I Have Seen the Future...

[kevin_standlee]

...of SF conventions and fandom, and it frightens me. Any of you who think I'm a lunatic for trying to do anything I can to drive down the cost of Worldcons and that $200 is a bargain for what it provides (I know it is, but how do you prove that to anyone who isn't already an insider), go look at this Journal and this one for a glimpse of what people really want.

Among the tidbits: regarding the local 400-person SF con, currently costing (Canadian)$50 at the door, one person in particular said that the most s/he would consider reasonable for an SF convention of that size would be $15, tops. Maybe $7.50 for a single day.

Here's another particularly depressing post:

Basing a convention around bringing people together to chat won't work anymore. It was fine in the eighties, but we have the Internet now. I can get together to "share my fandom" with people in Panama, Poughkeepsie, or Paraguay for, essentially, free.

I'm not sure where the "potluck" analogy came from, but I don't care for it. Not because it's not an apt simile for Con-Version's vision, because it is. Rather, because potlucks only succeed when every attendee does an equal amount of work. I don't want to do work in order to go to a con. If I wanted to do work, I would join the concom. I pay $50 to have work done FOR me. I give you money; you show me things.

I hate to sound like I'm grousing about the younger generation, but if this is really what the next generation of would-be fandom thinks, We Are Doomed.

Comments

[kproche.livejournal.com]

One comment in the first post that's almost buried is his comment about poor advertising. That *is* a problem I've observed, and one of the reasons Costume-Con 26 has been so aggressive about promoting in new markets.

[twilight2000.livejournal.com]

I LOVE the icon :>

[twilight2000.livejournal.com]

Let's be fair about the first one -- it's an interesting discussion about what appears to a somewhat Moribund Local Con -- and the old "it's not growing" arguments. A lot of the same stuff I hear about local cons that haven't tried anything new for awhile.

In general -- media cons (or media-based cons) will *always* draw from a larger pool than literary based cons. Hell, that's been true forever (The concept of shakespearean "penny seats" feeds right into that).

Does that mean Literary Cons are dead? I doubt that. Does it mean they're likely to have smaller attendance if they don't expand, even a little bit? Sure.

So some cons will continue to be small and literary and others will be HUGE and media based -- and, I suspect, some cons will find a happy medium with BOTH the Literary and the Media aspects represented -- making room for more than one kind of fan.

Good heavens, remember when "Gaming" was a dirty word? Sure, it still is to some, but I see more cons with good gaming tracks and gaming rooms I'm *not* afraid to bring my 10 year old Daughter into. That's progress (and yes, i know not everyone likes progress) -- it recognizes that geeks come in multiple flavors and like different things and that even those of us who are hard core LitCon lovers, like dropping in for an interesting game every now and then. Norwes did a GREAT job on that (from the casual gamer perspective) this year.

I honestly thing the argument over Con-Version (at that journal) is about a con that is in transition -- the arguments sound *very* familiar.

Now -- the problem with Cost at the Door becomes a real sticky wicket, depending on what you want to offer, who you want to invite and where you're located.

Any city that has a Big Con that only charges $7-$15 at the door makes it MUCH harder for the $50 weekend to happen. Is $50 a good deal? Sure -- but selling that idea becomes harder in light of the local Big Con that is cheap as heck. So -- the need for differentiation becomes larger.

I don't think We're Doomed -- I do think we may need to re-think some of our assumptions :>

[pnh.livejournal.com]

I think you may be overreacting to what looks from here like a bunch of very familiar fannish psychodrama being played out in a small and somewhat remote pond.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

You may be right; I can certainly see the signs. However, it was the fact that the "maximum I should have to pay" figure was only CA$15 that got to me. Even accounting for the fact that CV is only about 48 hours long (spread over three days), that's a cost level substantially less per unit time than I've been shooting for.

I realize that Worldcon is expensive at $200 for five days, and would feel more comfortable if it were $125 -- inflation-adjusted, it's what I paid 1984 at the door -- but being told that such an event should cost at most maybe $50 for all five days is croggling.

[bigblued.livejournal.com]

He had lectures. He had dealers. He had artists. He had guests. Everything that one could want in a Con. Except maybe costume contests and perhaps a dance.

Established cons have a very hard time adapting and changing. Everything does cost money. But if you try to cut out the masqerade or dance (to cut costs or allocate funds to something more popular) you get people screaming bloody murder. It is easier for a new con to just not have them in the first place.

If I wanted to do work, I would join the concom. I pay $50 to have work done FOR me. I give you money; you show me things.

