spaces for different needs.
Broadly positive comments about accessibility.

Blended aspect

BiCon 2022 was the first to combine in-person and online aspects. Online sessions were run via Zoom, Discord and Gather with David and Anna doing tech from face to face to online to online. There was overwhelming positive feedback about the blended aspect of BiCon. There was particular mention of the evident effort that had gone in, the inclusion of attendees who could not attend in person, set-up of Gather space, subtitles and spoons-preservation.

Blended and online sessions were also accessed by people who were physically at BiCon, which was an advantage for people who were e.g. too tired or uncertain about attending them in person.

A future team could attract many more online attendees with the correct publicity. This year the Team decided to focus their energies on the in-person event, in part because we needed to fill the previously booked accommodation and also because it was the first in-person event for some time.

The tech used to run the blended sessions was:

A laptop with zoom installed.
A paid Zoom account (we had at least two available, Bicon Continuity Ltd’s and one belonging to the team.)
A separate webcam.
A separate 360-degree microphone (we had a Yeti Nano and a Jabra, both provided by the team.)

This tech proved adequate for the blended sessions we ran, with online participants being generally able to hear everyone in the room.

A variety of different session types were run blended. Aside from the issues noted below in the ‘obstacles to overcome’ these ran as well as a similar in person session. Successfully run sessions included:

A powerpoint presentation in the lecture theatre with a Q and A.
A ‘sit round in a circle’ discussion in a session room.
A presentation and wider discussion in a session room.
A discussion held outdoors within WiFi range of one of the buildings.
An in-person presentation streamed from the venue where the audience was purely online.
Open laptop with webcam covering a clearly delineated part of the Ball and open chat.
The opening, closing and announcements sessions.
The Decision-Making session.

Setting up the Zoom links in advance and publicising them took around 1-2 hours per day. This should be factored into planning for any BiCon that has an online component, whether purely online or blended.

Blended obstacles to overcome

The blended aspect doubles or triples the tech/facilitation needs – which means we can still do it, but people need to step up and be trained to tech/facilitate and handle dual sessions well. David and Anna did an amazing job, but this was not a two person job, and they were massively overworked.

All online or blended sessions should have a separate tech person, which would mean recruiting people that session facilitators are happy to work with. We recommend continuing to offer facilitators a choice of whether to offer in person, online or blended session, with the chance to run repeat sessions (one online and one in-person). We recommend having a pool of at least three tech people per session stream, to allow for flexibility and rotation of tech staff.

There were lots of mentions of wifi/phone signal issues in feedback, and this affected the blended sessions. Venue wifi kicked us out after 8 hours (we spoke to the venue about this and it couldn’t be changed), and one building didn’t have any wifi access. In future ascertain time before wifi kickout, and plan around if possible. This was very disruptive.

Audio issues especially in the lecture theatre. To some extent it is inevitable that this will happen at least once. There was a suggestion for Continuity to pay for a BiCon microphone, teams should check whether this would be technically or cost effective and if done there should be clear plans for how to store and pass it on to future teams.

Although online presentations generally worked, the cameras used in the session rooms did not pick up writing on the whiteboards at all well, meaning that they were not visible to people attending online. We therefore recommend against using whiteboards or flip charts in blended sessions. It is possible that an online whiteboard could have been used, but we didn’t have time to test this at the event, and so we can’t say whether this might have had its own problems.

Anti-racism policy

As agreed in previous BiCon DMPs we required all attendees to have completed anti-racism training (with an exemption for People of Colour). We accepted evidence that people had attended previous trainings, and set up new training for those who had not. This could be done by watching the video of the previous training and sending in/discussing comments, by attending online training, or by attending a session in the morning of the Friday or Saturday of BiCon. We were clear that no-one could attend any part of BiCon without completing the training.

Our original online trainers cancelled at very late notice, and we are very grateful that the Equality Network offered training in their stead. We are also particularly grateful to Rachel on the team for ensuring that every attendee had received training, including new attendees (97 of the eventual 179 attendees).

Those who attended the trainings reported overwhelmingly positively on them.

A couple of people complained about needing to complete anti-racism training. People who complained were told not to come to the event (and refunded as a way to quickly end any debate). Future teams should use the pre-ban option more liberally, as it made the event itself much more pleasant.

There were a few complaints about the anti-racism policy on social media, including one that ended with Bethan saying she wouldn’t engage in the discussion, and the complainer saying that the team leader should be informed about how bad the social media lead was. He did not know that Bethan was both.

