And The Preliminary Results

[billroper]

Denver won the 2008 Worldcon by 12 votes. My suspicion is that a lot of the on-site voters voted for the location closest to L.A., but we'll know more about that when the daily totals come out.

Despite the fact that Denver was part of the old Midwest rotation zone, my opinion that the recent changes to Worldcon site selection have had the effect of screwing over the Midwest stands intact. Denver's a damned sight closer to the West Coast than to most of the rest of the Midwest.

But we'll see what happens with the 2009 vote. If Montreal wins that one over Kansas City, then it's going to be devolving into a pretty sad situation.

Correction: Denver is in the old Western zone. So a city in the Western zone voted a Worldcon to another city in the Western zone. How nice.

Comments

[katyhh.livejournal.com]

Ow. That's a really disappointing outcome for me personally. I had hoped that we'd have had a possibility to travel to "home area" ... sigh.

[madfilkentist]

Since the population of the U.S. tends to be bunched toward both coasts, we'll probably see more Worldcons there than in the middle. I appreciate your frustration considering where you live, but I'm not convinced it's a bad thing. (Nor am I convinced it isn't.)

[katyhh.livejournal.com]

I don't know enough about world fandom politics (and also admittedly don't care all that much anymore - I've had my years of smoffing, and really reduce these activities to filk now) to judge whether it is a bad or good thing from that perspective. But it is a bad thing in regards to personal travel plans. I've always wanted to see Chicago, plus a lot of good friends live there, and since we will not be able to travel that much anymore, it simply would have been a good opportunity to do a "combine everything" trip and get a worldcon as a bonus. We won't go to Denver. In that case it will likely be an OVFF / visit friends combination trip in '08.

[daddy-guido.livejournal.com]

welcome to the reason i never aspired to the "upper echelon" of fandom.

Never in the world has there been a more frivolous, self centered bunch of pompous asses combined in one group.

And yes, i am familiar with Congress, parliament, and the UN.

The ABC crowd obviously got involved with the voting heavily, because Denver was the LEAST logical choice of the three.

I had mixed feelings about having it here, I would have gone to Columbus, but Denver? Bah.

Then the idiots wonder why worldcon attendance keeps declining....

[pheltzer.livejournal.com]

How's Dave taking this... ranting and raving at the world or is he taking it more gracefully?

[billroper]

Haven't seen anyone from any of the bid committees yet, so I can't say.

[barbarakitten-t.livejournal.com]

i could have managed columbus or chicago either one...but i don't know about denver...that would require air travel

[mia-mcdavid.livejournal.com]

AAAUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Denver

[(Anonymous)]

Denver's closer to Chicago than it is to Los Angeles (per Mapquest)

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Oh! Denver was bidding against Chicago. I understand.

K.

[billroper]

daisy_knotwise tells me that Dave's taking it ok.

[cathydalek.livejournal.com]

No one on the various blogs I've read seems to think that the date change had an effect, but i'm wondering if that may have had a significant impact. my purely anecdotal evidence is that "denver's the only one early enough that it's before the start of the school year and the whole family can go" ranked second to "anywhere but chicago" in terms of why people told me they didn't vote for chicago.

[billroper]

Actually, I agree with you. When I realized that all three of the bids that have bid off of Labor Day recently have won (Baltimore, LA, Denver, if I recall correctly), I tossed that onto my factors list. Have any off-Labor Day bids lost lately?

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a Worldcon voter, I wasn't actually excited about ANY of the 3 choices

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I'm curious why Denver was the least logical choice of the three? Noting that site selection voters aren't just "upper echelon" fen and that most of the smoffish types I personally know were rooting for either Columbus or Chicago.

[billroper]

Depends on which smoffish types you hang out with. You're a filker, you know. :)

[mia-mcdavid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but, see, we're *from* Chicago . .. .

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah. That's 'cos filkers are the BESTEST people. But I hang with all kinds of smoffish types at Worldcon; it's one of the reasons I'm so rarely in the filkroom there!

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and I'm from New York, which is why I'd vote for Anywhere But New York ;)

[daddy-guido.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess it depends on the brand of logic you subscribe to.

In fairness, I acknowledge that MY brand is a few degrees off tangent sometimes.

That said:

One of the issues that always surfaces in a WC discussion is facilities. I've heard people bitch for hours because they had to go from one hotel to another via a connected hallway.

As i'm given to understand it, The "Denver" facility involves multiple hotels, blocks apart, and a seperate convention center.

A second issue that gets raised is local support - one of the "strikes" against Chicago and Columbus was that the traditional crew that ran worldcons in those cities was not involved in the current bids.
Again, I'm given to understand that the "Denver" bid is being run by folks from a nearby town, and that Denver fandom has not exactly lined up to support them.

