There’s still time to book for BiCon, in fact you can turn up on the Friday morning and buy a ticket for the whole weekend (or just the day!).

But the time has come for us to stop taking reservations for bedrooms on-site, as we need to finalise the details with the venue.

This does not mean that BiCon has “sold out” or is “full” – if you’ve not booked yet then we’d love to see you, whether you’re staying at a nearby hotel (such as this), with friends or coming in daily by train, bus, car or bicycle!

BiCon is fast approaching, less than one month to go! There’s still time to register, or you can just turn up on the day – we’ll be welcoming both one day and full weekend attendees. If you do want to register in advance and book accommodation on site then please hurry! Our deadline for reserving accommodation for you is this weekend!

If you’ve already registered you should have received our first update bulletin - if you haven’t please check which email address you gave us, look in your spam filters, or read it online!

We’ve told you what’s happening in the evenings, but so far we’ve only hinted at the daytime schedule for BiCon’s many sessions and discussions. Now it’s time to reveal all, or at least – all as it currently stands.

Organising all the offered sessions into a programme grid is a massive job, but we’re ready to show you how it looks at the moment. This is the provisional schedule.

There’s gaps, it’s true – but we’re still getting in offers of sessions (the deadline for those is August 1st). We’ll hope to fill in those gaps (and do as little rearranging of the rest as we can) before BiCon starts. Want to see the final version? Come to BiCon!

Sunday night at BiCon is going to be a little different – we’re having coronations! The team behind previous successful Drag Coronations (recently including Ladyfest in Seville) are bringing some glamour to BiCon and you are invited to take part in the ceremony, “Coronation III”

The organisers tell us, “There’s going to be a daytime session to invent the titles and arrange the script, you can be as wild and creative as you like and reinvent yourselves as any historical, futuristic or fantastic character of any gender likely to be invited to a ceremony of this kind. These would include pagan priestesses, Church of Euthanasia Saints, pacifist admirals, Starship comanders, extraterrestrial aristocracy, decadent dignitaries, Drag Kings and Queens. If you think you’d like to participate, please bring costumes and props for your chosen role or character!”

There’s also going to be music and dancing, until midnight.

We’ve had a lot of demand for the accommodation at BiCon, so much so that we’re extending the booking deadline and getting ready to book more bedrooms – so there’s still time and there’s still space!

To ensure you have a bedroom on-site in the heart of BiCon you now need to book before the end of July, and pay in full before BiCon itself.

Applications for our ‘Helping Hand Fund’ should also be made ASAP to bookings@bicon2010.org.uk, although we will do our best to help people who’ve not been to BiCon before to attend whenever they get in touch.

This year’s BiCon is not only host to the International Conference on Bisexuality but also BiReCon, the bisexual research conference. This year’s BiReCon is the first international one, and the schedule can now be revealed.

Remember, that’s just the first day of our event. We’ve still got plenty of spaces but our accommodation deadline is fast approaching – it’s the 10th of July.

We know that an important part of the UK BiCon is the social side, a chance to relax and continue those fascinating conversations you’ve been having all day. And we’re proud of the standard set by previous BiCons with regard to evening entertainment.

This year we’re pleased to announce that the Saturday night we’re hosting a ceilidh! If you don’t know what one of those is, it’s a chance to enjoy live music and participate in some traditional Scottish dances.

It’ll be followed by more dancing, as we turn over the bar to DJs from the bi community itself.

We aren’t ready to announce what we have lined up for Friday and Sunday nights yet (we’re still putting the finishing touches to those) but we can confirm that our evening entertainment programme will run from 7pm to midnight each night (Friday to Sunday), and all the events are already included in the BiCon registration – there’s no extra tickets to buy!

Currently we’re pricing our overseas registrations in dollars and euros as the same as our UK prices in pounds sterling. We decided to do this to make our pricing structure immediately understandable to people in other countries. Because of the exchange rate, this works out as a discount for people paying in those currencies.

Recent changes in the exchange rates have meant that we need to bring this to a close – we can’t afford to keep discounting our prices. So on the 12th of May we’ll be switching the registration system to pounds sterling only for new registrations.

If you’ve already registered in full by then, then you won’t need to give us any more money to make up the difference. And if you’ve part paid, we’ll remember what currency you’re using and keep your price as it was. This only affects new registrations that start paying after the 12th.

So – if you want to take advantage of this discount, register this week! And if you don’t need to then don’t worry – we’ll still be taking registrations right up to the event itself (accommodation booking deadline is July 10th if you want a room on site).

It’s Oxford BiFest tomorrow, and we’re going to be there taking registrations. So we thought it was time to update you all with how it’s going.

We’re up to 100 registrations already, with over a fifth of those from overseas – which is great news. If you’re thinking of registering, please remember we’re happy to take instalments!

We’re now taking submissions and suggestions for sessions. Please email those to programming@bicon2010.org.uk.

And finally, we’re going to be bringing along the test batch of the pin-badges based on our fabulous logo to Oxford BiFest to see if people like them. As if you needed an extra reason to go!

August is getting closer by the second. We want to make this the best BiCon ever, and we can’t do that without you. You are what makes BiCon the wonderful community event that it is, and we want to make it a great event for all of us. A number of people have already given us great suggestions for sessions, but we need more!

We want to hear session ideas from as many people as possible, and yes, it is perfectly fine to suggest sessions you want to see other people do (although if you would be okay with being asked to run a session that’s even better!). In particular, if there were sessions at past BiCons that really made the event for you, we want to know. If there were things that you would have liked to have seen differently, we want to know. New sessions that have never been run and you have no idea if they’re even possible? We Want To Know! The more feedback we get the more incredible a program we all will have.

So please send your bicon2010 programming ideas to: Programming@bicon2010.org.uk