Maybe what Mike Resnick wants is a big (4-5000 person) annual American national SF convention. It could be anchored in a particular city, benefitting from reduced rental and operational costs like Dragon*Con or the Comicon in San Diego enjoys -- part of the price gouging the convention centres exact on a given Worldcon committee is that they're only going to make a single purchase of a given timeslot and then vanish like the morning mist the day after. If they can sign up for five timeslots in advance then discounts start appearing on the table. Logistics are also improved as storage of major decorating items such as artshow kit can be arranged locally without the dreadful shipping problems of moving heavy bundles of stuff three thousand miles from one side of the country to the other as the convention shifts around.
Nothing (other than the INS and the US State Department) would stop SF fans from other countries joining up and attending a regular "Americon" or even working on staff or committee; it's one of the joys of SF conventions anywhere and everywhere that some of the fans you meet aren't from around these parts.
Twenty or thirty years ago this would have been unthinkable -- the Worldcon was automatically the American national SF convention with a poor drab substitute NaSFiC on the very few occasions it left the CONUS. Back in the 70s Colin Fine wrote a filksong about this (in the days of the old three-zone system):
"Around and around and around goes the Worldcon, East coast and West coast and central and all, Sometimes the rest of the world gets a look-in, The kind-hearted Yanks let us play with their ball."
Those days are dead and gone with the wider spread of fandom and cheap(ish) airfares and enough connectivity for inexperienced non-US committees to be able to tap a widespread network of Brains in Jars to get over the bumps.
An annual ASFC would probably mean is that fewer American fans would attend the Worldcon, whether held in the US or outside its shores as their mad money and free time would be used up attending the regular Big One wherever it might be held. At that point it might well be possible to fit even a US Worldcon into one of the big hotel spaces available as the numbers fall.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2011-04-01 10:03 pm (UTC)Nothing (other than the INS and the US State Department) would stop SF fans from other countries joining up and attending a regular "Americon" or even working on staff or committee; it's one of the joys of SF conventions anywhere and everywhere that some of the fans you meet aren't from around these parts.
Twenty or thirty years ago this would have been unthinkable -- the Worldcon was automatically the American national SF convention with a poor drab substitute NaSFiC on the very few occasions it left the CONUS. Back in the 70s Colin Fine wrote a filksong about this (in the days of the old three-zone system):
"Around and around and around goes the Worldcon,
East coast and West coast and central and all,
Sometimes the rest of the world gets a look-in,
The kind-hearted Yanks let us play with their ball."
Those days are dead and gone with the wider spread of fandom and cheap(ish) airfares and enough connectivity for inexperienced non-US committees to be able to tap a widespread network of Brains in Jars to get over the bumps.
An annual ASFC would probably mean is that fewer American fans would attend the Worldcon, whether held in the US or outside its shores as their mad money and free time would be used up attending the regular Big One wherever it might be held. At that point it might well be possible to fit even a US Worldcon into one of the big hotel spaces available as the numbers fall.