This isn't a next generation thing. I know people in my generation who have said exactly that. It's not that they don't understand the concepts of community or volunteering. It's more that in the current state of society their free time is rare and almost priceless. They are very careful where they spend it and it's certainly not for just giving away anymore. This is hard for us to see because fandom is so important to us that this is where we chose to "spend" our precious free time.

Perhaps the conventions we "grew up with" will die over time but there are newer, more specialized, cons that are doing gangbusters. Last weekend I went to our local Anime con that had over 11k attendes. Furry cons have popped up all over the place. We(fandom)are not doomed, we will continue to go on, just in a different form.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Another factor that I think comes in here is that people think that Somebody Else should pay. Conventions with which I'm familiar are about 90% funded by the membership costs. These big shows of which you cite -- and I've been to some large anime cons, as well as San Diego Comicon back when it used to be called that -- I assume must have a larger proportion of their costs being covered by Somebody Else. That means "corporate sponsors." I have no problem with corporate sponsorship, and think that Worldcons et al. have done a poor job of handling it. What little sponsorship we mostly have done merely nibbles around the edges: a few hundred dollars here, a couple thousand there. To have a serious impact on a Worldcon-class convention, you need to be thinking of sponsorhip in the six-figure range. And TANSTAAFL. Something would almost certainly have to change to accommodate anyone willing to plunk down that much money.

If it weren't for the fact that it happens the same weekend as BayCon, I'd be inclined to go get involved with running FanimeCon just so I could find out how the heck they manage to organize a Worldcon-sized event every year. And I mean on a nuts-and-bolts level: what does the budget look like, how are the pieces organized, and so forth. I know this stuff for a Worldcon, and despair over how to lower the costs so we could make the event more accessible to more people.

As it stands now, I think we're paying a premium to keep these conventions "ideological pure."

[querldox.livejournal.com]

San Diego's not corporate sponsored per se. Yes, there are some things, including the expenses of some of their "Special Guests" that are taken care of by companies, but I'm pretty sure that's a miniscule part of their budget.

On the other hand, what really serves as an extra income source for them is the Dealer's Room. I don't know offhand what the space rate is, but per scuttlebutt from people with spaces I believe it's considered on the high side...and they've got a *lot* of space. 52 aisles, each 100 yards long, spaces on both sides of each aisle. Some of it is the non-revenue generating Artists' Alley, but they're making a *lot* every year from that room.

However, people tend to forget in these days of 100,000+ attendance "Nerd Prom" that San Diego started out as a tiny little local comics con, drawing a few hundred folk. They didn't jump from 300 to 100,000 overnight, but fairly gradually grew. It didn't hurt that the location and timing, as well as the organization, got them a rep early on of being one of the best comics conventions, which is something that can feed on itself and lead to more industry types and general attendance showing up (see Boskone: The '80s or Minicon: The '90s).

[lagringa.livejournal.com]

This is correct. Most of San Diego Comic-Con is covered by attendee fees and Dealer Room stuff. And if San Diego - which is at least 40% literary these days - can afford to let people into a five day show for $65, a show that has now some of the best writing panels out there, because they are organized by Maryelizabeth Hart from Mysterious Galaxy - it's hard to justify WorldCons charging the ridiculous amounts of $$$ they charge. The other thing to keep in mind at San Diego Comic Con - which is a fan-run show with a handful of employees paid by the con committee - is that attending professionals get in for free. That means artists, creators, writers, anyone who can prove they have earned $$$ doing something related to comics, SF/F, writing, film or TV - gets in for free. Only the fans pay a fee to get in. This ensures that every year, more and more pros attend the con and agree to be on panels and do workshops, which means that every year the panels and workshops get bigger and better. I've always maintained that it is the best run show I've ever attended, media show or not.

I have suffered through some really painfully unorganized WorldCons, while gritting my teeth at the registration fee. I have also suffered through my share of excruciating media shows (any Wizard World-run show is pretty awful). Whatever the guys at San Diego Comic-Con have, I wish they;d bottle it and sell it to other con committees.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

Oh, there are some obvious things that allow San Diego to keep prices down. They're in the same city each year with substantial committee continuity (and for the last few years including paid staff continuity). They reached a point where they could afford/fit a convention center...and kept growing. As Kevin's pointed out in this thread, there's a cost discontinuity when you jump to convention center size...but then for a while after that, the incremental cost of each additional member is very low...and San Diego's now at the point where there are tens of thousands of members with very low incremental cost. Add the income from the Dealer's Room in, the surcharge on hotel rooms to pay for shuttle buses, and that really there aren't significant per-member costs at-con (i.e. at best a very unused pseudo-con suite).

