Ten years ago, I predicted that the adoption of the “no-zone” system for Worldcon bidding would eliminate contested races: Bids would camp on a year, and it would be easier for potential rivals to choose another than go to the effort and expense of a contest. Some ill-natured folks might think that my thesis was undermined by the contests for 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and (until recently) 2011. But any true scientist knows that data are malleable. Having cleared away those anomalies, we can now look forward to a good chance of unopposed bids for 2011 (Reno), 2012 (Chicago), 2013 (somewhere in Texas), 2014 (somewhere in Europe) and perhaps 2015 (San Diego). Take that, ye doubters!
The absence of competition doesn’t necessarily mean an absence of news. The Chicago in 2012 bid committee, which for my sins I serve as treasurer, met this weekend at Capricon. Most of the discussion centered on the usual uninteresting matters of bidding strategy, but there was some new information about the unresolved issue of the convention venue.
The last three Chicago Worldcons were at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, which, according to no less an authority than Mike Resnick, is the best facility on the planet for a World Science Fiction Convention. It isn’t, however, the city’s only possibility. This time around, a consortium of the Hilton Chicago (the original “Conrad Hilton”) and the Palmer House Hilton have made a strong pitch, even providing several dozen chocolate chip cookies, imprinted with the bid’s logo, for our Friday night party. Together the two Hiltons have over 3,000 rooms. The Hilton Chicago, which would be the main facility, has its own convention center. Both hotels are elegant to the point of being lavish and have recently been refurbished. Their main drawback is that they are two-thirds of a mile apart. Their main advantage is that another group has expressed interest in the Hyatt for Labor Day weekend 2012 and will be making a decision within a very few months. The odds are that it will go elsewhere, but we can’t be sure. If the Hyatt is preempted for Labor Day, it won’t be available, as a practical matter, for an earlier weekend in August. That is a busy season for the Chicago hotel industry, and room rates would be unaffordable by fannish standards.
A third alternative is the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, with its surrounding hotels. This is the site of the annual Chicago Comic-Con and has more than enough space and sleeping rooms for the Worldcon. What it lacks is the ambiance of downtown Chicago. Unless we can get spectacularly cheap room rates, I’d regard this as a non-starter.
In other news, I’m told that the nascent Texas bid expects to pick a site fairly soon and announce it at Anticipation. The 2014 European bid is likewise moving along, with Glasgow and London the leading contenders. Apparently, there has been enough overbuilding in the Docklands to make a third Loncon (the last was in 1965) conceivable.
It should be noted that the Seattle in 2011 committee hasn’t gone dormant. Its leading members would like to try again. So there could be a contested election in, say, 2015. Oh, well, another outlier to be scrubbed from the data.
"Their main drawback is that they are two-thirds of a mile apart."
I believe there was unhappiness about the distances at Denvention.
Posted by: Michael Walsh | Sunday, February 22, 2009 at 12:53 PM