Change of Plans in Chengdu

[kevin_standlee]

Yesterday, the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon announced on their Facebook page and their Twitter feed that they were changing their dates to Wednesday, October 18, 2023 through Sunday, October 22, 2023 and the convention venue to the Chengdu Science Fiction Museum in Jingrong Lake, Pidu District. The new headquarters hotels are the Sheraton Chengdu Pidu and the Wyndham Grand Chengdu. Shortly after I saw the announcement, I posted the news on the Worldcon.org website and updated the WSFS.org, Worldcon.org, and TheHugoAwards.org websites with the revised dates.

The previously-announced dates were August 16-20, 2023, and the previous venue was the Chengdu Century City New International Convention and Exhibition Center, with the Intercontinental Hotel and other nearby hotels as part of the complex. As of when I composed this message, the Chengdu Worldcon website still shows those dates and that venue. No reason for the change of dates and venue was given in their announcement, and I do not have any further information about why they made the changes.

Today I have seen complaints from people suggesting that WSFS Must Do Something, or claiming that WSFS must have approved this, or saying that Chengdu claims that they consulted with WSFS before making this change, or that nothing like this has ever happened before.

Sigh.

• WSFS Must Do Something: Who should do something? What should they do? Chengdu, like every other Worldcon, has the right to organize themselves however they wish, and everything other than the small number of required items (Hugo Awards, Site Selection, Business Meeting, and some ancillary things) enumerated in the WSFS Constitution are entirely the responsibility of that Worldcon committee, per Section 1.6 of the Constitution:
  
  

  Section 1.6: Authority. Authority and responsibility for all matters concerning the Worldcon, except those reserved herein to WSFS, shall rest with the Worldcon Committee, which shall act in its own name and not in that of WSFS.

  
  
  Remember, WSFS does not have a strong executive. All of its power is deliberately highly constrained, and just about all authority is given to Worldcon committees.



• WSFS Must Have Approved This: WSFS did not need to approve this. When Chengdu was awarded the bid for the 2023 Worldcon, they were, in effect, granted a license from the World Science Fiction Society to use the WSFS service marks for the purpose of holding the 2023 Worldcon. That's it. There's nothing that binds a winning bid or requires it to be held on the dates listed in their filing papers or at any particular venue. Indeed, such a requirement (even if enforceable, which it would not be as the rules are currently written) would set up a potential catastrophe, as a committee could end up losing its venue or the ability to hold its convention on any particular dates. Look at DisCon III for an example of this.



• Chengdu claims that they consulted with WSFS before making this change: Maybe they did, but I don't know what "consulting with WSFS" means. WSFS doesn't have a board of directors or any other form of strong executive function. There is the WSFS Mark Protection Committee, and the non-profit corporation (Worldcon Intellectual Property) set up by the MPC for the purpose of managing WSFS's service marks in those places that do not recognize unincorporated associations like WSFS. No single Worldcon could reasonably be expected to own the WSFS intellectual property, so the MPC is set up to manage the IP on behalf of all WSFS conventions, including both Worldcons and NASFiCs. I am the current chair of the WSFS MPC (and thus also of WIP), and while the MPC/WIP have been corresponding with Chengdu about their formal right to host Worldcon and how the MPC/WIP are structured, I will stay that we've been careful to make it clear that neither the WSFS MPC nor WIP "runs Worldcon." We're the licensing body, that's all.



• Nothing Like This Has Ever Happened Before: Nonsense. To people really have such short memories? Less than two years ago, DisCon III, the 2021 Worldcon, changed their dates from August to December 2021. And because one of their two venues closed, they technically changed venues by squeezing themselves into what was originally planned to only be the smaller half of their facilities. But if they had moved out of DC entirely, they would still have been within their rights. Again, that was less than two years ago.
  
  There is another case, well before I started attending Worldcon in 1984: the 1977 Worldcon in Miami Beach, Florida. As described in the 1977 note on the WSFS Long List, this bid was originally "pick our group and we'll find a site," which initially was in Orlando, but after the hotel went bust, the committee moved the convention to Miami Beach. And while WSFS rules were changed after SunCon in 1977 to require more documentation of a site, there was never an enforceable requirement that the convention be held where the bid's filed documents said they were going to hold it.

Now I've made no secret that I have never been enthusiastic about going to China. However, while I may not care much for China, I care very much for WSFS, and when Don Eastlake III asked me to be Deputy Chair of the 2023 WSFS Business Meeting, I accepted, and despite my by-now notorious involvement in the other bid for the 2023 Worldcon, Chengdu's committee approved my appointment. If it is possible for me to travel to Chengdu (and between COVID restrictions and getting a visa, this is not certain), I plan to go, in order to keep WSFS's government moving forward.

I'm personally slightly disappointed at the change of venue, because I had already booked a room at one of the Holiday Inns located near the original venue, and was going to be able to use my IHG points for the stay. There are no IHG hotels near the new venue. Fortunately, I was able to cancel the reservation and get all of my IHG points back, so I'll be able to use them eventually.

