On the new Hugo voters

[nwhyte]

After Sasquan's spectacular intake of new Supporting Memberships following the announcement of the Hugo shortlists, I've seen a great deal of speculation on what this might mean in terms of votes. I think we can all be certain that most of these new members have joined with the intention of participating in the Hugos; how will they do so

Comments

[uitlander]

I suspect that one of the benefits of the current debacle is that a lot more people now know who votes for the Hugos and how they can join in. The Hugo pack is probably also quite tempting for the cost of a pre-supporting membership.

[nwhyte]

I think the first part of that is absolutely right. I have seen a lot of commentary along the lines of, gosh, I always knew about the Hugos but never realised it was so easy (and so important) to take part.

I'm less sue about the second half. Sasquan have been quite good about not over-promising, and really, £25 is not exceptional value if you consider just the novels (which is what most people appear to have done in previous years). If you throw in the graphic stories and non-fiction, it does mount up, I agree.

[arwel_p]

On the third hand, some of us just like to have a supporting membership to support Worldcon! I must admit that until last year circumstances had precluded me being a member since 2005 though I was a regular supporter in the 90s, so the Hugo pack was a novelty for me last year. I wasn't planning on joining this year until you-know-what happened over Easter, so the first thing I did on the Monday morning was go up to Paul Dormer and say "Paul, it's time you sold me a supporting membership!".

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[la_marquise_de_]

Interesting.
What I'd really like to see is the breakdown by country. I'm curious about the number of non-US supporters, because there seems to be a groundswell of resistance to what's seen as right-wing Americans trying to shut us foreigners out, combined with a lot of support for the 2017 Helsinki bid.

[dalmeny]

That was my first thought also.