When Did That Happen?

[kevin_standlee]

Well, I sure didn't notice until it was pointed out to us that Denvention Three raised their supporting membership price to $50 (from $40) on January 1, just in time for Hugo Nominating to open. That's rather unfortunate. It's legal, don't get me wrong -- the price cap is 125% of their $40 advance supporting membership ("voting fee"). I just think it's unfortunate, at least if you want to encourage people to vote. I have to say that this tendency to keep raising the prices on such low-overhead-cost memberships makes the prospect of requiring voting-rights-only (no publications) memberships at a relatively low cost a more attractive idea. I'm not going to launch a campaign for it, though, as I don't think there are enough votes for it. Business Meeting fandom is likely to be pretty happy with the status quo in this department.

Comments

[dinogrl.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. I haven't heard from the dealer's room about an application yet. He did email me back in October about snail mail.
Curious.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

I think a large (and this is a 25%) increase in supporting membership costs violates the spirit of what a "supporting" membership was and is supposed to be -- a way for someone to help a Worldcon even though they can't attend.

We did some rough calculations for N4 about the cost of servicing a supporting membership. It worked out to less than $21. We never raised our $35 rates (and had fought tooth and nail with our bidding opponents to keep that rate down), because we recognized that 2/5 of every dollar paid to buy a supporting membership went into easing the financial burden of the convention for everyone. That doesn't amount to a huge offset as an aggregate, but it surely does in spirit.

Denvention 3, which has four fewer publications than did N4 so far, is tracking to cost less per supporting member serviced (roughly $15 or so from their plans) than did N4, even accounting for inflation.

Frankly, raising subscribing rates (when everything we know about costs tells us they are already a substantial money-maker) really cheeses me off. (And raising the rates to $50 -- more than 3X what it costs to service that membership? Particularly when you realize that they are not sending previously-published PRs to late joiners? Even more annoying.)

I vehemently dislike a voting-only membership...but I dislike what I see as price-gouging on supporting memberships almost as much.

[twilight2000.livejournal.com]

Not something I weigh in on often, but this is of some concern. The first question is why they felt a need to raise it at all -- the second is why just as Hugo voting opens?

I suspect the answer to the 2nd is that whoever figured Jan 1 wasn't thinking about when Hugo's open, but rather that Jan 1 is an easy date for folks to remember. It's unfortunate as hell and I would hope Montreal thinks about that as they set up their dates.

I'm more concerned, however, as Deb is, about why this happened at all.

As Deb, the idea of a voting-only membership offends me -- and not only because I'm enough of a historian to be bothered by what I see as a poll tax -- but perhaps some regulation more than currently exists over Supporting Memberships is in order to consider.

Something to think about.

[tkunsman.livejournal.com]

I tend to think of a supporting membership in that it shows a fens support fot the con, but for whatever reason can not make it to the con. I also think that trying to raise supporting membership now a days might be a bad idea.

In the old days IMO, I think people would get a supporting membership, and then as they could save money, get an attending membership.

Now, as it seems more and more Worldcons are adopting the payment plan method for attending memberships, increasing supporting memberships in the every increasing era of PDF publications should be looked at closer by concoms.

I just think that the Jan 1st increase was an oversight by Denver, and not really meant to discourage potential voters.

I can not see a voting only membership ever, and would vote against such a thing.