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

[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!