Nova Albion and the Future of Fandom

[kevin_standlee]

I didn't hang around after the main convention ended around 5 PM. Too tired, too hungry again. Going to try to get to sleep early.

I had someone ask me yesterday, "How can we inject the energy and spirit at this steampunk convention back into Worldcons?" He's right about the issue. I remember Worldcons, when I started attending in them in 1984, as high-energy, high-excitement events. Now they're much less so.

I gave the person as long-winded answer to his question, but I think it boils down to a single, cold-hearted answer: "Some significant Worldcon SMOFS are going to have to die." Or at least retire from the field of active convention running and participation in Worldcon organization.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not wishing death on anyone, neither literally nor figuratively. But to a great extent our collective conrunning brains at the Worldcon level are suffering from calcification of the neurons as we continue to keep things frozen into the form that we consider ideal, and in some individual cases, effectively working toward mummification, with a stated opinion that amounts to, "I want Worldcon and fandom to die when I do, and it must not change in the slightest until then, either."

It's not that we don't need experience. We do. What we need to do is not be straightjacketed by it. We need people who have the energy and drive to make events like Nova Albion and the other steampunk events and like the anime conventions want to work on general-SF/F events rather than getting discouraged by the entrenched interests who are more concerned with making sure that the Wrong Sort of Fan doesn't actually get involved. We certainly don't need the people making the decisions passing rules that effectively preclude those who actually are willing and able to get things done from even participating. (And that's not an academic, theoretical statement, as the WSFS Mark Protection Committee did exactly that this past year, even in the face of evidence that the members of the WSFS Business Meeting wanted something different.

Comments

[randy-smith2.livejournal.com]

Take a look at FogCon. It was literary convention with a decidedly younger committee and membership. I felt like an old foggy. I'm not sure what they did, but it would be worth a long conversation with Debbie Notkin to find out.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Good point. SFSFC did some minor support for FOGCon, but I wasn't able to go. Sounded like they had enthusiasm.

[totient]

FOGcon was precisely who I had in mind when I asked "why bother". A geographically diverse group of people who were interested in serious intellectual discourse with people from around the world could have bid for a Worldcon, but instead decided to start something entirely new. In so doing, they got away from the ossification and the expense of Worldcon, and gave up, by all reports, exactly nothing.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

And that's fine if all you want is a local gathering with a small number of local fans. But if you want to have an event with a broader scope, attracting a larger number of important people in the field, you need something bigger than that.

[totient]

if you want to have an event with a broader scope, attracting a larger number of important people in the field, you need something bigger than that

No, you really don't, that's my point. I don't have figures for FOGcon but I do know that the crowd there is the crowd from Wiscon -- and Wiscon is a more worldwide event than Worldcon is. 15% of the attendees at Wiscon are from the state of Wisconsin -- and that includes concom members. They get Aussies by the dozen, and enough foreigners overall that the Pocket Program has to explain US style tipping. Heavyweights like Samuel Delaney attend every year. They do things with their publications that I did not think were possible. They take awards seriously and the entire convention attends. If FOGcon accomplished a quarter of this, and there's reason to think they did considering how many people not from the state of California I know who attended, then the organizers got as much egoboo out of it as they would have from bidding for a Worldcon.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

And here's what I think you are missing: Wiscon is always in Madison. It's just great for the people who travel to it. Worldcon could do something exactly the same: permanently locate itself in one city (I'd pick Anaheim, actually, but you could make a good argument for several others), organize the same way every year by an ongoing group (which BTW would probably cut the attendance price by at least one-third right away and maybe more; economies of scale and not having to pay start-up costs every year), and concentrate on Growth. It would get Big. And it would be come utterly unreachable by most fans.

One of the key things about Worldcon is that it comes to people who can't come to it. Look at all of the Australian fans who are highly unlikely to ever attend a Worldcon outside of Australia. Repeat this for every region that's ever hosted a Worldcon.

You can grow Worldcon and lose many of the things that make it difficult to run, but in doing so you probably make it just another permanent-site convention like DC or ComicCon. It would be just as much the "World" con as the self-named World Steampunk Convention is the "world" gathering of steampunk culture.

