From Facebook: My Mostly Entire Thoughts on the Westercon 66 Thing

[johnnyeponymous]

Andy called me right after they had the Granzella's bid idea and I loved the thought! It was good stuff, sounded like great fun and I hopped on the bandwagon happily. I thought it sounded like fun, I had a blast with both the Casa de WorldCon and AhwahneeCon bids and thought this would be a good laugh

Comments

[melchar]

Heh heh - you will likely need to run many things. ^_^ However, you make good and valid points. Too many Westercon bids & cons during the last 10 years have been exclusive and as a result the membership has declined. I have had a LOT of folks not even know what a Westercon IS. They have never heard of it. Way back in the 'dawn of time' [the 70's & 80's] Westercon was a BIG thing

Westercon needs to be inclusive. It needs to grow and expand its membership. As Lisa puts it, Westercon needs to thrive.

[randy_smith2]

Well, said, Chris! There are lessons to be learned from this year's process. These include: First (and most obviously), Just Because You're Unopposed Doesn't Mean You Will Win; and Beware of Running a Hoax Bid Because You Might End Up With a Convention, Anyway. BTW, I'll happily volunteer to be on Kevin and Andy's committee.

[bovil]

Well, had we not decide that we could actually run the con, we could have declined nomination in the business meeting. It was our "get out of jail free" card.

Based on lack of faith in the Portland committee, the enthusiasm for our message (the underlying message, not the olives) and the alternatives of Salt Lake moving up a year (they didn't really want to) or Hawaii (again, the same, just on a different island), we put together enough pieces to be worthy of real consideration and accepted the nomination.

[lisa_marli]

As Lisa puts it "Westercon needs to thrive", is all too true. As the Lisa who was quoted - It needs people who Really Want a Westercon, not just phone it in, because it has suffered from that too much already.
And it starts with how you run your bid.
K&A had a few weeks, and a few friends and a desire to Put on a Good Show. Even at the Fannish Inquisition, there were three people there (K&A and Mette providing the Swedish translation).
The Portland bid supposedly had 1 year, a number of friends, a whole committee in fact, and only one person showed up to Westercon 64. WTF? Where is the committed? It was sad, really.
Luckily Utah seems to have learned from Portland's experience and seems determined Not to Repeat it. They were a lot of fun at the Westercons party at Worldcon, plugging their bid. Even their fan table was well staffed. I was pleased to see it.
And we now have 70+ members to Westercon 66 and we just opened up membership at Worldcon. WooHoo!