There was low engagement with anti-racism training until it was made clear that those who had not engaged with training would not be able to attend. We observed some push-back from previous attendees who considered their personal opinions of themselves as not being racist as reason enough to not attend training. We are happy that we stood firm on this issue.

Anti-racism outcomes

Of those who booked 10% were People of Colour (compared with around 15% in the UK as a whole). We have got a lot of work to do to earn back the trust that we lost previously, and the anti-racism training is part of this long term plan.

We believe it is the continued responsibility of white people at BiCon to make it safer for People of Colour.

This year we chose to offer a refund if racism was experienced, as no-one should have to pay to be in a racist space. This was following guidance from previous discussion groups. No-one asked for a refund in 2022, and no racist incidents were reported to us, but we know that does not mean that there were none. Future teams should continue to encourage reports, including those where those affected do not want any action to be taken.

Covid policy

Our policy was:

Everyone should provide proof of Covid vaccination or of medical exemption.
Everyone needed to show a negative LFT test on the door.
We asked people to stay masked in common spaces indoors unless exempt (no proof needed).

We decided to have the hard line that we did because so many clinically vulnerable people have been unable to attend in-person events for two years, and we wanted to create a safer space for them to do so. There was lots of thanks for the Covid policies from feedback and at the event.

After BiCon we had one person report a positive Covid test who may have been contagious at the event, but no other reports. There was a risk in holding an in-person BiCon that it may have become a spreader event, and we are delighted that this doesn’t seem to have been the case.

A couple of people complained in email about needing to follow the Covid policy. With this and with our anti-racism policy we tried to explain our policy but refused to enter into debate about the rights and wrongs of it. People who complained were told not to come to the event and were refunded. Future teams should feel free to use this option more liberally, as it made the event itself much more pleasant.

There were a few complaints about the Covid policy on social media. We do not believe these people went on to buy tickets.

We did receive three complaints in the feedback questionnaire about times the policy wasn’t enforced during ents. Not all the people on the indoor dancefloor wore masks, and when offered, they declined to wear them. This could have been handled differently by someone being indoors early on enforcing masks. If future teams decide to have a mask policy we would recommend a few people on the team taking responsibility for enforcement.

Conduct

We kept to the same content as the previously agreed Code of Conduct with a few more examples of behaviour. Closer to the event we edited the CoC in response to community comments to make it easier to understand. We published an audio version as well as publicising the plain English edits.

The guidelines say “BiCon should have a clearly communicated system in place to deal with incidents at the event and to allow people to report harassment, discrimination and other incidents anonymously, plus a system for passing a conduct report to the next year's team (via BiCon Continuity for safeguarding).”

We did this by allowing people to report breaches online, in person, by SMS, phone or email or by using the organisers postbox, which could be anonymous. We had reports forms for issues and for complaints.

We had a small behaviour team recruited from trusted team and non-team members, and all desk staff were told how to contact them in case of complaints. In the end we only received one minor conduct complaint. We issued no warnings or bans. We are also aware that one person briefly “visited” BiCon without booking or doing anti-racism training, but by the time the team became aware there was an issue the person was already leaving the site.

We received a summary of previous bans and issues from Continuity verbally in order to protect people’s privacy. One person had their booking cancelled after we were informed they had been banned from other groups as a consequence of behaviour complaints.

Sessions

Session feedback was very positive. Session runners should be very proud of what they offered. In the “What was your least favourite session?” feedback question, 28% of the responses were “N/A”, 15% the DMP, and the other options had one vote for each least favourite session. This spread of data suggests a variation in taste rather than a problem that needs to be fixed. More newbie sessions would be nice, but we would need volunteers to take these on.

There was some feedback about session facilitators being inexperienced. This is inevitable given that we rely on volunteers and there haven’t been in-person BiCons due to Covid. It might help if future teams offer facilitation training.

There were 60 suggestions in feedback for sessions to repeat. We will pass these on to future teams, but we will need more facilitators to make them happen.

In feedback we had an equal number of requests for more poly or kink sessions, and for fewer. This has always been a tricky one to balance. On the one hand, it is important to have some poly and kink content at BiCon because so many attendees are part of these communities. On the other hand, there are specific conferences for polyamory & BDSM. We believe our session lead did a good job at balancing the need for these with the need for people who want a focus on bisexuality and not poly or kink.

Ents

See feedback about ents for more details. This year we originally budgeted to pay for performers but Ents lead chose to focus on different aspects (including ball & picnic).

Demographics Questionnaire

BiCon 2022 collected demographic data as an optional extra after the online booking. Registrants were told how this data would be used and why this is helpful to both BiCon 2022 and BiCons in general.

(We had 17 registrations cancelled or rejected, and we do not know how many of these filled in the demographic questionnaire.)

