Hi there. It's been a few years since I've attended KN. callalily may have more recent experiences, but I can respond to some of what you mention with what I last knew.
I've tried out a few different conferences - Killer Nashville, Thrillerfest, Bouchercon. For my current purposes, Bouchercon is the more affordable and it's improved a lot since I first attended. Lots of opportunities to socialize and attend panels (or keep socializing). You may want to check it out!
Wesley, sorry to hear about your experience with the critique that wasn't.
I think I last attended about three years ago, and the conference was becoming more disorganized. From this, it sounds as if it was perhaps the start of a trend.Hey! Sorry for the majorly delayed response. The conference was . . . a little chaotic in terms of planning. Apparently the lady who used be the admin and had organized the conference for the past ten years just left this year, so that probably explains it. I started to get the impression things might be messy weeks beforehand (I studied org management and used to be a management consultant, lol), so at least it didn't catch me off-guard. But I'm willing to admit it could be an anomaly. Rumor has it past years weren't like that.
This does sound like a change. The networking from the couple years that I attended was good, with hordes of people in the bar (spilling out of the bar, milling around the bar, circling the bar). I hope you had a chance to meet up with wonder!But I met some cool people and learned a few things. I will say, it seemed like a good number of people were local and just there for the day time so the "networking" cocktail hours and whatnot seemed a little light on people. And by Sunday, most of the people were gone. (I attended a panel on Sunday that had five people in the audience.) In my experience, the best thing about conferences is usually the casual interactions between scheduled events so I wish it had been a bit more conducive to that.
I've tried out a few different conferences - Killer Nashville, Thrillerfest, Bouchercon. For my current purposes, Bouchercon is the more affordable and it's improved a lot since I first attended. Lots of opportunities to socialize and attend panels (or keep socializing). You may want to check it out!
Wesley, sorry to hear about your experience with the critique that wasn't.