[basfa-list] Thanks to SF community

[Rffdyr]

Tom Veal, Chicon 2000 Worldcon chair writes on his website:

There were two site selection contests this year: for the 2006 Worldcon and the 2005 NASFiC (because that year's <http://www.interaction.worldcon.org.uk/> Worldcon is outside North America). The favorites won both races but by surprisingly narrow margins.

Los Angeles <http://www.laconiv.org/2006/>  defeated Kansas City 754 to 680
for the Worldcon, while Seattle <http://www.seattle2005.org/>  won the NASFiC over Charlotte by an incredibly thin 204 to 198 on the third round of counting (after redistribution of write-in and "No NASFiC" votes).

According to reports from credible sources, eight members of the Charlotte bid committee attended Dragon*Con instead of Torcon and neglected to cast site selection votes. If that is true, it is better than poetic justice.

By all standard criteria, particularly intensity and quality of campaigning, the winners should have romped through. The most plausible explanation is that geographical factors swayed a large number of votes.

Members of Torcon were disproportionately from the Midwest and East. The conventional wisdom has long been that propinquity is a minor factor in site selection outcomes, but that perception is based on races conducted under the now-abolished zone system, where, among North American bidders, differences in distance were not spectacular. (Voters obviously are willing to disregard distance when considering overseas bids; otherwise, none of them could ever win.) If geographical bias proves to be a genuine and persistent force, it could lead to the emergence of a quasi-zone system or, less happily, to a tendency of Worldcons to bunch year after year on one side of the continent or the other. A partial parallel is "northern zone" Westercons, which never move south of Portland.  -- from Stromata, Tom Veal*s webzine at
http://stromata.tripod.com/id405.htm


As a postscript I do need to thank those in the science fiction community who supported the Seattle bid.  Now tell us what you want at your North American Science Fiction Convention,

David-Glenn Anderson
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

CascadiaCon 2005, the North American Science Fiction Convention (NASFiC) is September 1-5, 2005 at the SeaTac Airport Hilton, Seattle WA