There were 108 responses. Most questions could be left blank, 'prefer not to say' was often an option and many questions could allow more than one answer.

To avoid identifiability of individuals with minority characteristics attending BiCon 2022, we have limited how much intersectional data we are sharing and where between 1 and 5 people gave a particular response, we are describing this as "5 or fewer". Where zero people replied we have recorded that as 0.

Some percentages will not add up to 100% because of multiple answers, handling of 'fewer than 5' responses, and rounding answers to the nearest whole number percentage.

Age

All 108 respondents of the demographic questionnaire answered the age question. No under 18s answered this questionnaire but we know that we had a small number, probably fewer than 5 attending BiCon.

Age demographics in numbers and percentages

Age range	Number	Percentage %
Under 18	0	0%
18-24 yrs	<5	< 5%
25-34 yrs	21	19%
35-44 yrs	49	45%
45-54 yrs	26	24%
55-64 yrs	5	5%
65 yrs +	< 5	< 5%

Disability

All 108 respondents answered the disability question.
34 people (32%) said they were not disabled.
5 or fewer people 'preferred not to say'.
71 people (66% of respondents) shared that they were disabled.
41 of those 71 disabled people (62%) selected more than one kind of impairment group so the breakdown percentages won't add up to 100%.
27 disabled people (38%) shared only having one impairment (mostly in the mental illness or physical impairment categories).
For ‘Other’ 11 people added more detail in the free text field.

Table of disability and impairment group demographics

Impairment group	Number	Percentage % of respondents
Mental illness	45	42%
Other (including: heart condition, diabetes, migraine, neurological conditions, chronic fatigue)	33	31%
Autism spectrum condition	31	29%
Physical impairment	27	25%
Dyslexia or other specific learning difficulty/difference	25	23%
Deafness or hearing impairment	7	6%
Blindness or sight impairment	< 5	< 5%
No disability	34	32%

Faith

107 people answered the faith question. 11 chose 2 or more answers. More than 5 people selected agnostic and atheist together. Fewer than 5 people 'preferred not to say'. For ‘Other’ 9 people filled in the free text box with more detail.

Faith	Number	Percentage %
Agnostic	27	25%
Atheist	40	38%
Buddhist	6	6%
Christian	8	8%
Jewish	< 5	< 5%
Pagan	12	11%
Other (including Quaker, spiritual, Unitarian, Humanist and Baha'i)	18	17%
Prefer not to say	<5	< 5%

Gender

There were 106 responses to the gender question. We have used "with further detail" to indicate where something else was said or more than one gender descriptor was used.

Fewer than 5 people for each of these options indicated their gender identity was unclear or they were questioning, used a term like 'demi' + another term, indicated multi-gender identity or described their gender as 'queer'.

Gender identity	Number	Percentage %
Woman or female in some way	48 8 with further detail	45% total 38% woman/female only 17% with further detail
Man or male in some way	26 <5 with further detail	25% 20% man/male only 19% with further detail
Nonbinary or genderqueer	24 6 with further detail	23% 25% with further detail

Are you trans?

103 people answered this question. Comments included identifying as both cis and trans, neither cis or trans, "not sure" or described themselves as intersex or queer.

Trans/cis/other identity	Number	Percentage %
Cisgender	61	59%
Transgender	30	29%
Other	12	12%

Race or ethnicity

103 people responded to this question which was a free-form text field for people to write in their preferred terms.

Race/ethnicity	Number	Percentage %
White/Caucasian total	92	89%
People who indicated non-white race/ethnicity – total	10	10%
Black African or West Indian/Caribbean	<5	<5%
Mixed ethnicity	<5	<5%
White European	6	6%

49 wrote White British. 21 people wrote "white" with no other information. 16 people indicated Scottish/Irish/Welsh in addition to being white. 6 people indicated European alongside being white.

For people racialised as ethnic minorities, there were so few responses that it is impossible to give much breakdown without identifying individuals. BiCon recognises we still have work to do to build-trust with People of Colour to make BiCon safe to attend as well as BiCon being transparent about the purpose and use of demographics monitoring data.

Sexual orientation

All 108 respondents answered this question.

Sexual orientation	Number	Percentage %
Bisexual total	96	89%
Just bisexual	80	74%
Other	18	17%
Asexual (most with at least 1 other descriptor)	9	8%

Other descriptors used included pan/pansexual, biromantic, demi, grey, poly, and queer.

100 people responded to this question which was a free textbox.

