Worldcon: A Path Forward?

[kevin_standlee]

First seen in Cheryl's twitter feed and then on her blog: Steve Davidson's thoughts on Worldcon, which make fascinating reading. The contrast of Worldcon with the old monopoly version of AT&T is very interesting. Whether all of the things he proposes are practical or not is a different question. I hope it gets people thinking about why we're doing the things we're doing.

I'm not the only one who thinks that Worldcon committees have got to figure out some way to do joint marketing even if the marketing doesn't seem to have any direct effect upon their own Worldcon. That's pretty difficult, but we did manage to find a way for Worldcons to do revenue-sharing with each other. Any serious joint-marketing effort will probably need the equivalent of Noreascon Three to get started. (N3 jump-started Pass Along Funds back in 1990 by donating money to its successors even though it received no money from its predecessors, in an act of generosity and an interest in Worldcons as an whole even though it was against MCFI's narrow self-interest.)

Incidentally, if Worldcon attendance declines much further, the convention will get cheaper because we'll have shrunk back into hotel space and won't need to rent convention centers anymore. OTOH, if the price went down that dramatically (and it would), the demand might cause it to thoroughly overload that hotel-based facility.

Comments

[twilight2000.livejournal.com]

So the idea of a marketing coordination is attractive to me - how would I get involved to discuss such a thing?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I don't know.

[tkunsman.livejournal.com]

Maybe one way would to directly contact the committee of a(n) Worldcon with you ideas, or suggestions, or ways that you think could help them.

[twilight2000.livejournal.com]

ok - so I'm thinking in terms of a joint marketing thing between WSFS and any current WorldCon - one of the big things I'm hearing from publishers is that they have no idea who to contact - if a joint marketing thing existed, there would be a point of contact the same every year - who's primary job would be to get the pub's in contact with the current (and near future) WorldCons - and to have as much info as was available for those publishers. To be a conduit of information - not to make any decisions - just to be the primary contact, the pass thru person, making it MUCH easier for publishers to know who to contact and helping to even the playing field with the "big-always-in-the-same-city" cons.

How does one pitch an idea like that?

[querldox.livejournal.com]

I think you'd have to pitch it with the expectation that a certain number of people will recoil in horror from the concept of increasing the "power" of WSFS.

Note that pass-along funds, given as an example of cooperation between Worldcons, is literally just that; a Worldcon doing pass-along funds doesn't have to run them through a WSFS middleperson or interact with a WSFS committee. They just send a check or two each to their following Worldcon concoms.

A key reason for the independence and relative lack of coordination between Worldcons is that other than for selection of Worldcons, basic mark protections issues, and rules for the Hugos, there is no central authority or resource. And a fair number of people who show up for Business Meetings really like it that way.

[twilight2000.livejournal.com]

Yea - I expect that issue - I'm just thinking that what Steve Davidson said makes a lot of sense and it has for some time now.

While I like the independence of the WorldCon, Steve is right about one thing - we used to be a monopoly and now we're in major competition for those same major guests and fan dollars - we can evolve into something that allows us to stay alive with becoming C*C or D*C or some other commercial venue - and he outlines some ideas very well.

The idea of creating a contact point - who's job it is to move information - makes a lot of sense if we're to compete with big commercial cons for both guests and fan $.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Right on all points. It's intriguing to me that the PAF scheme, which was and is an independent multi-lateral agreement between individual committees, is sufficiently entrenched and successful that I think there are many people (I've encountered some of them) who think it's regulated and mandated by WSFS. As you say, it's not.

People hate and fear "WSFS Inc.," but they like "Pass-Along Funds." Any joint marketing agreement needs to appeal to the latter without sounding like the former. That's a dicey balancing act.

[tkunsman.livejournal.com]

But, how would this marketing idea be any different then say "Filthy Pierre" always being in charge of the Vodoo board? (I might be oversimpling here).

Could not just each comittee designate the same person from year to year to be the "go to" person for the publishers?

Will it be dicey?

Sure.

Have we tried it?

No.

How do we go forward . . .might be as simple as someonw wanting to do it, and coming forward to a comittee and saying, "Hey, I want to do this, and this is who I know, and how I can help".

there. no committee, no special WSFS permission, nothing.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

What you suggest would probably be more successful than any attempts at official WSFS sanction. But you would probably need to convince both seated Worldcons to agree with it at the same time, and have an "in" with bids for the subsequent year, in order for it to get some traction.

