Westercon 69 Day 3, Concluded: Match Game Mania!

People were asking me today why we didn't do Match Game SF on Saturday night, which I thought bode well for the Sunday show. Having learned our lesson from Friday, we started our move-in shortly after 6 PM, which was when we got the room for our 9 PM show. As it happens, we needed that time.

( From Blank Slate to Full House )

This was one of the most successful Match Game SF shows we've ever done. Probably not the largest turnout (we've had larger audiences in smaller rooms), but the show went well enough and we filled just about every seat. The contestants were able to match the panel a reasonable number of times and we did give away some prizes. A good time was had by all.

We don't know where and when our next show will be. We're not going to be doing a show in Kansas City for Worldcon, and we haven't been invited yet for future Westercons. We'll announce here the next time we have a show planned.

I thank very much everyone who made this possible: panelists, contestants, audience, and volunteers. I'm very tired and my legs hurt something awful, but I had a good time and I hope you all did, too.

Westercon 69 Day 4: Site Selection Details

From the Sunday edition of the Westercon newsletter, The Westerconian, we get the details on the selection of the Denver-area bid to host the 2018 Westercon:

Denver in 2018: 68
Graton CA (write-in): 1
None of the Above: 2
Spoiled: 1

Total Ballots Cast: 72
Needed to Elect (majority): 37

Denver in 2018 thus won on the first ballot and will host Westercon 71.

It appears that the events of 2011 frightened off the usual crowd of creative write-in bids. Even Tonopah didn't get any votes this year.

Westercon 69 Day 4: That's a Wrap

We didn't have a whole lot to do today, but I did have my only panel that wasn't a Business Meeting or a Game Show: "How the Hugo Awards Work" with Ben Yalow and David Levine at 1 PM. 50 minutes wasn't nearly enough time to cover the ground we wanted to cover, but we did what we could. At 2 PM I attended the feedback session, which was mostly positive. I thanked Westercon 69 for dedicating an immense amount of programming "resources" to Match Game SF. They gave us 12 program room-hours, only about half of which were actually with other members in them; the rest was set-up. But we got a good show out of it that people were coming up to me today saying how much they enjoyed it. It looks like, subject to us be able to swing the logistics, that the next two Westercons (Tempe and Denver) want us to bring the show on the road to them as well.

Then it was time to bring the convention to an official end.

( Gaveling The Convention Over to Tempe )

While the convention was over, the work was not. However, we'd had no lunch, so we took scott_sanford out, intending to have dinner at the Hawthorne Fish House, our favorite Portland-area fish restaurant. Unfortunately, when we got there we found they were closed for the Independence Day holiday. Lisa suggested I find a Black Bear Diner that we hadn't yet visited, so we ended up driving up to Vancouver WA. This also gave us an opportunity to top off the gas tank without having to deal with Oregon's "fuel transfer specialists." (Self service fueling is prohibited in Oregon, outside of certain rural counties.)

( Moving Out and Hanging the Dog )

Lisa and I hung around the Dead Dog Party until 11:30 PM, when we headed back to the hotel room. Lisa got the idea that we should move one cart-load of gear down to the van tonight, so I fetched a cart and we moved a load. There's still another load to go that we can't move out until the morning when we're ready to go.

We won't get much sleep tonight. We have a lot of things we want to do between Portland and Klamath Falls, and not many hours to get them done. Unfortunately, I can't take another day off from work; otherwise, we'd take three days driving home instead of two.