Fiona, quoting me:
To my mind, fans are much more interesting than guests,
Hm, I find them both interesting but in different ways.
I would go further and say that, in my opinion, guests can make fan-run panels/workshops function less well.
For example, at Redemption, there was a workshop on British sf press which I attended. I (in my naivete) was expecting to discuss publications such as, say, Interzone (which I used to read in my youth). Instead, Steve K had brought along a load of stuff including SFX (I honestly can't remember the other titles) which (again in my naivete) I would have dismissed as 'girlie mags'. Without exception, they seemed to focus on Buffy, or rather SMG (which by no stretch of the imagination could be called sf).
Now, we could have had the basis for an interesting discussion here, *but* also attending the panel were three guests, Andy Lane, Jane Killick and Joe Nazzaro -- all of whom write (or have written) for the SFX-type publications. All discussion of the type I might have enjoyed was instantly stifled. Instead the discussion focused on minute differences between the three (to my eyes) identical publications, and in particular on the problems of getting access to stars and writing articles where the pictures were deemed more important than the text. Interesting, perhaps, but not really much to point.
Tavia