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

[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.