My YALC Tips

It's nearly time for YALC!

For those of you that don't know, YALC is a young adult book convention at London Film & Comic Con. It's being held at Olympia, London between the 28th and 30th July.

Seeing as this will be my third time attending, I thought I would dispense my wisdom (that's assuming that I've gathered any).

Here are my tips for anyone attending YALC!

1. Take Food and Drink With You

 While food and drinks are sold at Olympia, it is cheaper to take food with you. There are supermarkets nearby if you do want to take food in with you.

2. Panels

The panels can get busy so be sure to get a seat as soon as you can.

I've attended a few panels that I wasn't sure I would enjoy and I found them interesting, so if you're not sure what to do then check out what panels are on. I've discovered several books thanks to the panels. 

3. Signings

The queues for the book signings can be VERY long. Last year I queued to see Victoria Schwab for about an hour (it was worth it) but if you can then queue for a signing as soon as possible. 

Unfortunately the authors generally do signings straight after their panels so there's a mad rush of people that have attended the panel to get to the signing queue. So I guess in that case the best thing to do is get a seat at the side and then make a run for it :)

If you can't get to a signing then authors are usually happy to sign books and talk to you while they're wandering around the floor. But be sure to check what days the authors are going to YALC for just in case you end up missing them.

4. The Schedule!

The YALC schedule can be found here.

I always print out a copy of the schedules and highlight which panels/signings I want to go to. 

There's lots going on this year that I'm looking forward to.

Authors I'm most looking forward to meeting: 

Samantha Shannon (this will be my fourth time seeing Samantha!) 
Victoria Schwab (this will be my second time) 

Elizabeth May

Lauren James (my second time)

Katherine Webber

 and Alwyn Hamilton (my second time).

The panels I'm most looking forward to: 

the SFF Now panel

the We Love Buffy panel (how cool is that?!)

and Genre-Bending.

5. Book Stalls

The books on the Waterstones stall are full price but they have some signed books and books that aren't sold at any of the other stalls. 

The publisher stalls all do sales on the Sunday and give away things that they were selling the previous days (I got a t-shirt for free from Electric Monkey). 
If there is a book that you really want to buy then I wouldn't leave it until Sunday for the sales to buy it just in case there aren't any copies left.

Also follow the publishers on Twitter throughout YALC as they give out secret passwords and limited ARCs.

And make sure to take CASH! There are cash machines nearby but they've always got big queues.

Are you going to YALC?
 

Which authors are you looking forward to meeting?