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

[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.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

The initial attending membership price of a Worldcon is a function of the Advance Supporting Membership (voting) fee for that Worldcon's site selection election. This has historically led to pressure from bid committees to set the ASM fee high so they have room to set their initial rates high. We raised the function from 1X ASM to 2X ASM in order to try and put a damper on this tendency. It didn't work. An attempt to raise the function to 3X ASM failed, as the perception appeared to be that bids wouldn't lower the ASM, but would just increase their initial attending membership cost to the maximum amount allowed.

I suspect that Worldcons would not have supporting memberships at all if WSFS rules didn't require it and the site selection mechanism didn't create a pile of supporting memberships as a byproduct. Every contested Worldcon has a bunch of unhappy supporting members, consisting of everyone who voted for their opposition and who could not/would not attend anywhere but they place for which they voted.