Crapping On the Midwest

[billroper]

Well, it looks like the 2009 Worldcon has been voted to Montreal over Kansas City. This greatly dismays me, but doesn't surprise me. The elimination of the rotation zones has predictably led to us having no Midwestern Worldcons.

The last Worldcon in "the Midwest zone" was in Toronto in 2003. And, to be honest, Toronto is as far east as Pittsburgh and almost as far east as Buffalo, both of which are clearly "Eastern zone". The only reason Ontario's in the old "Midwest zone" is because of the large, much more sparsely populated section of the province that overhangs the Midwest. But I wouldn't bet on a Thunder Bay Worldcon ever happening. So by geographic measures, the last Midwest Worldcon was probably Chicon 2000. Wow!

It's definitely been the "screw the dealers" decade for Worldcon. Since ConJose in 2002, the Worldcon has gone to Toronto, Boston, Glasgow, Los Angeles, Japan, Denver, and now Montreal, with a dead certainty that the next Worldcon will be in Australia, because the SMOFfish contingent would be sure to punish anyone who dared bid against it. Three Worldcons out of eight on the right side of the customs barrier.

If you're making your living from your fannish business, you might as well just start planning on going to Dragoncon. (We don't and I don't.) Who knows? Maybe that was part of the SMOFfish objective too. I've heard this constant background rumble that Worldcons had gotten to be too large.

I guess that's been fixed. Heck, even the most recent LACon was much smaller than we might have expected a few years ago.

Success!

Comments

[pwl1.livejournal.com]

It's worse for Canadian filk dealers. We don't exactly suffer from a plethora of filk cons, and certainly not within easy driving distance. So I can deal at *one* whole con per year.

[billroper]

Actually, we only deal at one filk con per year, OVFF. The rest of the cons on the schedule are general-interest SF cons.

[pwl1.livejournal.com]

You have more of those, too - at least ones that are filk-friendly. We have Polaris (not filk friendly - it used to have a filk track, but that seems to have totally disappeared). There's ConCept in Montreal - when it runs. They don't really know much about filk there. There's Ad Astra, with limited filk. And the other cons are commercially run (or so it seems). I've tried dealing at both Ad Astra and ConCept - and in both cases barely made the cost of the table (if that).

[madfilkentist]

Non-US bids seem to be favored at a non-US Worldcon. International dislike of the US in recent years may have increased the effect.

Montreal sent me spam; ergo, I won't get a membership in their Worldcon.

On another issue that closely affects us, now that we know where and when the 2009 Worldcon bid will be, that affects where the related filk cons will go. It'll be in early August, so ConCertino should if at all possible be in June and not July. I won't say more since I don't know how public certain other plans are supposed to be at this stage.

[sraun]

I'm under the impression that the non-US voters really didn't like the thought of dealing with the current incarnation of US Customs and DHS/TSA requirements. I don't blame them.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

If I were outside the US, I certainly wouldn't want to deal with the hassle of coming here.
Heck, I'm IN the US, and I don't really want to deal with our airports post 2001 even for domestic flights.

[catalana.livejournal.com]

Crap. Well, at least I don't have to worry about getting enough money to go to a Worldcon for a few years...not really much comfort, though.

[qnofhrt.livejournal.com]

I always thought US fans voted for out of country worldcons because it gave them a good excuse to go visit those places. I know at least one person who went to Nippon for that reason.

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

I'll admit that I vote for worldcons with great consideration given to which location would be most interesting to travel to.

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

I got the impression that Dragon*Con has grown to larger than WorldCon attendance.

-Tim

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

Hugely, *considerably* larger than WorldCon. WorldCon has maybe 5000 attendees, and Dragoncon has over 20,000. WaaahWahhh, it was too biiiiig! Guess WorldCon will find out about grow-or-die.

I can't go to any high-altitude locations. I'm not inclined to go to Toronto-in-another-language. Maybe I'll try DragonCon.

[kaththeamac.livejournal.com]

Montreal is not "Toronto-in-another-language". As a California transplant to New Brunswick, Toronto seems more like Chicago and Montreal more like Boston. It has several universities and a thriving music scene. And while French is the official language, there is a large English population in Montreal, so much conversation goes on in both languages at once. Fascinating place.

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

Not the city. The convention. After the top layer, it's the same committee.

[kaththeamac.livejournal.com]

Oh. Okay. Clueless here, obviously.

[marahsk.livejournal.com]

After the top layer, it's the same committee.

Not quite. Many of the people who did the actual work at Torcon (ie, NOT the top two layers of management) won't be working for Anticipation.

[zentinal.livejournal.com]

...Guess WorldCon will find out about grow-or-die.

