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]

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.