conventions

When I heard about the New Zealand NatCon, Au Contraire, a week before Aussiecon 4, this year's Worldcon, I thought it was a fantastic idea. I thought it was such a good idea that we should do something similar in Dublin for the London Worldcon bid in 2014.

I mentioned this idea to a few people back home before leaving, and got a very positive response. I then mentioned it to some people at conventions down under, and they all said they'd love to come to Ireland. So I guess I was committed to running it.

Then another idea came to light.

For both Glasgow Worldcons, the Eurocon was incorporated into the Worldcon, and I assumed this would also be the case for London. However, since 2005, Worldcon has moved to a 2-year bidding cycle, and at the time when the Eurocon bidding takes place in Zagreb, London won't yet have won the Worldcon bid, so it won't be a convention, and without a convention it can't bid for Eurocon.

As with the others, this was previously posted on LiveJournal.

Part 4: So what actually happens on a GUFF trip?

In parts 1, 2 and 3 I talked a bit about what GUFF is and how it's funded, but now I think it's time to get into the details of what actually goes on when you get there.

Of course the details vary, and each GUFF delegate has their own way of doing things, but that's what makes trip reports worth reading. There are, of course, traditions that must be observed.

Every GUFF trip centres around at least one convention, usually the biggest con in the destination country that year. Naturally, when there's a Worldcon on either continent that tends to be the target, which sometimes requires a little juggling of the trip schedule to ensure it's going in the right direction that year. Other years it tends to be Eastercon for northbound trips and Natcon for southbound ones.