How to Bid for a Westercon

[kevin_standlee]

On Sunday I was contacted by someone on behalf of a group of people interested in bidding to host Westercon. The would-be bidders had read the Westercon Bylaws and knew that there were documents they needed to file in order to bid, but they could not figure out where to file them. This puzzled me initially, because I pretty much take it for granted that anyone bidding for Westercon has attended a few of them and been involved in their politics, but upon looking at the Bylaws, I guess I can see how someone could be confused about where you file. It's not like the Bylaws have explicit language that says, "To bid for Westercon, fill out this checklist and send it to this fixed address."

Because the election is administered by the Westercon two years before the target year, the address to which you submit your bid changes every year. This year being 2015, the election is for 2017, and would-be bidders file with the 2015 Westercon in San Diego. If you want to bid for 2018, you file your papers with the 2016 Westercon in Portland. There's no single fixed address, no online form on a single web site, and no single point of contact, and this apparently is confusing to people coming to Westercon out of the blue. Worldcon is the same way, which is presumably why sometimes the Worldcon web site gets e-mail from groups who want to know how they can persuade the WSFS Board of Directors to award a Worldcon to their city.

Anyway, in light of the request for clarification, I wrote an article for the Westercon web site entitled How to Bid for a Westercon. I hope it helps. I'm so close to the process that I clearly cannot see what things newcommers cannot see, so I'm likely to not be fully explaining everything you have to do.

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Suggestions:

1) "Regional restrictions" should go with "What locations are eligible" because it affects what locations are eligible. And either say what the fourth region is or don't mention it; this is a general guide and not a full explanation.

2) Don't obsess over the details of the map. "Sites in Mexico are eligible" is enough about that point. Who cares about the easternmost slice of Colorado? If it doesn't include the Denver area, it's irrelevant to any actual Westercon bid, and anyone who really cared could look up where the meridian goes.

3) Give examples of two years prior as where to send the bid, as you do in this post.

4) It might be wise to specify that "letter of intent or option" is not a contract, because of course you can't sign a contract when bidding because you haven't won the bid yet. That may seem obvious, but you've already proven that the obvious may need to be specified.

[rono-60103.livejournal.com]

I just had this evil thought of showing up at the Westercon business meeting and proposing to amend the bylaws to remove the reference to 104° west and replace it with "Saskatchewan, Montana, Wyoming , Colorado, New Mexico, Parrts of Texas and Mexico due south of New Mexico, and any islands and territories of Canada, The United States, or Mexico west of the specified region and within the Western Hemisphere."

If nothing else, it would liven up the meeting.

[rogers cadenhead (from livejournal.com)]

The Hugo Awards site is telling people the vote isn't open yet:

http://www.thehugoawards.org/i-want-to-vote/

"Voting for the 2015 Hugo Awards final ballot is not yet open. We will announce when the 2015 Worldcon opens voting on the final ballot."

Thought I'd post a heads up here. If you'd prefer email, let me know.