Sorry, but enthusiasm in Japan and New Zealand is not going to save/change Worldcons. I'd see very few attendees from either going to other Worldcons not there (or perhaps for NZ, in Australia). In particular, should NZ get the Worldcon in 2020, I'd expect it to have the lowest attendance in quite a while; the NZ natcon last year, which was even promoted as a stopover for non-antipodial fen on the way to Worldcon, only drew a few hundred. Since NZ is a few hours plane flight from Melbourne, I'd expect fewer Aussies at such than at an Aussie Worldcon.
I still think a contributing factor in Worldcon falling off was bad scheduling of such in the 2000s (yes, I know it's "scheduled" by who bids and wins). 2000-2006 all Worldcons were in large metro areas with significant fannish communities (I count "Britain" as a metro area/community for this purpose, based on 2005 and previous British Worldcons). But 2007-2011 have had 2 Worldcons in very isolated from NA/Europe locations, an isolated and relatively small US location (Denver; no really significant other metro areas in driving distance), the smallest US metro area in decades, if not ever (Reno; we'll see how it draws from Portland and the Bay Area), and a Canadian site (which has problems with respect to non-Canadian artists and dealers).
That all means you still get Worldcon regulars, but aren't likely to get many repeating newbies. It also gets former semi-regulars out of the habit of attending when it's in the same time zone or so. Note that, given the current bids, Worldcon will only be in the Eastern Time Zone once in the ten years of 2005-2014 and not at all in the BosWash corridor.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2011-03-28 06:54 am (UTC)I still think a contributing factor in Worldcon falling off was bad scheduling of such in the 2000s (yes, I know it's "scheduled" by who bids and wins). 2000-2006 all Worldcons were in large metro areas with significant fannish communities (I count "Britain" as a metro area/community for this purpose, based on 2005 and previous British Worldcons). But 2007-2011 have had 2 Worldcons in very isolated from NA/Europe locations, an isolated and relatively small US location (Denver; no really significant other metro areas in driving distance), the smallest US metro area in decades, if not ever (Reno; we'll see how it draws from Portland and the Bay Area), and a Canadian site (which has problems with respect to non-Canadian artists and dealers).
That all means you still get Worldcon regulars, but aren't likely to get many repeating newbies. It also gets former semi-regulars out of the habit of attending when it's in the same time zone or so. Note that, given the current bids, Worldcon will only be in the Eastern Time Zone once in the ten years of 2005-2014 and not at all in the BosWash corridor.