Science fiction convention
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Science fiction conventions are gatherings of the community of fans (called science fiction fandom) of various forms of speculative fiction including science fiction and fantasy. Historically the focus has been on the written form rather than audiovisual media representations, but this has broadened to include all forms of storytelling. People in attendance at a science fiction convention are traditionally known as members of the convention; invited celebrities including authors are commonly known as guests of the convention, though many professionals including authors will simply attend as members.
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[edit] Anatomy of a typical science fiction convention
Many conventions have Guest(s) of Honor (GoH). These guests are the headliners of the convention. A convention can have as many Guests of Honor as the convention committee wishes. Often conventions will also honor Fan Guests who are not celebrities but have made a significant contribution to the fan community. Along with the author and perhaps fan Guests of Honor, a convention can have an Artist GoH, Editor GoH, Fan GoH, Filk or Music GoH, a Toastmaster, and Special Guests.
[edit] Getting Started
Although wide variations exist between different conventions, there is a general pattern that most adhere to. Nearly every weekend of the year now has at least one convention somewhere in the United States. Some conventions are held on holiday weekends where four or more days can be devoted to events.
[edit] Program
Panel-led discussions, or Panels, usually fill up the daytime hours of most conventions with typically one-hour discussions of topics related to Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Fandom in general. Some conventions have well-attended, scheduled panels starting as late as midnight. Panel members (even professionals) are not customarily paid for their appearance, although many conventions rebate the membership fees of program participants after the convention.
Some program items are set presentations by experts. Science speakers are among the most popular program items at many conventions. Slides (either photographic or PowerPoint), video clips, sometimes even handouts might be used for such presentations.
Readings and "kaffeeklatsches" are program items where a single author either reads from their work or has an informal discussion with their fans.
[edit] Special Events
The first night of the convention "Opening Ceremonies" are often held, where organizers and marquee guests are introduced and speeches might be made. Sometimes, conventions will have a skits, musical performances, video clips, or other samples of the convention as part of the Opening Ceremonies.
A costume contest called a masquerade is often held where persons go on stage and compete for nominal prizes based on their skill in assembling and presenting genre-inspired outfits. This is truly more a "talent show" rather than the "fancy dress ball" that the term suggests (although British fandom sometimes uses the term "fancy dress"). Anime fans might refer to the masquerade as cosplay, but there are notable and subtle distinctions between the terms.
Some conventions feature award ceremonies, in which the best works and most notable individuals are recognized for their contributions to the field. Worldcon has several award ceremonies, most importantly the Hugo Awards, but also the Sidewise Award for Alternate History and other awards.
Just as art shows display the visual aspect of science fiction, many conventions include concerts or other music-oriented events as part of the convention. Often these are performances by filkers, though other musicians may also appear at a con.
A convention may have one or more auctions. The Art Auction is an event where the most popular items from the art show are sold to the most interested buyers at the convention. Many conventions also have auctions for charities, either formal or fannish; the latter would include auctions on behalf of TAFF (TransAtlantic Fan Fund) or DUFF (Down Under Fan Fund).
Evening entertainment often includes a combination of official and unofficial events, including concerts, dances, formal invitational dinners, and fandom-themed room parties. Additionally, other convention committees hold room parties in order to promote their own convention and to sell memberships. A bid party is a room party held to influence the choice of the location of a future convention (such as WorldCon) by advertising its advantages.
Some conventions have a Closing Ceremony to formally mark the end of the convention. Depending on the convention, this can be a major gathering of most of the membership, or it may be lightly attended or dispensed with entirely as members are occupied with packing up and checking out of the hotel.
[edit] Exhibits and Fixed Functions
A Dealer's or Huckster's Room is available, where merchants sell wares of interest to fans. These include books, action figures, prop replicas and t-shirts. Similarly, there is often an Art Show where genre-inspired art is displayed and usually made available for auction or purchase. Smaller conventions may simply have an informal Dealer's Row, a section of hotel rooms from which dealers sell goods, while larger conventions may have both an official dealer's room and an unofficial dealer's row.
The Art Show is generally an open art exhibition; that is, it is open to all comers and all art submitted is exhibited for sale. This naturally leads to a wide variety of types of artwork, from professional illustrations to outsider art, with many amateur works. The subject matter is tailored to the interests of fandom, i. e. many spaceships, dragons, unicorns, vampires, cat girls etc. Art shows often permit sales by artists, which is a significant source of income for some artists.
Many conventions have video rooms in which genre-related audiovisual presentations take place, typically commercial Hollywood movies, genre television show episodes, and anime. If there are multiple media rooms, each one may have themed content.