People seem to be less worried about things that at least appear to be voluntary (like the Voodoo boards) than with anything that smacks of "required by arbitrary outside authority."

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

There is already a cadre of people who work on worldcon every year.

Would it be possible to formalize a publicity and a sponsor liaison, and a publisher/other media liaison as permanent positions that would carry over from year to year?

Each year they would facilitate things for the hosting worldcon.

[twilight2000.livejournal.com]

Right - the Unofficial Permanent Floating WorldCon "Team" - And you're right, a permanent position (media liaison) would help out individual WorldCon's hugely - if the publishers know who to talk to, it would vastly improve their ability (and, I suspect interest) in contacting WorldCon for their writers/editors/etc.

That's exactly what I'm thinking in terms of.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

How you do this without raising the Spectre of WSFS Inc. is the challenging part. You would have to do it in such a way that individual committees didn't think they were giving up their Roscoe-ordained independence.

I've said it before and will keep saying it: WSFS is governed the way the United States was governed under its original document, the Articles of Confederation, with a bunch of semi-autonomous entities who reluctantly cooperate on mutual defense because they must but who in their hearts distrust all of the other members of the club and fear any schemes for "joint improvement" actually mean "take away all of our autonomy." This makes all proposals delicate balancing acts. That's one of the reasons we've been moving so slowly on the Hugo Awards Marketing Subcommittee of the Mark Protection Committee.

(The Hugo Marketing is surely moving too slowly, but that's as much my fault as anything else; too many irons in the fire and too few people with time and energy. Still, we hope to have something to announce on that front in a month or so.)

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

This is arguably (and being brought forward as) an issue of mutual defense, so maybe something can be done with that.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

I've never understood why WSFS Inc. is such a scary concept to so many; do people love reinventing the whell that much?

Another question: for all that I hear people gnashing their teeth over the dwindling attendance question, I rarely hear reports of Worldcon-level SMOF types attending a D*C or Gallifrey or animeCon or ComiCon. If for no other reason than to show the colors and not rely on the disaffected to make the first move.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I might argue that, Yes, they do, because then it would be our wheel, not their wheel. They don't care if the wheels are a little out of true as long as they invented their own. Fear of control by some other group trumps any concerns over efficiency. US history is very instructive here. It would not have been that difficult for the early USA to have collapsed into a set of independent bickering states. That we managed to steer through the rocks and come up with a compromise system that people grudgingly agreed to try using merits the name "Miracle at Philadelphia."

I'm not really sure exactly why Worldcon runners are so independent minded, but it seems to come with the territory, because the original WSFS Inc. debacle happened before I was born in 1965, and its shadow looms over us even today. I was prone to bouts of it myself, although I'd like to think I spent more time trying to remind our committee that we might be "ConJosè," but we were also "Worldcon" and we should be acting that way.

One of the few good things about the three-year lead time was that there was something of an incentive for the two future seated Worldcons to cooperate with each other at any given Worldcon, because it lowered costs. (Share suites, hold a combined party, that sort of thing.) It also meant that the individual committee members got to meet and work with each other. We may laugh about the "Permanent Floating Worldcon Committee," but the PFWC can't run the convention by themselves very well. It takes the cooperation of a whole lot of second-tier staff who benefit by the personal interaction with their opposite numbers from the other Worldcons. But I digress.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Counterpoint: Ultimately, Worldcon is fandom's wheel; if the individual committees have lost sight of that then we need to pack it in right now.

[edgreen86.livejournal.com]

LA Con IV *was* at the San Diego Comic-Con. I don't remember off hand if we sold any memberships. If we did, it was certainly less than 10 (probably less than 5). We even sponsored a prize in the Masq, which 'cost' us six memberships. It was worthwhile, the group was the "Dancing with the SF Stars", which was a lot of fun at the 06 Worldcon.

SDCC is many things, but as someone who has attended it for almost ten years flogging one convention or another, let me assure you, it ain't a breeding ground for new recruits to SF Cons. SF Fans attend. Pop Culture Fans *really* attend.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

There's also a location issue. The fan tables in the past few years have been on the back pseudo-concourse area at the mid-level of the two sets of escalators to get to the (other than Hall H and Room 20) big program rooms and under the Sails. This area, and, frankly, the set of tables there, aren't traffic draws.