Social class is complicated even when most respondents are from the UK. People's own self-identities in the area of class are complex and intersect with other characteristics. Many responses described transition across class boundaries or commented on disparities between their social class and financial stability or wealth. Several people mentioned intersections of disability or estrangement from family of origin impacting their financial and therefore effects on class status.

Social class	Number	Percentage %
Middle class mention (total)	63	63%
Working class mention (total)	30	30%
Mixed class mention	14	14%
Upper class, upper middle class, or indicating well off financial status	9	9%
Indicating low income, financially dependent, social security for income	10	10%

Feedback

77 responses overall

Attendance

75 responses to 'Which parts of BiCon 2022 did you attend?' including 11 online total. Fewer than 5 people attended for just one-day or just Fri/Sat or Sat/Sun in total.

Day	In-person	Online	Total
Thursday	54	0	54
Friday	59	8	67
Saturday	61	11	73
Sunday	54	10	64

Staying in on-site accommodation

51 respondents stayed in on-site accommodation. Fewer than 5 did not stay for all of Thursday to Sunday.

16 in-person attenders reported staying somewhere off-site.

There was one complaint in feedback that BiCon allowed people to put names down of people to share with, and allocated based on that – without any checking if the other person was okay with that.

Number of BiCons attended

76 people responded to how many BiCons attended.

1	18 people
2	8 people
3	8 people
4	7 people
5—9	16 people
10—14	7 people
15+	8 people

Where people live

Fewer than 5 people indicated they lived outside of the UK

Attending future BiCons

77 people responded, only 4% said they would not come to a future BiCon.

Comments on attending future BiCons included:

Felt quite expensive
Hung out with established friends and struggled to make new connections
First BiCon, didn't know what to expect and had hoped for more bi-identity/experience exploration.
Paid for but did not attend BiCon (Unclear if online or in-person) unhappy:
- Too much poly/kink stuff.
- Not enough political, cultural or current affairs, especially with anti-racism training.
- Over-focused on young people.
- Programme came out too late
Not sure there will be future BiCons to attend

General BiCon

Rating BiCon overall

Rating from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) – 75 responses.

Rating BiCon	In-person	Online	Total	Total % of responses
5 (Excellent)	38	0	38	50%
4	23	9	32	43%
3	3	2	5	7%
2	0	0	0	0%
1 (poor)	0	0	0	0%

93% of people rated BiCon 4 or 5, and none rated it 1 or 2.

Comments on BiCon overall

Positive comments included that people valued being able to attend online because of disabilities, distance from the venue, and difficulties wearing masks.

“Felt safe and happy in an otherwise hostile world”

“It felt like a "proper bicon" even though I was online. Thank you for including me.”

“The extension of checkout and the free breakfasts …were an incredible achievement by the team to get this, well done and appreciated. The uni staff at breakfast were welcoming, offered to carry my tray (disability), such a fantastic provision and delivery.”

“I am extremely glad that you had a clear and strict Covid policy! Without requiring all attendees to be vaccinated, have a negative LFT and wear masks indoors, I would have either not attended at all or felt very uncomfortable when around many other attendees.”

[What was your favourite part of BiCon 2022?] “Being in a space where I can play around with my gendered presentation and feel completely confident that everyone present will accept and welcome me, no matter what.”

“Thank you all for the hard work in running what seems to be a chaotic beast of a convention”

Under the question ‘In your own words, tell us – "BiCon 2022 was…..’, the vast majority of the 70 comments were positive, with only a few more negative comments about the heat and a few about communications and accessibility. Positive comments for this question included:

“A warm fuzzy hug”

“a welcoming weekend to connect to the diverse bi community, meet new friends and share ideas and experiences”

“Awesome beyond words”

“relaxing, exhilarating, infuriating. Perfect”

“Fantastic – like awakening to my full self after the last couple of years”

“A great place to meet like minded individuals and attend events of interest or learn more about bi related areas of interest”

“a balm for my queer soul”

“Welcoming, accessible and diverse”

“Fricking awesome! Inclusive, kind, welcoming and super friendly.”

“Mind-expanding”

“An amazing experience, almost like a parallel universe for a weekend where everyone accepts you for who you are, is welcoming and friendly.”

“A hot mess, in a good way.”

Some less positive comments included about communications in advance and during the event:

“disappointed with the extreme lateness of discovering it was a hybrid event and not just in-person…The knock-on effect of having a tiny group of online-only made a big difference to the feel of the event and to how included I felt in BiCon”

“Earlier in the year, BiCon ran a survey for neurodivergent people about accessibility. I saw this on discord, but only after it had closed, because I'm not very active on discord. It hadn't been shared on twitter or sent out by email…. It felt exclusionary.”

