Tom Veal has written a detailed analysis of the 2008 Worldcon site selection results. I feel the need to correct him on one point: the “Denver Wins!” headline on the hoaxzine was not there because Seth (or the rest of us) thought it was an improbable result (we covered that in the item about the demolition of the Oasis Tower of the Marriott) — it was there because we knew the facts, and the best hoaxes are well-dusted with facts (see, for example, the runup to the Iraq War).
I can’t speak for everyone who voted for Denver, of course, but I can speak for seven voters who chose Denver (and may well choose Montreal for 2009) based entirely on the date of the convention. School in our part of California starts a week or more before Labor Day — even Kehillah has given in on that this year and is starting school next Tuesday. So a Labor Day con is at a disadvantage for us compared to one which is set during summer vacation. Of course, by 2008, Jeff will be in college, and we don’t know what that particular college’s schedule will be — but in any event, it’s likelier that he’ll start before Labor Day than afterwards.
Technorati tags: worldcon, denvention, smoffing.
So a Labor Day con is at a disadvantage for us compared to one which is set during summer vacation.
I can certainly sympathize with this issue, although it has never been a voting factor for me. In 2004, I went from tear-down and move-out of Noreascon Four on Tuesday afternoon to my office — where, Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., I taught my first class of the semester: a graduate-level class in convention management.
It was…ironic, to say the least.
David:
I can’t believe Tom Veal really thought we put Denver Wins as a hoax! Does he understand what a hoax is? Eric says that if we were going to put a hoax winner in, it would have been Holister (Eric says we could have announced that Hollister was moving the bid to Oregon in order to make it far enough away), I really like that twisted idea.
Tom also doesn’t get it with the voting. SMOFs are the last people to make a hoax bid first choice because it couldn’t win. SMOFs are much, much too serious to really use their vote for a hoax. I met other people with children (besides us) who voted for Denver because of their children’s school schedule.
Do you know what problem with the Chicago Art show is, that they keep referring too? (boy is that an awkward sentence construction!) Aviva and I were there, and I don’t remember anything besides the Eisensteins own art in the show there.
Dana
Dana,
Nope — I wasn’t in Chicago for 2000, and whatever happened didn’t penetrate the clouds of gafia I was in at the time.
Just to shed a bit of light. The problems with the Chicon 2000 art show are too many to bore people with; if you want a detailed enumeration of them, they can be found in the ASFA Quarterly Fall 2001 (8 pages worth). The practical upshot is that many artists were so screwed by Chicon that they have sworn “never again”.