The later dates may be something of an advantage. Besides the fact that the weather will probably be better, the dates mean I won't be taking close to a month of time off between July and August this year due to both NASFiC and Worldcon. (I'm planning to drive to Winnipeg and then take the train to and from Churchill, Manitoba after the convention.) I will spend far fewer PTO days on China, as I plan only to fly in, attend the convention, and come home; however, it's still a lot of days. Again, this is contingent on China lifting restrictions significantly to allow me to even apply for a visa and then being approved for a visa. This is the first time I'm ever going to travel to a country where a visa is either not required (Canada, UK/EU) or relatively trivial to obtain (Australia), and the requirements for China are onerous. I simply don't know whether I'll actually be able to go or not. Chengdu has not volunteered much information about what they can do to help me and the other people who want to attend. I hope they're more forthcoming about that than they are about how people who aren't already members and who are outside of China can buy a membership!

So there's my initial take on what's going on with the Chengdu Worldcon. While surprising, there's simply nothing wrong legally with their actions. And if any of you reading this think that "WSFS" is a Big Media Company with a massive headquarters, millions of dollars, and an army of lawyers... well, you're wrong. I know, it may be hard to believe (and I've met people who are convinced that I'm lying to them about it), but WSFS is run on a shoestring, and depends on all of the people participating in the society to act in good faith.

Comments

[billroper]

To answer one of your questions: Yes, I have concluded that people have memories that are exceedingly short on average.

Old guy that I am, I have a lot of memories that other people seem to lack...

[calimac]

I think the real complaint here is that Chengdu - unlike Discon - has been conspicuously silent in terms of keeping its members informed of what it's doing and involved in the decision-making.

[calimac]

Just out of curiosity - because I'm certainly not going - I found the Pidu District on Google Maps but was unable to locate either the Science Fiction Museum or Jingrong Lake.

[kevin_standlee]

The Science Fiction Museum is presumably not on the map because it's still under construction. I searched for the site of the Sheraton Chendu Pidu and got this map. The lake next to the hotel is presumably Jingrong Lake, although it's not labeled. I speculate that they are building the museum on the small island in the lake. That's just a guess, though.

[calimac]

Very spooky. The lake doesn't appear in the map view, only the terrain view. The map view actually has roads running through it.

[vatine]

Map view is (for maps of China, for all law-abiding map services) based on geo-data provided by the Chinese government. Any photo-based view is either using open satellite photography (extremely low resolution) or Chinese-provided (and geo-coded) aerial imagery. These, intentionally, do NOT line up, and are all (in some way) redacted, so as to make them less useful for military purposes.

This may give some background (but I only skimmed the beginning). No, I never worked directly with maps, but I know people that did and this is/was one of those bits that was sufficiently fascinating.

[delosharriman]

Karen Anderson once told me that her first job out of high school was interpreting aerial reconnaisance photos of North Korea. She was fascinated that it had become a hobbyist activity.

Re: Jingrong, lake, museum

[https://jvjr.mojeid.cz/#57FqTowSePgt]

After an independent search, I came to the same pond but the small island is both too small (just 100m length) and too done already; looking at both the visualisation in the announcement and others like https://www.zaha-hadid.com/architecture/chengdu-science-fiction-museum/ I expect the Museum is to be the huge building site at the northeast shore, with the rounded protuberance. (See especially the fifth visualisation -- left front is clearly the small river that is already in place, even on the vector map.)

Jingrong seems to be the name of the locality -- Maps find it in names of several objects nearby.

Re: Jingrong, lake, museum

[kevin_standlee]

Ah, I hadn't read the scale. That makes sense. The terrain view is obviously out of date anyway, so I couldn't figure out what was happening.

Re: Jingrong, lake, museum

[https://jvjr.mojeid.cz/#57FqTowSePgt]

Oops, I meant to say northWEST shore :(

Another interesting thing is that Maps search for the Sheraton https://google.com/maps/search/sheraton+chengdu+pidu shows me TWO locations: one near the lake on the river where nothing seems to be now, another a huge complex about a kilometer southeast on a crossing. Both with the same phone number... but possibly the hotel is moving as a part of the development.

[lindadee]

I just find the whole situation very strange. They're building a whole new complex and using the Worldcon as its inaugural event? Can you imagine that happening anywhere else in the world?!

[delosharriman]

It's not an unreasonable thing to do, assuming construction proceeds according to schedule. I lay no bets on that.

[EDITED] No, wait. I have once more fallen into the error of conflating what a reasonable person would do with what I would do. And, absolutely, if I were opening an SF museum, I would want to host a Worldcon as the Grand Opening.

[wild_patience]

This probably is a good thing for the WorldCon. There was so little information coming out that it didn't seem like they were prepared enough to do a WorldCon. The Hugos should be interesting this year.

[madfilkentist]

Thanks for explaining why you think you need to go. You may have noticed that I've repeatedly urged people to boycott the con, but there are sometimes reasons, such as making sure WSFS continues to be WSFS. Choices can be tough.