Then there's the accessability issue - Chicago obviously wins the ease of transportation race, with Columbus a short second, and Denver dead last (unless they have really bolstered their infrastructure in the last 10 years).

Usually, one's level of effort in promoting said con is also taken into account. the Chicago bid was all over the planet, Columbus made a good showing, but failed to arrive in key places like, say, scotland, etc. Denver's effort seemed mostly to consist of tables at regionals - i don't recall ever seeing a party or anything, although i'm sure they must have done SOMETHING, or they'd not have gotten the vote. It's possiblr that they put forth a phenominal effort on the west coast, which of course i wouldn't have seen.


And yes, I understand that the vote is a "will of all the people" type of thing, but realistically the actual voting usually consists of only 5-10% of the total membership, and therefore a small but determined group of lobbyists can exert significant influence on the outcome.

[mia-mcdavid.livejournal.com]

Well, mileage varies.

We're not Worldcon Goers. We don't have the leisure or money to travel that much.

We're stuck in the Twin Cities now.

A worldcon in Chicago is one we'd actually GET to.

So, aaauuuggghhhhh.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Denver fandom, AIUI, doesn't actually care about cons outside Denver (this from a friend of min in Denver fandom) and has no stake in Worldcon at all (not that this is necessarily a problem necessarily. I'm sure that if Boston-in-Orlando had beat MilPhil, they'd have thrown a perfectly good con. I would just never vote for a Worldcon in Florida, ever).

For what it's worth, I think the REAL problem with the current Chicago bid was the last Chicago Worldcon.

[daddy-guido.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but since it's an entirely different crew of people involved, that's like saying you won't eat at Burger King because the food sucked the last time you went to McDonalds.

[daddy-guido.livejournal.com]

I picked D+H up from O'Hare last night - I'd say Subdued, with occasional flashes of Bitter, and partly dissillusioned, with a chance of depressed.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Amusingly enough, Japan is held over US Labor Day.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

If Montreal wins over KC, a lot of things change, including not bothering to launch the bid until much later in the process. Maybe I'm mistaken, but this was the first announcement of any sort I'd seen for Montreal; KC has been promoting itself at Baycon.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I would suggest that most people voting in site selection did not know this (indeed, with limited exceptions, I don't recall who ran most of the last Chicago worldcon).

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Montreal's been promoting itself for a while; I'm fairly sure they were in Glasgow as well.

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

I had hoped that we'd have had a possibility to travel to "home area" ... sigh.

Did you vote?

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

It's almost like the zone system was designed to move Worldcons around.

To the people for whom distances on a map are the deciding factor, bidding doesn't matter.

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

With all due respect, I don't think the problem was the "upper echelon". It's the people who sat on the sidelines, particularly in Chicago, who allowed this result to occur.

The *World* Science Fiction Convention is supposed to move around. Denver's not going to be harder to get to than Yokohama or Sydney.

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

The Kansas City bid was discussed unofficially in the spring of 2004 and officially launched the morning after site selection at Noreascon. The Montreal bid was thought of the evening after site selection at Noreascon, at the Arisia party.

I have seen both bids at many conventions over the past two years.

[katyhh.livejournal.com]

Nope, wasn't at the con and didn't have a supporting membership (I live in Germany). But I "instructed" friends who went and didn't care about the outcome to vote for Chicago ... didn't help ;-)

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

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<em.A second issue that gets raised is local support - one of the "strikes" against Chicago and Columbus was that the traditional crew that ran worldcons in those cities was not involved in the current bids.</em>

The Chicago bid had several people who worked on the previous Worldcon, including the past two convention chairs, plus several past division heads, plus people who had chaired most of the Chicago-area conventions. It's true that some people wanted a break. Unfortunately we no longer have the guiding hand of Ross Pavlac.

Other than Matthew, Lisa, and Larry, I'm not entirely sure who the "traditional crew" would be in Columbus.

[cogitationitis.livejournal.com]

As one of those smofs, Denver's win puzzles me. They didn't have a decent-sized bid committee--it was mostly a two-person bid. They didn't campaign as hard as Chicago. They didn't have the facilities of either Chicago or Columbus, and, as you say, no local support.

Personally, I didn't like *any* of the bids--Chicago for personal reasons, Columbus because the bid died and never hal tried, and Denver for the reasons above. Don't blame me: I voted for Hollister (the joke bid). They, at least, had a sense of fun, and gave good pubs.

[cogitationitis.livejournal.com]

Boston-in-Orlando not only had local support, they would have folded the bid if they did not. And the facility & location are great; it's just the weather that sucks.