Similarly, the fan-oriented tables actually on the dealers' floor are stuck together in a back corner which doesn't encourage mass traffic unless, like me, you're going to make a point of hitting every square inch of the floor (a three mile walk if you just go down the middle of every aisle once), or specifically seek out a table in residence there.

[rono-60103.livejournal.com]

I rarely hear reports of Worldcon-level SMOF types attending a D*C or Gallifrey or animeCon or ComiCon

While their may not be reports, I at least have examples to the contrary.

Last November the tables for Gallifrey One and Anticipation were next to each other, with good reason: The co-chair for Anticipation (Robbie Bourget) is also the Treasurer for Gallifrey One, and was one of the founders -- or at least that is what she told me when I commented on it.

Similarly, the vice-chair for Anime LA this year was Christian McGuire, who chaired LA Con 3, and Chas. Boston-Baden was the chair, and I think he counts, or comes pretty close to being a "Worldcon-level SMOF type" -- probably more than I do at any rate.

I'm not sure how many SMOF types attend Dragon Con, except for possibly some of the Southern Fandom SMOFs. And listening to Warren Buff in some of his reasoning for the Raleigh NASFiC, it sounds like he is hoping to reintroduce some of the people who run the southern conventions to the rest of the convention fan community by bringing NASFiC to the South East for the first time in years, since many of them have been drawn away from WorldCon by Dagon Con.

In July I may see how many SMOFs I see at ComicCon, since we're planning on attending -- it is practically in our back yard now that we live in the San Diego area.

Of course, we are not alone in this. In 1999 or 2000 I was at a SCA meeting where they were planning a major Rapier Collage for Labor Day Weekend in 2000. I nearly had my head taken off by even suggesting that they might loose some attendees because the Worldcon was going to be in Chicago the same weekend.

But I do agree that there is a tendency -- and I've been susceptible to it myself(1) -- to think of these events as somehow "other" or "not our kind of scene," so while we might attend we don't look at how we can meld their strengths to fill in our weaknesses.

(1a) In 1998, the previous time I lived in San Diego, I attended a few dinner/meeting/parties for one of the local fan groups trying to find something like the DuPage group in the Chicago area. At these parties it seemed like many of the people there thought that ComicCon was more the more important fannish event in July, even though the Westercon was going to be here as well. The only fact that still worries me a bit (if I'm recalling the discussions correctly) was that some of the mandatory volunteer activities conflicted with Westercon.

(1b) At some point in the 1990s I had a near argument in rec.arts.sf.fandom with one of the founders of Dragon Con when I mentioned that his marketing at that years Minicon -- slick clay-paper fliers directing people to TicketMaster for Tickets -- instantly gave me the impression that they were a Creation Style, for profit, convention and certainly nothing that I'd want to fly to Atlanta in August for.

[lindadee.livejournal.com]

Same here. For as long as I've attended Worldcons (since '71), I've not heard one good reason, just paranoia. So the solution might be to do something like WSFS, but call it something else. A rose by any other name, notwithstanding, if a need can be shown for such a parent organization, it might pass. Westercon has a parent organization in LASFS, which can best be described as treating Westercon with benign neglect, but if a need is there, they can step in.

Just my two cents (subject to inflation).

[edgreen86.livejournal.com]

I just had a thought on this, so I'll throw it out and see how long it lasts. WSFS Inc., might want to consider a booth/exhibit/table at an event that *always* draws readers.

The yearly ABA show.

Yes, I can think of lots of problems with the idea, including the "not all Fans are readers" one, but it would be a chance for the WSFS to should the flag for the Worldcon in general (and not a specific one).

Its a flawed idea, but hell, I might as well throw some positive suggestion out there.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I rather like this, although the cost would be absurdly high, I'm sure. (The kinds of costs that make Worldcons look like pocket change.)

[danjite.livejournal.com]

I haven't been at a WorldCon since 1984 that was too large to fit in one- or two at the most- of the large, top-shelf hotels.

Yes, I mean that.

I suspect the continuing syndrome of insisting on convention centers is a group delusion to make everybody feel like we are mightier than we are. We aren't.

A pair of big hotels is often big enough- depending on the city, of course- to house a con of 8,000+ people, a number we haven't seen in ages and are frankly unlikely to again.

*Puts on the asbestos underRoos*

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to flame you, although I disagree with your size projection. I think 8,000 members could be done, with the right work and a sufficiently motivated committee. The problem is that we're in a death spiral right now.

