Worldcon Size Dilemma

[kevin_standlee]

There are ways to make Worldcons less expensive and to make them have more "buzz" in the sense of making them much more crowded. Because Worldcons jumped up a size quanta, we are now too small for the pieces of convention centers we're obliged to rent. Part of this is because we really don't want to have to turn people away from the most-popular events. We could get away from that. If we were willing to accept, for instance, that not every member who wants to attend the Hugo Awards or the Masquerade will be guaranteed a seat, and if we were willing to accept a much higher level of crowding than I think most members would enjoy, we could make Worldcons more affordable by shoehorning too-large events into too-small-but-cheaper space. That's the gist of what I said in my latest reply to this discussion, in reply to George R.R. Martin's contention that Worldcons could easily fit back into cheap hotel space.

Comments

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Over there you mentioned that you think that young people today are more reluctant to spend $160 for a membership, the cost inflated equivalent of the $75 that you paid at the door for your first Worldcon. I agree, but why did you go to your first Worldcon? How did you hear about it? What did you think would happen?

I know that I went to my first Worldcon because it was talked about in interesting terms by the local fans I hung out with. I spent the money (far too much, remember paying off credit card debt for a while) because one of them bought me the first installment of a membership for my birthday as a way to give me a kick in the pants to go. And it worked. I never went back because the job I had then would not let me go for that length of time and between that and the cost of jetting off to wherever it was (a huge factor for someone as poor as I am) it never became a priority.

For a time it seemed I might become more of a local fan. One who at least jetted off the Minicon every year, but that fell apart when I became unemployed in 2005. And I've become the sort of person who is less and less happy to travel at all. Plus very little money for the last three years. If a recession is when your neighbor is unemployed and you're worried I've bounced between recession and outright depression for the last three years. My own fault, but that's why I don't go. And probably never will given how expensive taking a week off work is, when I have work.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I agree, but why did you go to your first Worldcon? How did you hear about it? What did you think would happen?

That's an easy (and possibly unexpected answer): Elfquest The original Elfquest comic book series was coming to an end, and they were releasing the twentieth and last issue of the series at L.A.con II in Anaheim. They were also holding what they were calling an "End of the Quest" party. I had to go. I figured out that from my college savings, I could sort-of afford to buy a Greyhound bus ticket Marysville-Sacramento-Los Angeles-Anaheim, and pay for (as I recall) four hotel nights at the Anaheim Hilton at about $55/night (about $110/night in today's money, so you can see that hotel prices are increasing faster than inflation). I didn't know anyone, so I didn't know about sharing rooms, and I was a naive kid from rural Northern California who hadn't traveled a lot anyway, so I might have been a bit scared of the idea.

I had a ball. Besides all of the Elfquest stuff, which was a blast, I attended panels, explored the many exhibits, bought too much stuff in the Dealers' Room, enjoyed the art show, got to meet my idols, the Pinis (and got lots of books autographed -- I'll not forget how heavy my luggage was going back, and no wheeled luggage in those days, either). In fact, I sort of laid the groundwork for many of the things I would end up doing in fandom for the next twenty years. (I later ended up running the MythAdventures Fan Club (modeled after the Elfquest Fan Club, for instance.)

I even attended something called a "Business Meeting," where my sole contribution to the proceedings was to move the adjournment of the Preliminary Business Meeting. Ten years later, I chaired the meeting.

By the time I left Anaheim, I had my memberships to the next two Worldcons (although I ended up not being able to attend), and my life would never be the same.

I put L.A.con II at the very head of my Worldcon experiences, out-classing everything else including co-Chairing ConJose and being deputy Chair of ConAdian. I've spent the rest of my life trying to pay forward the favor that fandom did for me on Labor Day Weekend 1984. I want to find ways for more people to catch that sensawunda that I had.

$75? That weekend was worth five times that much in retrospect, even though it obliged me to ride a long-distance bus overnight, and even though I had to go to my first day of college straight from the bus station, still wearing my convention badge on my vest and looking pretty dorky, I expect. I might well have been put off if the membership cost had been $225, but $75 didn't seem insurmountable to me, even working at a minimum-wage job (which was around $3/hour then as I recall).

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I think if you talk to all fans about their first con/Worldcon it will be something like that. Something you were (or are) so in love with or star struck by that you'll part with your hard earned cash to do it. Patrick Stewart and Star Trek: TNG was my reason for my first convention. And then I learned all my high school friends were doing it. And after high school I was still into roleplaying games and went to conventions like that until I discovered literary fandom.

I don't know that I would have gotten into fandom if I had learned about in high school. Because looking at the list of GOHs they had at MileHiCon when I was a teen and they're not authors that would have wowed me back then. Looking at the long list I find that of the author GOHs in 1991-1994 only one would have impressed me as a teen, Anne McCaffery at ConAdian. And I did not hear about Worldcon for the first time until 1999 at the earliest. Probably 2000.