I'd strongly argue that the program is not anywhere near 40% literary though. Even if you count comics as literary, a lot of that programming amounts to company promotion panels ("What's New in the DCU", "Spider-Man In the Next Year", etc.). They're also not immune to organizational problems. For the past several years, with last year reaching a peak, Pro Registration has had lines/delays on Wednesday that'd cause Worldcon Registration folk to be talked about for years after.

[lagringa.livejournal.com]

So perhaps it's time for WorldCon to start thinking of a single location? Like BEA did for a while in Chicago (which was awesome) before they started caving and moving it all over the place and thusly screwing things up.

Didn't Comic-Con used to mail pro-reg? i seem to remember that. I never had to stand in the pro line; I always got extra exhibitor badges for my staff and volunteers, even if it cost more. There's never a line for exhibitor badges, and we could have them sent to our hotel room.

But Comic-Con is going to have a problem soon; they had to cap their attendees for the first time last year. I think they've opened all the halls already too, so God only knows where they're going to get more space. There was talk of moving it but I can't imagine any place big enough to hold it at this point, except possibly McCormick Center in Chicago...but moving it would cos a drop in registration.

What does it cost to get into ReaderCon these days?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

So perhaps it's time for WorldCon to start thinking of a single location?

The standard response to this question is, "Then it wouldn't be the Worldcon anymore." And I tend to agree.

There is no doubt that one of the contributing factors to the cost of a Worldcon membership is that every year's convention is a 5000-plus member one-shot startup. You could get rid of a bunch of the "overhead" cost, or at least amortize it over time, by doing exactly what Comicon and Dragon*Con have done: hire a few paid staff and run it in the same place every year.

Similarly, the Olympic Games could be made much cheaper to organize if you held them in the same city every four years, with a permanent organization, instead of making them gigantic one-shot events. (The "permanent organization" of the Olympics -- the International Olympic Committee -- doesn't actually operate the various Games. They just authorize local organizing committees to do so. There are a lot of analogies between Olympics and Worldcons.)

All of these things would make them cheaper. Would it make them better? I don't know if I have an answer for that.

For instance, if you happen to live in Southern California, you might say that "Holding the Worldcon in Anaheim every year would make it wonderful!" But would you feel that way if the permanent location was Boston? Or Glasgow? Or Japan, for that matter?

[bovil.livejournal.com]

Worldcon in one location would be like the World Series; a joke to the rest of the world, and something that is only accessable to top-tier enthusiasts (except for the folks for whom it was local).

[querldox.livejournal.com]

Comic-Con used to mail advance pro-reg badges. They stopped this a few years ago. There have been years since that they've literally been printing the badges on the spot as you show them your registration confirmation (which, to be blunt, is insane given the literally thousands of folk getting pro badges). Last year, according to what I heard later, they had a new contractor doing it and it reached ridiculous levels of slowness; I got in line around 4 and by 6 had moved only a few tens of feet and had a couple of hundred to go. I was fortunate a friend happened by who had an extra badge, which I used for Preview Night, coming back right near the close to get my own badge. If the same thing had happened at a Worldcon, people would still be talking about it decades later (i.e. it made the lines at ConFrancisco look reasonable).

As far as I know, there was no cap on Comic-Con attendees last year. At this point, it's more a problem of hotel space, since San Diego's under-hotelled, particularly in the immediate neighborhood, for the size of the convention center. Moving it to Chicago isn't an option; the majority of attendees are SoCal based, so you'd have to get a whole new mass audience. Not to mention losing the ability of Hollywood types to easily pop in for a promo panel, which is another reason for their large attendance. There apparently has been consideration of moving to Anaheim (or at least using said consideration when negotiating with the SD convention center), but that's as far as I can see them moving it. Remember, the concom is San Diego locals.

[jbriggs.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, the good old days when SDCC was a few hundred. I stopped going when it hit 10,000 (and moved to the new Convention Center). This year I'm going to Hawai'i that week, and its local for me.

[lagringa.livejournal.com]

The other consideration is that many of the cons are whole family events, like Comic-Con. (probably not World Con, though.) You've got a family of four taking what might be their only opportunity to do something vacation-wise as a group, and they're looking to be frugal. At Anime Expo, I was surprised by just how many whole families showed up. It was actually great to see, but I could certainly understand why they wouldn't or couldn't offer up time to volunteer.

