Kevin Standlee (kevin_standlee) wrote,
Kevin Standlee
kevin_standlee

Olympic Selection Triggers Worldcon Thoughts

After thinking about the "Olympics should visit new places" attitude mentioned in my previous post, I got to thinking about comments I've ready about Worldcons lately. I still see people snarking about the Worldcon being exclusively an American convention and that it needs to travel more if it wants to be a "World" con. I think the people doing the snarking haven't been paying attention that much lately, or else they're taking such narrow views, such as looking (say) at 2011-12-13 and ignoring the entire period from 1999 to 2010, as to allow them to conclude that "Only US sites host Worldcons." Of course, they may also be saying, "Canada is just part of the USA," something that annoys me at least as much as it must annoy Canadians, and ignoring the Canadian Worldcons as not being "really" non-US sites. Meanwhile, I've also read some people commenting that the fact that Worldcons have been outside the USA and not in major US markets -- Bos-Wash/Chicago/California -- more often is hurting the convention by making it less relevant to publishers, who (sensibly) are spending their limited promotional funds on conventions that actually reach readers, such as DragonCon and ComicCon.

Ironically, I saw the "Oh, it doesn't get out of the USA often enough" comment in the same discussion where people were complaining that Aussiecon 4 was some evil plot to only allow Australians to win the Hugo Award in 2010, since nobody from the USA could possibly afford to travel so far away. And elsewhere, a complaint that Reno was too far away from anything, followed by geographically challenged people who seemed to be confusing Reno with Las Vegas regarding proximity to the Grand Canyon. I didn't really have time to get involved in the discussion, or I would have challenged the people who complain that the convention isn't in their backyard to go out and bid for it. Not that they would, of course: nearly all of these people are all mouth and no meat.
Tags: worldcon
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