Our good friend and Panopticon superemo Mr Andrew Beech has very kindly put us in the picture on the status on the new Panopticon events and their place within fandom.

The DWAS subsidiary company ‘DSL’ (Dominitemporal Services Limited), which ran PanoptiCon from 1988 onwards (and of which I was managing director), became independent of DWAS in 1993 and ran all subsequent events wholly separately – albeit continuing to support the DWAS by providing a platform for them at the event.

Some time after the PanoptiCon ‘hiatus’ became apparent (a couple of years after 2003) the DWAS created another company (“Space Rocket”) to run its own events, and it is that company which has been organising the ‘Tony Jordan-led’ Capitol events.

One of the reasons for the ‘Panopticon’ hiatus was my increasing workload for BBC Worldwide (now BBC Studios) – whose staff I joined shortly after PanoptiCon 2003. There was simply too much potential for significant conflicts of interest, and I considered it better at that time to support/work on the BBC’s own activities and events. Recent changes/developments (not least my ‘retirement’ from my BBC staff position – albeit I still work for them freelance) led me to contact the old Panopticon team and, with them (and some newer recruits) to re-enter the frame.

So the ‘new’ Panopticons are NOT associated with the DWAS, but ARE run by the original (1988-2003) team.

Ed – We will of course keep you fully up to date on all developments and future Panopticon events (the first of these is Panopticon Lite, see link) as we get them, and thank you very much to Andrew Beech for getting in touch.