I see what you're saying, but...

[johnnyeponymous.livejournal.com]

I agree with several points that the complainers point out. I really wish that cons were cheaper, but I understand the costs. Maybe it was hearing about Finncon that made me wish for something cheaper. Still, I've seldom felt ripped off by paying full-price for a con.

I just wish that there were literary media cons. Not the way that most Media cons do things with booths and signings and so on, but a Potlatch for Media, if that mades sense.
Chris

[http://users.livejournal.com/_darkvictory/]

We still require people like you to share their passion with other fans. We still require a commitment from the "potato salad" group to bring the potato salad to the potluck.

I don't think it's specifically generational. I think the customer base for "I just want to pay $15 and be entertained" has grown as SF has become mainstream popular entertainment.

To tie in to the potluck analogy: suppose it's time for supper. I can go to House o' String o' Chains, where I pay so many $ and know exactly what they are going to bring me, or I can pay $50 and go to a potluck at the Fan Palace, where I bring my own potato salad and sample whatever else everyone else brings. It's up to me to make the Fan Palace experience worth my time and money. Two different experiences that appeal to two different groups (though there is some overlap).

It's harder to find "it's up to me" people, but I believe they are out there.

[timill]

I give you money; you show me things.

I wonder how far (if at all) this correlates with "workers get comp memberships" - thus encouraging the view "I paid, so I'm not a worker".

[sfrose.livejournal.com]

I wonder how far (if at all) this correlates with "workers get comp memberships" - thus encouraging the view "I paid, so I'm not a worker".

I've been seeing that a lot... As well as "I'm not going to be able to get the minimum hours needed for a refund/rollover so I'm not going to bother trying...

I've been seeing a lot less of people offering to help for just an hour or two.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Yeah... but there is a practical upper limit to having both the community feel and the ability to effectively organize everyone that having no comps requires.

My theory is related to Dunbar's theory about social organization. I think there are break points where conventions have to change in organization style or else spin out of control. I do not have any proof, but it seems to me that somewhere between 70 and 200 conventions stop being an extended social network and start needing things like comps because people stop feeling as much loyalty to the group because they can't know even a significant percentage of the con. Plus there starts to be so much to do at the convention that people can start spending the whole weekend doing X.

Comps?

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

At all the standard fannish/literary cons in the UK we don't do comp memberships (not even for the concom). I paid my membership to be co-chair of the British National (Eastercon) in 2004. I pay my membership and am on the committee of every Redemption convention, and I'll pay my membership to be Events Manager at this August's DiscWorldCon. And for none of them do I get a refund, a discount on my hotel room, an upgrade on my hotel room or even free food. As staff/gophers some conventions will give food/drink vouchers (very rarely as much as $2 for an hour's work, more usually £2 for a three or four hour shift).

And that's at events up to 1,000 (or more).

It's a cultural thing. And I wonder whether timill may have correctly identified one of the things .... certainly I've seen the same "I'm not going to be able to do enough hours to get the free gopher t-shirt, so I'm not going to bother" happening here as well, which is possibly one of the reasons we very rarely do that.

Re: Comps?

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I doubt I would have gotten involved on the concom of the local convention in Denver if I had to pay for my membership as well. Paying to spend my weekend shift supplies for the art show, running around for GoHs, and folding tee shirts doesn't sound like a good purchase to me.

Re: Comps?

[julesjones]

As the Magician said, it's SOP in the UK. It's How Things Are Done. I've avoided being on the committee (in part because no sane person who knows me would *want* me on a con committee), but I spent a fairly large chunk of most Redemption cons running around Doing Stuff as the conchair's personal gopher. I got a free mug one year, and that's been it. You do it because it's a way of putting back in. It can also be useful for one's CV, but I don't actually know anyone who does it for that reason. (I think.)

Re: Comps?

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

My impression is that the conventions are a great deal smaller in the UK. I mean we have around 1000 actual people attending, not adding up the number of people there each day and MileHiCon is considered a midsized regional by American standards. When cons are smaller and there is more community there is more of a reason to all chip in, so to speak. I wouldn't do that for MileHiCon because frankly it's too big for me to have warm fuzzy feelings about it.

[spacecrab.livejournal.com]

So, what would happen to the cost of Worldcon memberships if:

a) Worldcons scheduled only 3 days of programming (and a pre-programming social evening)?

b) A membership cap of 2000 or 2500 were to be imposed?

