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

[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 ;-)