“the information before the event was not disseminated nearly enough on all the platforms where BiCon is present”

“I mentioned accessibility needs on my registration form, and no one got in touch about them. I emailed with an accessibility need and never got a reply.”

“I think the team did a great job to get the event going but do wonder where some of the progress we made in the last few years went, especially with communications from the team.”

“While I personally get the need to reduce paper, a large timetable on the noticeboard with updates would've been helpful, especially with the Internet/signal issues. It was hard to keep on track at times.”

“The timetable being online made me anxious and unable to check it quickly and often things I wanted to do would be too early or on at the same time.”

27 general comments thanked the team or said the team did a great job.

Other less positive comments included:

“…I think I would struggle to explain where BiCon fits into the wider bi community. I was hoping to talk to bi friends about it and encourage them to come along next year but it felt a niche group within the community rather than a diverse coming together of the bi community with different backgrounds and experiences.”

“it can be a little disconcerting to have made a commitment to volunteer / structured your day to fit it, and the be told you're not needed”

“DMP didn’t stick to time which caused me anxiety”

“The tension around the AGM and decision making sessions was very noticeable that whole afternoon and put a negative atmosphere in the air”

“I know the heat couldn't be helped.. I do hope the next venue will have better ventilation and/or insulation.”

“…it was a lovely event and I felt welcome, I just didn't feel like I belonged as a young, working class disabled queer and struggled because of this.”

“Sparse – not enough going on for online attendees, not enough online attendees to have a social feel in our meets”

Accommodation rating

There were 52 responses including 1 who did not stay in the on-site accommodation.

Rating Accommodation	Responses	Percentage %
5 (Excellent)	17	33%
4	26	50%
3	8	15%
2	1	2%
1 (poor)	0	0%

Comments about the accommodation included:

“…never once seen a con give people only access to their corridor and nowhere else, it made things so difficult. It's a social event, people want to visit each other.”

“…several of my flatmates struggled with opening the kitchen door/their bedroom doors…. we tried keeping it open, but it beeped/screamed at us (which really bothered me & my fellow autistics).”

“It was a shame that the lift in the accommodation was temperamental but this is not BiCon's fault – more feedback for the host.”

Daytime Sessions

Sessions attended

74 responses.

Number of sessions	Responses	Percentage %
1	7 (1 online)	9%
2	4 (1 online)	5%
3	13 (1 online)	18%
4	11 (2 online)	15%
5	12 (1 online)	16%
6	13 (1 online)	18%
7	6 (2 online)	8%
8	4	5%
9	2 (1 online)	3%
10 or more	2 (1 online)	3%

Most people attended between 3 and 6 workshops.

Sessions facilitated or helped with

75 responses

Number of sessions	Responses	Percentage %
0 (none)	50 (including all 11 online respondents)	67%
1	13	17%
2	11	15%
3	1	1%

Rating of sessions overall

73 responses.

Session ratings	Responses	Percentage %
5 (Excellent)	28 (1 online)	39%
4	41 (7 online)	56%
3	3 (1 online)	4%
2	1 online only	1%
1 (Poor)	0	0%

Comments on the sessions include a lot on the problems with wifi.

Evening Ents

Rating of Ents

68 responses.

Ents ratings	Responses	Percentage %
5 (Excellent)	28	41%
4	33 (3 online)	49%
3	5 (3 online)	7%
2	2 (1 online)	3%
1 (Poor)	0	0%

Comments on the ents

The ball was mentioned as among the favourite parts of Bicon for 19 people and as their least favourite part for one (who attended online). Other parts of the ents that were mentioned among favourite parts of Bicon were Patrick’s gig, the sketching and the silent disco. When asked ‘Best thing about evening events?’, these were all mentioned multiple times, plus the music at the ball, the decoration, the outfits, the atmosphere and the variety of entertainments available. Several people liked the chance to socialise in a socially distanced way and in quieter spaces, and many online attendees were pleasantly surprised by the experience of attending the ball online. Some in-person attendees liked the chance to connect with those attending the ball online. And many liked seeing everyone enjoying themselves.

Some comments on what people liked about the ents:

“The atmosphere at the ball was magical.”

“Their existence, the effort put in. The sheer exhortation of the validation of their existence.”

“Not feeling out of place when I didn't dress up”

“The music was amazing as it always is. Every DJ got me happy & excited, thanks so much, I don't know how you do it!”

Comments under ‘Least favourite thing about evening events?’ included some who didn’t like the silent disco, though most just said it wasn’t their thing, comments on the temperature, lack of mask wearing indoors, and audio problems with the online ball.

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