I mean, I know this isn't going to happen; but how much would capping the membership to make the con fit into two hotels (and no convention center), and cutting the duration reduce membership costs?

What are the largest expenses that have driven Worldcon membership prices up to where they are, now?

I assume these concepts have been discussed at great length on the SMOFs mailing list, but I don't know the answers to those questions, which is why I'm asking. If someone has constructed a FAQ on those issues, I'd be happy to read it. I understand that you may not have the time or inclination to get into it, here.

And I'm skirting the obvious facts that a) the current floating Worldcon membership list may contain more than 2000 or 2500 people who will continue to demand the privilege of attending each year, and b) many of those repeaters probably *like* the features of current Worldcons that require convention centers to facilitate.

If a membership cap of 2000 wouldn't cut the attending membership cost down to $125, do you think there's anything that would?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

...but how much would capping the membership to make the con fit into two hotels (and no convention center), and cutting the duration reduce membership costs?

It would probably lower the cost to $125 or less. But actually, that would raise the unit cost per time slightly, from $40/day to about $42/day, which makes the event worse value-for-money, not better.

Digression: I'm reminded of an exchange I had leading up to the Calgary Westercon, when I was trying to explain that Westercon was twice as long as the local SF con and cost twice as much. I wrote, "If milk is $1 for one liter and $2 for two litres, is it fair to complain that the two litre bottle is too expensive?" The only reply I got was, "I don't drink milk."

What are the largest expenses that have driven Worldcon membership prices up to where they are, now?

Fixed facilities costs. When we were obliged to move into expensive convention centers without increasing in size that much, we incurred a huge fixed cost.

The other thing that would drive the cost down would be if we could roughly double the number of people attending. The variable cost to the organizers of a Worldcon membership isn't that high -- I calculate it as around $20 -- so drawing 10K members instead of 5K would allow a substantial reduction in price.

I'm skirting the obvious facts that a) the current floating Worldcon membership list may contain more than 2000 or 2500 people who will continue to demand the privilege of attending each year, and b) many of those repeaters probably *like* the features of current Worldcons that require convention centers to facilitate.

That's probably true. I think that any Worldcon committee that wanted to do so could announce that they planned to shorten the con to three days and impose a membership cap in order to keep the price down to something "affordable." I also think such a bid has virtually no chance of being elected. If they were running unopposed, a bid would materialize to oppose them and "save Worldcon for the masses."

And yes, the subject has been discussed in many places, including this LJ. I don't want to sound tired of discussing it, because I'm not. I suppose it would not hurt to try composing a sort of FAQ on this subject. Maybe it's something I should contribute to Conrunner.net.

[(Anonymous)]

$2 a litre is too expensive if you only want one litre.

True, there are times when you do want two litres. I'll pay Worldcon prices - in occasional years - because you really get something for your money. They show me lots of things, and I don't have to do anything more than I want to.

OTOH, I don't think my local con (and you know which one it is) is worth more than $15. They charge more than $15, so I don't go. Even if I'm staying home and not going to Wiscon.

I think this makes me sound like the younger generation you're worried about, and I'm older than you are.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Good old LJ, logged me out again.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I didn't give you the full context: in the case cited, if you preferred your two days of convention experience, you could pay roughly what you'd been paying every previous year for just two days and only attend two days of the four-day con, or pay twice that for twice as many days.

To continue the analogy, both 1- and 2-litre bottles were available, at comparable unit prices. It wasn't as though the government had banned the sale of small bottles and required that you buy the large bottle or nothing at all.

I still find Worldcon an immense bargain even at full price, although I always vote every year and therefore always get the least-expensive advance price.

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

As a new person to Worldcon in 2007, I am having a hard time justifying in my mind Worldcon. Maybe, I am thinking of it too much like Balticon (a regional convention of 2,000 people). I cringe at the thought of a $200 registration fee to go. I doubt I will have the money for $180 registration fee by June 30th unless I pay with a Credit Card. The most expensive I con I have ever registered for is Otakon this year at $50 for 3 days. If a Worldcon bid decided to make it a 3 full day event (without a membership cap), I would vote for that bid in a new york minute because it may mean a $30 savings at least for a membership.

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

Maybe, I am thinking of it too much like Balticon (a regional convention of 2,000 people). I cringe at the thought of a $200 registration fee to go.

This puzzles me. You can afford $2000+ for roundtrip airfare and hotel to go to Japan, but you can't afford $200 for membership?

