My letter to a con-vis bureau

Good Morning Chaz,

Greetings from your friends in (City)! My name is (Jane Doe) and I am a convention sales manager for the (City) Convention and Visitors Bureau. I was looking at the World Science Fiction Society website learning more about your organization and am interested in submitting a bid to host a future Worldcon or NASFiC Convention. It appears you just finished holding the Worldcon in Scotland and NASFiC in Seattle and will have the 06 Worldcon in Los Angeles.

(City) seems like a nice fit for your National Conference. The (City) Convention Center has 246,000 sq ft of column-free exhibit space, 2 ballrooms (43,000 and 23,000 sq ft) and 54 meeting rooms and a total of 5,000 sleeping rooms downtown. I look forward to the opportunity to share what makes our Capital City one of the hottest emerging destination cities in the country.

As the State Capital and home to America's largest public college campus, The University of (State), (City) supports a politically charged and culturally rich environment. It's hip, trendy, high-tech and affordable! Our historic downtown district offers over 200 restaurants, live-music venues (they don't call us the "Live Music Capital of the World" for nothing!), galleries and shops, built-in entertainment for your members!

I would love the opportunity to speak with you and learn more about your meetings and conferences and how I can assist with offering (City) as a fresh, new and affordable host city to you and your members. Is there a convenient time for us to visit so I can learn more about Worldcon and NASFiC and the process a city must take to submit a bid?

Thanks,

(Jane Doe)
Convention Sales Manager
(City) Convention and Visitors Bureau

It doesn't work that way. And you're talking to the wrong person to convince.

A group of fans -- that is, some of the people who run science fiction conventions -- in (State) would put together a bid for a city. And the members of the World Science Fiction Society would vote on whether we'd have the convention there -- it's not decided by a small committee, it's voted on by hundreds of people. (If you look at http://www.laconiv.org/2006/bids/bids.htm you'll see that this year's convention was selected by 1481 people voting on the issue, and it was a close race: 52% to 47%.)

There's been a NASFiC and a Worldcon in (State), most recently (Convention). (Another fact you could verify in your own research.)

There are fans in (State) that are considering bidding for a future World Science Fiction Convention in the next five to ten years. Some of them live in (City). If you wanted to reach them, you would want to research what science fiction conventions are held annually in (City), and which of them are run by non-profit organizations.

Big exhibit halls are nice, but they're a lot more important to political conventions with tv cameras trying to get a good line of sight. (You can verify how much space a Worldcon uses by asking your colleagues in Anaheim, Boston, Toronto, and San Jose -- sites of the Worldcon in 2006, 2004, 2003, and 2002.) What's important is to have a good-sized hall, and also to have convenient dining and reasonable hotels nearby. Most attendees at the Worldcon are paying their own way -- they're not on an expense account -- so $200/night rooms are right out. Anaheim's room rates are remarkably cheap; even Boston in 2004 had $144/night rooms. You can confirm that on the 2004 Worldcon's website, http://www.noreascon.org/facilities/ .

Anyhow, it's because of this whole easy-walking-distance-to-food-and-rooms that Anaheim is a viable location while the Los Angeles Convention Center isn't -- the L.A. site is downtown and the place is an empty wasteland at night.

These are things you might consider when you look at (City)'s suitability, and when you find the right group of fans to approach. And I was at a convention in (City) where fans were talking about bidding for a Worldcon. Go find them, I've given you enough clues to get started.

Chaz

Gents,

I am not sure to whom I should direct this email, but hopefully you can direct me to the proper individual. I hope to connect with whomever heads up the WORLDCON bid process. I work for the (City) Convention Commission, and will probably need to enlist the support of some local folks, is that accurate?

Also, does the World Science Fiction Society have a home base? From what I can determine, the organization is "based" in Massachusetts. Am I right?

Thanks so much, and have a grand day ...

(Janet Doe)
National Convention Sales Manager
(City) Convention & Visitors Commission

There's a lovely standard letter about all this, but I'll go ahead and try my hand, since I'm young and we like to do that. I'm not sure how my email got lumped in with the others, but I happen to be heading up a bid for the NASFiC (North American Science Fiction Convention) for (Another city).

The way it usually works is that a group of science fiction fans, usually of the sort who are already involved in running conventions, and frequently attend and volunteer at Worldcon, decide that they would like to host a Worldcon. In a perfect world, there are enough of them to form a solid core, and their hometown has ample function space and hotel rooms. If one of those conditions isn't the case, they go outside of their hometown for help and/or a location.

This is where, usually, they would contact you, the local convention bureau. (Note that this is where I contacted my local convention bureau.)

Now, I do happen to know that there is established science fiction fandom in (City), so you may be able to talk them into doing something of this sort. I'd suggest you start with the folks who run (Convention), as they recently hosted the 2007 NASFiC. Given how recently they've been involved in that undertaking, though, they may not be ready for something big again yet. But they might know who else around town you could talk to.

In any event, the vote takes place two years before the convention, bids typically are active for two years before the vote, and frequently, they exist at some level of planning before that. So, at the earliest, you'd be looking at the 2013 Worldcon, for which a highly popular group in Texas is already poised to bid. After that, the 2014 Worldcon race is likely to be dominated by a highly popular group in the UK (and since Chicago is currently unopposed for 2012, and bids are forbidden within 500 miles of the vote's location, this would be even more unrealistic). So I'd suggest that, should you be able to convince a local group to get involved in a Worldcon bid, you'd be looking at 2015 or later, keeping track of what locations are within 500 miles of (City) to make sure you don't wind up bidding for a year that would be excluded.

Does that help any? I'm not sure of the contact info for the folks with (Convention), but I'd suspect that, based on their size, they've had some contact with you in the past.

- Warren Buff

No, WSFS is not headquartered in Massachussetts. The Massachussetts address is basically a mail drop, so that from one year to the next people with interest in our marks (Worldcon, for example) have a consistent place to write.

The closest thing we have to a WSFS headquarters would be whichever Worldcon committee that is running the next convention. So in the current instance, that would be the people in Montreal organizing the 2009 Worldcon.

-Chaz

1. What is the largest annual fan-run science fiction convention in your town?

2. Have you talked to them yet?

Give me the answers to those two questions if you decide to write to me. Otherwise, I'll assume you can't follow instructions and I'll ignore your message.