Still, I'm intrigued by your supposition. Given a convention of ConJose size -- 5107 bodies on site to be precise -- how do you run it in a couple of "big hotels." The seating of your largest single function space is unlikely to be more than 1500 at best. How do you manage the seating at the Two Big Events? Worldcon fans get angry at you when they can't get a seat, so our rule of thumb has been that we need to have at least enough seats for at least 50% of our projected attendance or at least a way for them to see the Big Event, such as overflow rooms with video feeds, which have their own expenses. Furthermore, soaking up that big ballroom means you may not have enough exhibit space for the Art Show and Dealers Room, let alone the fixed exhibits. I'm willing to let the fixed exhibits slide, because the concept that Worldcon should have a bunch of exhibits was invented to fill space that was otherwise going to waste and wouldn't work for anything else, so we could, if we wanted to shrink, simply not display all of the material we've accumulated over the last twenty years or so.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

Did any event at ConJose actually seat more than 2000 fans?

(That doesn't mean it would fit into a hall with 2000 max seats; the Masquerade also eats stage space.)

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I don't have exact counts, but the San Jose Civic Auditorium (where the Hugos and Masquerade were held) have a rated seating capacity of 3,060, although the number of usable seats is probably somewhat smaller. (That room has a built-in stage, so that doesn't eat seats; however, some seats have restricted views, and the Tech Nest takes space too.) I was not in there for the Masquerade, but it seemed like we had a fairly good turnout for the Hugo Awards. I'll hazard that we had more than 2,000 at both of those events. Whether we actually reached 50% of total attendance, I don't know at all.

But actually, the issue here is that people will gripe and complain at you if they perceive a potential seating shortage, and that means a bid whose space shows that their Big Event space is unlikely to seat more than, say, 25% of plausible attendance will be at a disadvantage. And at the convention itself, the perception of shortage will induce people to attend who probably would have not attended otherwise, perversely enough.

[danjite.livejournal.com]

Your response to me above deserves more time than I can give it (Busy with an Internet Blackout and real world demonstration http://www.stuff.co.nz/4851675a28.html) but- briefly:

One can't please all of the people and every group has loud gripers. Inevitable.

The question is is the dissatisfaction- which is inevitable- worth the additional HUGE cost of throwing in a convention center?

How much could we both lower ticket prices and potentially allocate to marketing if we didn't have that expense?

Two major hotels should do it, but they would have to be major and in major cities. One grand ballroom dedicated to Masquerade/ Hugos, one to Dealers room / art show. The newer giant hotels I have been in in the past two years looked likely for 2,000 person seating but if, in fact, it is deemed utterly necessary to use convention center space, then use it solely for the evening audience functions and keep the day time functions to the Hotels.

Sorry I can't give more time right now.

I am dedicated to the proposition of the Worldcon Travelling Show and based on the disagreements about how (and whether!) to market it, youthen it and grow it, have little optimism for it existing as an annual event after 2025.

wow - step away for a minute

[crotchetyoldfan.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised at all the responses that Kevin received here. Not nearly as many responses on the blog entry itself.

I could certainly be wrong, but I think that if a cadre of fans with real-world experience in the marketing department were to get together, draft up a list of services and contacts and then present themselves to the concoms during the bidding process as a voluntary resource that each con com could take or leave, it would mitigate or eliminate the fears of big brother stepping in.

It would probably only take two events (successfully marketed and promoted) for such to become the defacto solution for any con com - yet everyone would know that they could forego those services if they really wanted to.

Re: wow - step away for a minute

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I should probably have closed comments here and said "go over there and write your responses there." I agree that it would only take a couple such successful events to cause the change, just as Pass Along Funds is now the default state of Worldcons even without official WSFS sanction. The challenge here is that no individual Worldcon sees any value for themselves in doing the work. They see only extra expenses and reduced revenue for themselves. What we need is for one altruistic Worldcon (or madman with money) to jump-start the process, the way Noreascon 3, at the urging of Mark Olson, got PAF rolling in 1989 with portions of the N3 surplus.

ConJose has no further Worldcon surplus funds to spend, we having dealt with all of ours and filed our Final Report to WSFS, and it probably wasn't large enough to make the necessary difference anyway. Otherwise, I would probably try to get something started, because I'm sick and tired of Worldcons being run in a regime of "managed decline."