But that's probably just dandy for people who can afford to travel a long distance every year or who happen to live within commuting distance of the Permanent Worldcon Site.

[totient]

I'm not trying to ring the death knell for Worldcon here, just point out why I think holding it in a convention center in a big American city is not in the interest of the conrunners in the big American city in question. Conrunners outside the US certainly benefit, and seem willing to run 40-50% of the Worldcons (if the PNW people bid and win Vancouver for 2015 it will be 6 out of 11 and 7 of 13 outside the US). That leaves the question of where to hold the other 50%, and maybe the answer is big hotels and little convention centers, but it won't (or shouldn't) be in places like the Hynes or the Moscone Center or Anaheim.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

There's an argument been made (by Mike Resnick) that the number of non-US Worldcons is hurting Worldcon, because the largest number of potential attendees are in the USA, and with Worldcons going here and there (and not to large US cities), the core audience has simply forgotten the convention exists. (Considering the number of fans I meet at every convention where I sit at a table who have never heard of Worldcon, there may be merit to this argument.)

But let's see what happens if you deliberately aim your Worldcon at a hotel and not a convention center. Okay, your costs go down by at least a quarter of a million dollars. (That's how much the San Jose Convention Center cost to rent and to decorate in 2002.) That means you can significantly reduce your membership cost. That probably means demand will shoot up because it's more affordable. Except that because you're no longer in a building big enough to hold your convention, you either will suffer enormous overcrowding (making people very unhappy with you) or else you'll have to impose a membership cap, and that just means the actual cost of the memberships will go up anyway as people will re-sell their memberships on the secondary market.

I don't really see a good way out of this. Hotels are not infinitely expandable. Sure, we could hold conventions of up to maybe 2,000 people in hotels we have around here in the Bay Area (the Fairmont and the Doubletree immediately spring to mind, and there are others). But 5,000? The number of hotels in the USA that can host such an event without a convention center can be counted on not more than two hands. And such facilities likely would impose high fixed costs equivalent to a convention center; that was our experience negotiating with the San Francisco Marriott, which could probably hold 5K with some noticeable crowding, but wanted about a half-million in revenue guarantees — worse than renting Moscone Center!

So what should we do? Impose a 2,000-person membership cap on Worldcon the way World Fantasy has a more or less 800-person cap (with holes in it)? That would certainly push Worldcon down the road of being a "business literary conference," which someone at Aussiecon 4 told me she assumed Worldcon was, much to my surprise.

[totient]

enormous overcrowding
I don't see it. You're probably right that the number of 100ksf+ hotels in the US is not that much more than a dozen; I came up with the Hyatt Regency Chicago, a couple of hotels in in Las Vegas, the Peabody Orlando (which is now much larger than it was in '92), three in New York, multiple sites in Atlanta, the Hershey Lodge in PA, the Moody Gardens in Galveston, the (under construction, but totally bookable) Washington Marriott Marquis in DC, the San Francisco Marriott. And you're also right that some of those facilities won't want to deal with us. But we should be talking to the big hotels in New York, and to the Washington Marriott Marquis. And to the smaller convention centers, like Buffalo and Ocean City. I'd rather see 8,000 people in a 100,000 square foot facility than 4,000 rattling around in a facility that's too big. And while it depends a lot on how efficient the space is, 12 square feet per attendee for a large 4-5 day con is a totally doable number in my experience.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

San Francisco Marriott: The last time we dealt with them (for 2002), they made it incredibly clear that they didn't really want our business, but if we'd give them at least half a million dollars, hold a bunch of food functions, prohibit costumes in all areas, and forbid room parties (except parties catered by the convention in their space with the $5 cans of soda and $1 per chip costs), they might consider us. Maybe.

New York would be worse, by all accounts. There's a reason we haven't been back to New York since 1969. The costs are out of the stratosphere.

Even Chicon 7's memberships aren't going to be perceived as cheap, and they're not in a convention center.

I'd rather have 10,000 people in the space we've currently been taking than limiting attendance to 2,000 so we can cram them into smaller, cheaper space.

But maybe I'm all wet. Someone who is convinced that the members won't complain about crowding should try it. I expect, based on the queue-tolerance of anime cons, that maybe younger fans don't think overcrowding is a bad thing.

