We are hosting a conference with ▫▫▫, in an old disused cinema. The air is mouldy and the wood is rotten and infested with insects. The turnout is bigger than expected. I recognise some people and want to meet others. I realise I have forgotten the notes and slides for my own talk, and there is not much time before i’m on. I start to write out a quick idea on paper, but two children in the crowd start fighting loudly. They are wearing very old and filthy white robes and have long unkempt hair as if they are not being taken care of. People laugh. I want this conference to be taken seriously. I add some notes to my talk idea, but i keep being distracted. ▓▓▓▓▓ is helping us with tech so i let him know i’ve forgotten the usb with my slides. ▵▵▵/▿▿▿▿▿ is sitting behind me and i ask to borrow a laptop to create the pitch. She jokes about how this always happens and gives me her laptop. ▒▒▒▒▒ is struggling to stand up from where she is sitting; her feet have become tangled in a red blanket on the floor. I am called to another room for some reason. The carpet in the hallways is filthy. I pass many people i’d love to talk to after my pitch. I arrive with ▓▓▓▓▓ in a completely empty conference roomand i forget why we came here. My talk is due to start and we won’t make it back to the main room in time. I am starting to panic. I ask ▓▓▓▓▓ if we can use the setup in this room to stream back to the main conference but he says it’s not set up that way. I have to run back. I circle back the way we came, but end up outside. I have to climb the main staircase. The steps are extremely step and there are insects all over them. The sky is a deep blue. I feel vertiginous near the top. My legs are burning and i hold onto the wooden rails to lieft myself further. They strain and move under my weight and i am worried one will snap into splinters, causing me to lose my balance before keeling backwards and falling such a long way. ☴☴☴ is behind me. We reach the top and the staircase has become narrow enough to only allow one person. The door at the top was once painted white, but much of this is now cracked and flaking away. It looks like an old kitchen door and is very out of place. Along the hallways, I notice a lot of people are walking against us, leaving the venue. It’s not late enough. We arrive back at the conference room and many people are standing up to leave. I walk to the front to start my talk and I realise none of the people sitting there are people I recognise. The crowd is unfamiliar. There is another conference on that is not mine. I am standing in front of them all and they are staring at me because I am an intruder. Why are they here? This was supposed to be my talk. I ask loudly what’s going on and a man with a very large face and a deep voice speaks up from the centre of the room. “This is mine” or something. He gets defensive, as if i am accusing him. I tell him “i know this isn’t your fault but that doesn’t mean it’s ok to talk to me like that” and i hear ▒▒▒▒▒ yell at me: “▤▤▤▤▤▤, this isn’t the place for that” ⌷⌷⌷⌷ yells back at ▒▒▒▒▒: “You’re not the only people here.” SHe’s right; I should be angry. I deserve to be angry. WHy did they send this conference here when they knew mine was still on? If they’d double booked, they should have found somewhere to place the new conference rather than upset the one that was already going on. People travelled for this. Do you think they will come back again after this? It’s such a bad look for me.