How large should a Worldcon be? Does it need to be as large as Dragon*Con or San Diego Comic-con or Pax?

[billroper]

That's a darned fine question and I'm not sure that I have the answer off the top of my head. As Worldcons get larger, you start to have more trouble finding venues that can hold them.

That said, I'd feel more comfortable if the long-term trend in Worldcon membership was going up. And I don't think that a Worldcon in the 8-10K range would have to be an ugly thing.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping that Kansas City will decide to bid for 2010. There have been too damn many Worldcons out of the US this decade.

[(Anonymous)]

IIRC, Chicago is re-bidding for '10 as well.

[billroper]

2012, if I understand correctly.

[marahsk.livejournal.com]

Chicago is indeed bidding for 2012. You would be more than welcome if you would like to help make a midwest Worldcon happen.

[billroper]

I have this nine month old daughter at the moment who I think has other plans for my future. :) But I appreciate the thought!

[marahsk.livejournal.com]

We lost by 12 votes last year. The amount of effort that would make a difference is not incompatible with having a small child.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

No, I heard that they were bidding for 2012.

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

Absolutely not.

The KC bid is dead for my lifetime. 2036 if y'all are lucky and we go insane.

[zentinal.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping that Kansas City will decide to bid for 2010. There have been too damn many Worldcons out of the US this decade.

Since 1997 (I assume that's what you meant)
San Antonio, Texas
Baltimore, Maryland
Chicago, Illinois
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
San José, California
Boston, Massachusetts
Anaheim, California

Source = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Worldcons

Seven out of ten.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

I was referring to 2000-2010 (or 2001-2010, if you want to be pedantic about it):

Toronto
Glasgow
Yokohama
Montreal
And whatever location Australia is bidding for 2010.

Out of the US = too expensive for me.

[zentinal.livejournal.com]

'Nuff said.

[bschilli.livejournal.com]

Kansas City already said they aren't going to bid again any time in the near future.

Ben

[billroper]

That doesn't surprise me. Getting rejected twice tends to turn a lot of bid committees off.

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

DragonCon has won the battle for Labor Day weekend. Heck, they had a parade through downtown Atlanta that showed up on CNN and Headline News! CNN's estimate was "around 20,000" attendance. Given that Worldcon doesn't break 5,000 ... QED.

Meanwhile, if I lived anywhere but the USA, there's no way I would vote for a Worldcon to be held here. There are just way too many travel issues with the delay for visas and then the hassles at the border. Heck, it's going to be a hassle for us Americans to get back home from Montreal!

If you're wanting to make money from fannish sorts, DragonCon is definitely the place to be on Labor Day weekend.

[billroper]

Yes, but what I wanted to do was go to the Worldcon, deal a little filk to subsidize the process, see my fannish friends, and have a good time. As I said, I don't make my living from this.

My general impression is that I probably wouldn't enjoy Dragoncon, nor would I see most of my friends there. Of course, at the most recent LACon, I didn't see a great many of my West Coast filkish friends there because it was too expensive anyway.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

>>My general impression is that I probably wouldn't enjoy Dragoncon, nor would I see most of my friends there.<<

Well, filkertom is not only fairly regular as a performer, this year he's Filk Czar. And the Rogow made it down from NJ, and I'm local and so are autographedcat and kitanzi. Who else you consider friends I don't know, so I can't tell you if they'd come.

Whether you'd enjoy it depends largely on your tolerance for (a) massive crowds and the resultant traffic-flow/room-packing issues, (b) the fact that filk is pretty much the red-headed stepchild at D*C (i.e., barely tolerated/accommodated but by no means catered to) and (c) your interest or lack thereof in heavily media-oriented (as opposed to literary) programming. It all depends on what you come for; if you did decide to come on down, I certainly would do whatever I could to make it a more pleasant experience for you, and I think I can say the same for ACat and Kit.

[singlemaltsilk.livejournal.com]

"If you're wanting to make money from fannish sorts, DragonCon is definitely the place to be on Labor Day weekend."

But that's just it -- while there are those out there for whom this is their livelihood, or just another profitable venue, more than a few of us aren't looking to make money, so much as to simply afford to attend. That's the purpose of my business. For the most part, I can really only afford to attend conventions as a dealer.

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

I wasn't a member this year, and so didn't vote. As such, I didn't pay close attention to the bids. When I do pay attention, the questions I ask are:

1) What experience do the committee members have?
2) How well run is the bid? (e.g., how good and widespread are the parties and the materials they put out?)
3) How good are the facilities? (Is there enough function space, and how spread out is it? How many hotel rooms are within walking distance of the convention center?)
4) How expensive would it be to travel there? (On this score, KC would have had an edge over Montreal, but barely, and only because I'd consider taking the train like I did in '76. I won't drive that far these days. Columbus had a big edge over Denver.)
5) How much do I want to visit the city, adding days before or after the con? (Here, Montreal beats KC hands down. Same for Denver over Columbus, though Denver also scored for me on family.)