Game Rooms are also available at some conventions for attendees to play a variety of genre games, including collectible card games like Magic: The Gathering, role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, miniatures games like Warhammer 40,000, and board games like Settlers of Catan. Easy, fast-playing card games, e.g. Apples to Apples, are popular as they don't require a large time commitment or deep knowledge of rules, allowing casual gamers to join.
[edit] Con Suite
The Convention Hospitality Suite or Consuite is often provided as a room reserved for light refreshments, a quiet conversation, and a place to briefly rest. The refreshments typically include coffee, tea, juice or soda, and light meals appropriate for the time of day. Depending on local liquor distribution and liability laws, the suite may serve alcohol. At conventions in the United Kingdom, the provision of cask ale is generally considered essential.
Many conventions have a dead dog party in the evening of the last day of the convention, after closing ceremonies, usually in the con suite. This is the traditional winding-down party where few of the attendees are likely to have huge amounts of energy. This party is an attempt to ease people back into the real world outside of the convention and can be an effective method of warding off the depression, which is often associated with the end of a major event. A dead dog party can last until the following morning. Analogies can be drawn to the decompression parties following large events such as Burning Man.
[edit] Types of conventions
Since the first Philcon in Philadelphia in 1936, local conventions have been organized in many cities around the world, either as one-time or annual events. Some cities have a number of science fiction conventions, as well as a number of special interest conventions for anime, media, or other related groups. Some conventions move from city to city, serving a particular country, region, or special interest across.
[edit] Regional conventions
Before the age of inexpensive travel, regional conventions arose to attract fans from broad geographical areas. The oldest of these is Westercon, which rotates among regions in the western United States and Canada. Eurocon is held each year somewhere in Europe, often in eastern European countries where fandom is a new phenomenon. DeepSouthCon is held in the Southern United States, with a focus on Southern culture in science fiction.
[edit] Media conventions
Some conventions are focused on "media", that is, science fiction on film and television. There are general media conventions covering a broad range of science fiction in media, such as Toronto Trek, and then there are conventions focused on a single body of work, such as "Celebration," the official Star Wars convention, "Galaxyfest," the yearly event in Vulcan, Alberta dedicated to Star Trek, and BotCon, the official Transformers convention. Most media conventions are commercial shows run for profit, though some are organized by fan groups similar to general science fiction conventions.
[edit] Comic and "Popular Culture" conventions
From comics and media fandom, a category of "popular culture" conventions has emerged, such as Comic-Con International and Dragon*Con in Atlanta. These events have become much larger than traditional SF conventions; nearly a hundred thousand people attend Comic-Con in San Diego each year.
[edit] Special interest conventions
There are many conventions focused on particular special interests within science fiction. For example, Wiscon is focused on feminist and gender-studies. Filking conventions such as Ohio Valley Filk Fest, FilkOntario, and GAFilk gather those interested in science fiction-related music. Costume con gathers people from around the world interested in mainly science fiction costuming. Penguicon combines science fiction with technology, particularly Linux and open source software.
[edit] Commercial cons
An important distinction can be made between commercial cons (often called "shows") -- those run by dedicated companies who specialize in con organization -- and volunteer-run cons. Usually run for profit, commercial cons tend to charge for "tickets" or "admission" rather than having "memberships". A primary focus of commercial cons is meeting celebrities, such as stars of science fiction TV show and movies, anime voice actors, etc. There are frequently very long lines of people waiting for autographs at commercial cons. Commercial cons also tend to have less small-scale programming; panels will more often be composed of famous actors, directors, etc. on press junkets, where the panels are held in very large rooms with very high attendance. The largest cons (in terms of attendance) tend to be commercial ones. Commercial cons tend to be more likely to be about comics, manga and anime, and popular media than volunteer cons, and they also tend to have a younger demographic, but this is not absolute by any means.
[edit] Volunteer cons
Volunteer cons, on the other hand, tend to be smaller in scope and more intimate in character. Panels will be more lightly attended, but fans themselves tend to take part in the panels more often. Although there are often autograph sessions, they tend to be less a focus of volunteer cons. Admission to volunteer cons is usually called "membership", emphasizing that the fans themselves are the ones who make up the con, rather than the staff who run commercial cons.
[edit] Global award conventions
[edit] World Science Fiction Convention
One of the major activities of the members of the Worldcon is nominating and voting for what works and individuals will receive the Hugo awards that year. The awards are presented at the convention.
With the success of Worldcon, hundreds of local and regional science fiction conventions have sprung up around the world. At these conventions, fans of science fiction come together with the professional writers, artists, and filmmakers in the genre to discuss its many aspects.
