The final WSFS Business Meeting of this year’s Worldcon has been held, and site selection results have been ratified. The newly elected conventions are as follows.
The 2015 2014 NASFiC will be Detcon 1 in Detroit. Interestingly they have chosen to run in July, around the same time as Finncon will be taking place. I like their GoH slate, which is nicely diverse: one African-American, one Hispanic-American, the members of a group marriage, a prominent woman scientist and some famous filkers.
The 2015 Worldcon will be Sasquan in Spokane. As of now they do not have their GoH list online, but it was announced in San Antonio and is: Brad Foster, David Gerrold, Vonda McIntyre, Tom Smith, Leslie Turek. They too have chosen to avoid the Labor Day weekend.
Interesting to move it earlier. I’m not surprised. Seattle is going to be the main transit hub and Labor Day is a massive music festival in the city.
Still, for the shear lulz involved, driving might be entertaining. There’s decent wine country on route and an option to stop in the ‘genuine’ Baverian town of Leavenworth.
The committee’s stated reason for the dates they chose was that that was the weekend the facilities were cheapest. Labor Day just isn’t a dead weekend in the US anymore; I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some pre-existing local event that weekend that fills up hotel rooms.
It’d be a bad weekend to try to run a Worldcon in the Pacific Northwest anyway, what with Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle and Kumoricon in Portland.
Not to mention Bumbershoot.
I’ll admit that I’m going to break a promise made over a decade ago and buy a membership to Detcon 1. I have a distinct feeling that we’re going to see some really wonderful things coming out of that show. (I also admit that I’m also going to say hello to Saladin Ahmed in the flesh for the first time. We Michigan kids need to stand up for each other.)
Saladin Ahmed was at LSC3 last weekend, fyi.