I am mystified by the argument that we should act as a free marketing agency for the airlines, and that people would be happy to spend many hundreds or even thousands of dollars to see a convention where nothing happens.

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

No, I couldn't have afforded the airline tickets to Tokyo without winning them from a local radio station. My apologies for not being clear on this. The only way I can even consider 2007 Worldcon is because I won those tickets.

My trip is going to be 9 days in Japan. When you have 5 of those days in a Worldcon, that is over half of your trip in one place. I am trying to figure out whether a foreign Worldcon is worth the time and money to attend or should I put the extra time into seeing the country.

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

These are very good points that everyone is making. I think we need to encourage people to volunteer by explaining the fun it can be. I volunteer or panel at many of the cons I go to. I get so much more than I receive when I do those things. I wish I could explain how volunteering at events make them better. I have a feeling we will see someone try to make Worldcon a capped con and I think we will see it sooner than later.

[marahsk.livejournal.com]

So it's news to you that not every convention appeals to every fan? Plenty of people go to literary cons, pay their money, don't do a lick of work, and have a great time being entertained; no one extrapolates that every person in that generation feels the same way.

And I see the $15 price point as validation: since we can't possibly put on a Worldcon worth going to for $15, there's no point in risking wrecking it to bring the price down to $100 (more than 6x what they are willing to pay).

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

I don't think the Mercedes dealers worry much about how many Hyundais get sold down the block. I think fandom can grow at different points of the economic spectrum; I think growing fandom at the cheap end helps the more traditional "literary" fandom and vice versa.

Out here in Fairfax County, it was a really big story when George Mason University made it to the Final Four in the NCAA championship, and by "big story", I mean that a presidential assassination or the second coming of Jesus on game day would have been below the fold of the Washington Post. The actual game was held in Indianapolis. Seats ran from $600 for the cheap seats to $2500 for floor-level seats. I don't think I actually know anybody who could possibly care that much about college basketball (or basketball, or college sports), and yet they sell enough tickets to fill arenas.

I have been in restaurants where one can get a $3.99 combo meal, and I've been in restaurants with a $109 caviar appetizer. I don't see how one rules out the other.

I also know that most of the media gate shows aren't so cheap. You might pay $25 to get a ticket to see the dealer's room or sit somewhere in the auditorium, but add up this reception, that autograph, the other preferred seating, and people can end up spending hundreds of dollars at a media show (not counting what they buy in the dealer's room). And for sure I can tell you that the people spending $625 to go to see James Marsters somewhere are mostly under 35. In fact, one of the problems fan-run media conventions have that they didn't have ten years ago is that actors in the popular shows are a lot more expensive than they used to be (this is known among media conrunners as the "Buffy effect"). I don't see a generational correlation here; some people have always complained about pricing. What is clear is that people are willing to spend money on things they think are worth it.

It's not practical to grow local cons, or Worldcon, the size of DragonCon or San Diego Comic Con, any more than it would make sense to grow World Fantasy Con or Readercon to the size of Worldcon. I don't think it's necessary or even useful to try. What we can do is maintain links between fan groups and organizations, so that we can let people know what different kinds of events are available, and so that we can learn what works and doesn't work in different contexts.

Anybody who argues that conventions should be cheaper, I just invite them to show me a spreadsheet. Show me what expenses can be cut that won't affect membership levels, show me easy ways to increase membership revenue. Even from supposedly experienced conrunners, I often hear silence or nonsense.

I don't think this problem is insoluble by any means. Boskone begat Arisia; Minicon generated Convergence. Toronto Trek started in the '80s when members of the Ad Astra committee wanted to do something more media-oriented, and Anime North started in the '90s when members of the Toronto Trek committee wanted to do something more anime-oriented. Other conventions are undergoing organic evolutions from one category to another, or are splitting off other groups. It's all good. The only problem is when anybody thinks their own bailiwick is somehow the center of fandom, and that fandom as we know it will die if their own favorite convention fails or even changes.

Success is relative. I think FilkOntario got 120 members and it was considered wildly successful. I think Eeriecon gets about 200, and if it got another 50 it would be able to consider itself very successful. There was an anime con in the fall which everyone but the chair said might get 500 people; it got around 570. It was budgeted to break even at 2000 people, and it imploded messily on the Saturday afternoon of the convention.

What we need to do is build viable fan organizations. There is no one-size-fits-all definition of success. The only metric that makes sense is net income; if a convention breaks even or makes a surplus, it can be run again next year. If we can build viable organizations and keep them talking to each other, fandom will survive.