What's not on that list is "What do the SMOFs think?" Who counts as a SMOF these days, and what percentage of the voters actually listens to them? Do they (whoever they are) really have that much influence over the site voting? And how can they punish anyone?

I would also hazard a guess that the majority of voters aren't dealers, and don't take what's best for the dealers in their area into account when voting.

As I recall, though I was a supporting member of LACon last year, I ended up not voting, because I couldn't make up my mind. Both looked to me like pretty solid bids, and I was torn between the closeness of Columbus and the excuse to visit my sister in Denver.

And I was a supporting member of LA because I did vote when I was in Toronto in '03, and voted for Kansas City.

[singlemaltsilk.livejournal.com]

"I would also hazard a guess that the majority of voters aren't dealers, and don't take what's best for the dealers in their area into account when voting."

Of course they aren't, of course they don't, and neither I (nor, I suspect, Bill) expect them to. We all have our own personal equations for this, it just happens that mine is a pretty cold one. So it goes.

[archiver-tim.livejournal.com]

"What do the SMOFs (whoever they are) think?"

What with LJ, other blogging, podcasts, email and web-pages, I would think it would be hard for a Master of Fandom to remain Silent or Secret.

-Ryan ;)

[qnofhrt.livejournal.com]

I count four in this post alone ;-)

[scs-11.livejournal.com]

It's definitely been the "screw the dealers" decade for Worldcon.

As opposed to all those other Worldcons that are "screw the dealers" (not to mention the fans) for anyone outside of the U.S? And for what it's worth, I heard similar comments from US-based artists about Toronto and Japan.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly sympathize with your difficulties moving anything commercial across the border. We've now given up on driving through Canada for any of our trips to Rochester, Syracuse, etc, just because customs passage time is so unpredictable. Ditto for simply attending some Canadian cons - the only one I hit with any regularity is FKO. It would be so much worse if I were carries goods for sale or display.

But it's not someone trying to screw the dealers. It's just that for most fans, they're either already outside the US or US fans who like going other places. On their order of priorities, the quality of the dealer room is likely near the bottom.

I wonder what the U.S. vs overseas distribution of fandom is these days? Is overseas declining as fast as the U.S.

Yeah, but...

[singlemaltsilk.livejournal.com]

"On their order of priorities, the quality of the dealer room is likely near the bottom."

Maybe so, but one of the most common complaints I heard about TorCon (after the scheduling snafus, of course) was about the small size of, and lack of variety in, the dealers' room.

Re: Yeah, but...

[scs-11.livejournal.com]

True - but at voting time, it doesn't seem to be as high a priority with the voters. Either they're not making the connection about the problems dealers have crossing the borders, or they're not putting it as high a priority as other things.

As for Torcon, I've little doubt that the concom screwed up the dealers room as bad as they screwed up everything else. Who knows what could have been done if notices got out on time, issues were identified and spelled out for those crossing the border with goods, etc. God knows the concom effectively prevented that for the Art Show. Yes, there are problems getting goods back and forth across the border between the US and Canada, but at the time of Torcon they were considerably fewer than those involved crossing the Atlantic or Pacific.

[birder2.livejournal.com]

I've only been in Montreal once and that was probably about 25-30 years ago--it was a professional meeting. Of all things for Customs to worry about they gave my boss a hard time over his SLIDES! But it seemed to be a beautiful city--I considered voting for it. My main criterion for site selection is "can I DRIVE there? Because the hassle at airports these days makes flying a horrible way to go.

[scs-11.livejournal.com]

Google claims it's a 10.25 hour drive from my house, 610 miles. Based on my and Canadian driving standards, that's more like 8.5 to 9 if one can avoid Toronto rush hour and go thru customs at the Bluewater rather than Detroit. From Columbus I'd guess another hour assuming you went thru Cleveland and crossed the border at the east end of Lake Ontario.

Either way, a long drive.

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

Just for the hell of it, I checked times and prices for both air and rail. (I selected dates as far out as I could, which got me to the last week of July 2008.)

A non-stop flight on Northwest is currently running about $550. That's a flight time of under two hours each way. By changing planes on the way, you can get the fare down to about $475.

Via Rail will get you from Windsor to Montreal, changing trains in Toronto, for $248. That takes 9 to 11 hours, depending on the schedule. Could be fun with a group.

[zentinal.livejournal.com]

A train full of fen. That would be fun!