[totient]

New York would be worse

As I mentioned above, I thought this too until I got a very interesting phone call from a salesman for one of the big New York hotels.

[totient]

San Francisco Marriott: The last time we dealt with them (for 2002), they made it incredibly clear that they didn't really want our business

Nine years is a long time. It was only six years from when the Sheraton told MCFI they weren't welcome to bid for the '98 Worldcon there to when MCFI won their bid (and negotiated quite favorable rates, forkage policies, and so on) for 2004.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I admit that I could be wrong, but I suspect that they — like your contact in New York — would initially say, "great!" and then when they got into what we actually wanted, say, "Uh, maybe not," or "Sure, but it will cost you a million dollars," and I mean that literally, not figuratively.

The $250K it cost to rent/decorate the San Jose Convention Center is actually a bargain, it appears. Not as much as the relative pittance that Winnipeg was charged in 1994, but still a very good deal.

[totient]

I understand that Anticipation's rental and decorator expense came to under CA$150,000. Yet another reason to hope for Vancouver in 2015, I suppose.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I also thought Calgary had some very nice facilities.

Winnipeg was among the five best Worldcons I've attended, and I'm not saying that just because I was Deputy Chairman. It's pretty much the only Worldcon where I got to Day 5 thinking, "I could stand a couple more days just like this."

Alas, all Canadian sites share a common problem: vast numbers of Americans who are allergic to border crossings. Montreal and Toronto, both major metropolitan areas within an easy one-day's driving distances of a large portion of the US population, had lower attendance than would an equivalent US city in the same general area. That's probably not something that can be fixed; it's American isolationism in action, and the actions of the US government in demonizing everyone isn't helping.

[totient]

Ah, I found a list. I missed the Sheraton Dallas and the Hilton San Francisco Union Square. I missed that the two Gaylord convention centers (in Nashville and DC) are both technically also hotels (both of them are too large for a Worldcon). And I undercounted the number of Las Vegas hotels with 100,000+ square feet of function space.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

It's vaguely possible that we might find a hungry enough hotel in Las Vegas, but we'd have the same issue as we're going to have in Reno. Also, the room rates won't be any good — look what the Atlantis/Peppermill did to Renovation. (For details, go to the Atlantis hotel's web site and quote room rates for the week before and after Worldcon.)

I'm not saying it can't be done; I'm saying it's not as easy as you are suggesting it is. I'd admire anyone capable of talking these hotels into deals that don't end up costing as much as any given convention center and wouldn't change the nature of the convention entirely (say by prohibiting costumes and parties).

[nojay.livejournal.com]

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.

[cherylmmorgan.livejournal.com]

This is exactly the argument we get from the old-time SMOFs in WSFS. "Why of course Worldcon is an international event. I know a couple of dozen foreigners who attend. And all of the people *I* think are important go. There's no point in attracting anyone else because they are not part of *MY* fandom." But at least they are doing it for a con that is much bigger that Wiscon.

Worldcon in Melbourne last year attracted around 2000 people, including Aussies and Kiwis by the hundred. That's what we want out of Worldcon, not a few dozen who can afford the flight to the USA every year.

[totient]

Aussies by the dozen in a 1000-person con underrepresents Aussies as a fraction of the English speaking world population by about a factor of two. That's pretty damn good for a convention that's nowhere near Australia.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

So do you think that anchoring the Worldcon into a large US metro area would be a good thing?

[totient]

Too much thread depth. I was still describing Wiscon in this thread, in support of my thesis that conrunners in a large US metro area are better off *without* the Worldcon.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Wiscon differs from Worldcon in many ways, some of which you mention in detail later. But it's very much NOT a local gathering, and does not consist only of a "small number of local fans".

Even Fourth Street Fantasy, which barely hit 200 people one year, routinely had people from both coasts, sometimes from overseas (not counting guests), and did have rather a lot of the top people in fantasy through over the years.

You can start a new "thing" which is very much not a small local relaxacon. I'm sure you can also fail to; that is, not all attempts succeed by any definition. (The Fourth Street running now is a second edition, with very different concom and a many-year gap; and it's fun too.)