Since most such conventions are entirely volunteer run, a breed of fan known as Smofs has developed its own community and knowledge share to keep convention-running traditions alive.
[edit] World Fantasy Convention
Fantasy is usually considered alongside science fiction at conventions (the terms were used interchangeably for most of the period from 1926-1966). Conventions that are nominally science fiction conventions such as WorldCon are usually also fantasy conventions in all but name. World Fantasy Convention was begun in 1975, held yearly thereafter. The World Fantasy Convention, however, is less oriented toward the fan community, and is primarily a professional gathering (for writers, editors, publishers, etc.). Many of those who attend "World Fantasy" also attend Worldcon. However, this convention is more focused on authors and publishing, with a much higher proportion of authors in attendance; as such it does not usually include the broad range of events (masquerade, dances, video room, etc.) that one will find at a general-interest convention.
[edit] History
The precise time and place of the first science fiction convention is a matter of some dispute. Sometime in 1936, a group of British fans made plans to have an organized get-together, with a planned program of events, in a public function space, in early 1937. On October 22, 1936, however, a group of six or seven fans from New York City, including David Kyle and Frederik Pohl, travelled by train down to Philadelphia, where they visited for several hours with a similar number of local fans at the house of Milton A. Rothman, declaring the event the first science fiction convention.
On January 3, 1937, the British fans held their long-planned event at the Theosophical Hall in Leeds. Around twenty fans, including Eric Frank Russell and Arthur C. Clarke, were in attendance. To this day, many fan historians — especially those in the United Kingdom — complain that the Philadelphia meeting was a convention in name only; while other fan historians point out that many similar gatherings since then have been called "conventions" without eliciting any disagreement.
Nevertheless, by 1939, American fans had organized sufficiently to hold, in conjunction with the 1939 World's Fair, the first "World Science Fiction Convention," in New York City. Subsequent conventions were held in Chicago in 1940 and Denver in 1941. Like many cultural events, it was suspended during World War II. Conventions resumed in 1946 with the hosting of the World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles, California. The first Worldcon held outside the United States was Torcon I in Toronto; since then, Worldcons have been held in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, and in 2007, Japan, although the majority of Worldcons are still held each year within the United States.
[edit] Pros at Conventions
Conventions provide a forum for fans to see first-hand and meet their favorite authors and artists. They also serve the interests of authors, editors, and other publishing professionals, providing opportunities for networking, promotion, and a convenient location for contract negotiations and other business meetings. It should be noted that at traditional science fiction conventions, there is little or no distinction made between the "pros" and the "fans." Many professionals in the field began as fans, and may still consider themselves fans; and more than a few fans have also worked professionally or semi-professionally in the field.
[edit] Idiosyncrasy
It is important to note that many con-goers take pride in being interesting and unusual, and naturally many cons are highly idiosyncratic. Cons often have activities, running jokes, organizational methods and other things that not only differentiate them from other cons but are often a point of pride. Most cons vary from the above outline in one or more important ways, and many have their own unique cultural characteristics.
For example, here are some of the idiosyncratic features of Minicon (a local con in the Twin Cities in the US, the subject of many of the photos in this article):
- Peeps are prominently featured in the con's decoration scheme due to the con's usual proximity to Easter.
- The Gahlon-Krentz pulse check is a long-running tradition in which two of the con's members see who is still awake and active late at night. The number is published in the at-con newsletter, the Bozo Bus Tribune (which itself has a long history).
- Because it occurs in the spring, daylight saving time sometimes happens during Minicon, leading to a lost hour late at night. During this hour, many incredible, spoof programming items are listed, such as roundtable discussions by various dead authors, test drives of starships, etc.
- At an early Minicon, the President of Mnstf (the con's sponsoring organization) declared himself to be President for Life. This was resolved by play-assassinating the President. Ever since then, the President has been "assassinated" by various humorous means at Closing Ceremonies.
Most cons will tend to evolve many of their own idiosyncrasies along these lines. To fans, these are often part of the charm each convention offers.
[edit] See Also
[edit] External links
- Science Fiction Convention Survival Kit for Newbies
- A list of convention rules / guidelines
- The Conrunner's Wiki
- SciFiConventions.com A list of science fiction and fantasy Conventions
- Science fiction and fantasy convention calendar at The Thunder Child
- concatenation.org/conls.html Science Fiction Conventions & Films Diary 2007/8
- homepage.ntlworld.com/wilf.james/i_conlist.htm Wilf's International Con Listings
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