Because Loscon 49 is only three days long, the election schedule for Westercon Site Selection is squeezed to only one day: Friday. Thus today was the only day when voting on where to hold the 2025 Westercon (Westercon 77) would be held. In practice, with no bids having filed, this was unlikely to have much of an effect. I spent much of today sitting at the Site Selection desk helping run the election and explaining what would happen if, as seemed likely, no eligible bid won.
There are worse places to be. Or, as I put it, "Behold, the SMOF in his natural environment!" Unfortunately, I forgot to get a picture of those of us sitting at the Site Selection desk.
OTOH, I did take a picture of one of the nicest costumed people who came by our table:
I wasn't the only person getting her picture. We talked costuming and related subjects.
At 5:30, I went to the Opening Ceremony. In this picture, from left to right we have guests of honor Elaybe Pelz, Peter Beagle, and Echo Chernik, and convention Chair Michelle Pincus.
After Michelle introduced the Guests of Honor I, as the current guardian of the Gavel of Westercon (and chair of the previous Westercon), appeared on stage to assist Michelle in formally calling the convention to order. That is, since there was no lectern or table on which to set the "sounder," I held the base while Michelle brought the gavel down, signifying the formal start of the convention. Again, I have no picture, because I was one of the participants. After the ceremony, I retained the gavel, which I need for tomorrow's Business Meeting.
Opening Ceremony being short, it was not yet 6 PM when I got back over to Site Selection. We had a last-minute voter, at at 6 PM, the administrator declared the election closed. No last-minute bid appeared at the deadline. The administrative consequence of this is that the only candidate that could actually win the election was None of the Above. We did, however count all eighteen ballots cast. (There were actually nineteen ballots paid for, but one person didn't put their ballot in the box, thereby informally voting No Preference.) The official results will show all of the various write-in bids. The top two write-ins were Seattle with 7 votes and Tonopah with 6. The remainder were either for None of the Above or various oddball write-ins.
It's no surprise that no eligible bid won; it's what we expected. As we did two years ago and also back in 2011, we have a Westercon Site Selection to be decided by the Westercon Business Meeting. Saturday morning at 11:30 AM in Los Angeles 1, we will convene to decide how to deal with the 2025 Westercon, and to also discuss the various proposals I drafted for the Meeting's consideration, whereby we decide in which direction Westercon will move: toward a final retirement or toward a possible new vision for the convention.
After we counted the ballots and stored things away, a group that included Lisa and me and several others who had been hanging around Site Selection (I'm being coy because of the group doesn't like being mentioned in my social media like this) went out to dinner. We walked to a Yoshinoya beef bowl restaurant. I'd not been to one since they withdrew from the Bay Area. It was a bit of hike: around 2 km each way, through a not all that salubrious part of town. However, there were five of us and nobody seemed interested in us. Yoshinoya has improved its offerings since I was last there, and I enjoyed the teriyaki salmon bowl. I know I've missed going out to meals with my fannish friends like this, and the restaurant was empty enough that I felt fairly safe dining in this company.
After returning to the hotel, I went back out into the convention for a little while, and explained the issues with the Westercon Site Selection to more people. But by 9 PM, I found that I was getting tired and that I had no stomach for going up to the parties. Besides, I had material to write up for tomorrow. Time to get some sleep!
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