By George R.R. Martin: We ran into some problems this year at the Hugo Losers Party in
Dublin, and it seems there’s been a good deal of online commentary about what happened
and why, much of it from people who were not there and don’t know any of the
facts, but are outraged and eager to chime in all the same. There’s
been way too much misinformation going around, and a lot more heat than
light.
I do
not know that anything I can say will appease those who did not get into the
party… but I can at least explain what happened, and why.
Facts
first. At the Hugo Losers Party on Sunday night at the Dublin 2019 Worldcon,
for a certain period of time, the venue where we were hosting the party reached
its maximum legal capacity, and a number of invited guests arrived at the door
and were denied entrance. Included among them were some nominees
from the awards ceremony that had been held earlier that evening (losers
largely, I gather, though there may have been a winner or two as well),
together with their plus ones. A few of those who did not get into
the party became very irate and took their grievance on line, even as the party
was going on. Others, not present, became irate on their
behalf. And matters have mushroomed from there.
There have been a lot of angry words spoken, and a demand to know who is to
blame.
There
were four separate groups involved in this year’s Hugo Losers Party, in major
or minor ways: the 2019 Worldcon (Dublin), next year’s Worldcon (New Zealand),
the venue (the Guinness Storehouse), and me m’self and I, with my
staff. Everybody played some part in what befell us, but for some
that part was very, very small. I have seen posts blistering both
Dublin and New Zealand. Neither one deserves the criticism they are
getting. If someone must be castigated here, fine, blame
me. It was my party. Other people were involved, and
there were definitely some failures of communication, but the ultimate
responsibility was mine. And while a number of mistakes were made
along the way, the biggest was the one I made at the very beginning, months
ago, when I chose the venue.
Since
reviving (or reclaiming, if you prefer) the Hugo Losers Party in 2015, I have
searched for unique, interesting, off-site venues to hold the
festivities. The party had long since outgrown the hotel suites where it
began in the 70s and 80s, and a sterile convention center function room is no
place to have a party, in my opinion. The Guinness Storehouse
seemed perfect. Historic, colorful, interesting, quintessentially
Dublin… and they say Guinness is best when drunk at the source.
Many of my guests agreed, and told me during the party how much they loved the
venue.
The
problem was, it turned out not to be big enough for everyone that wanted to
attend.
That
requires a bit more explanation, however. The Storehouse is a
massive old multi-story building. From the outside, it looks as if
it could contain ten parties the size of ours. And it could have, if we
had the whole building. We didn’t. We rented the Arrol
Suite and adjoining mezzanines on the second floor. With the set-up we
selected (a stage, some comfortable seating, a dance floor, the bar, food stations,
tables, and more seating out on the mezzanine, etc), its maximum capacity was
450 people.
My
mistake was thinking that would be enough.
Dublin
was the fifth Hugo Losers I have run since reclaiming the party. In
terms of venue size, the Storehouse falls right in the middle. It
was smaller than the Glasshouse in San Jose and the cavernous Midland Theatre
we used for the Kansas City party, but larger than Glover mansion in Spokane
and way larger than the steampunk bar we used in Helsinki, the smallest of our
party sites. We knew the capacity of the floor we were renting well
in advance, and worried whether the 450 limit would be a problem for
us. The possibility was there, we all saw that.
But there was no easy answer, so in the end we decided to go ahead as planned
in the hopes that things would work out. The final decision was
mine. It was the wrong decision.
I
will not deny that my team and I had concerns. This came into sharp
focus when James Bacon requested 140 invitations from us, for inclusion in the
registration packets. He wrote, “The figure of 140
invitations, (280 people), includes. Hugo Finalists. Guests of Honour. Featured
artists, Special Guests (astronauts) FF Delegates, the Master of Ceremonies.”
This was a much larger figure than we’d been expecting, though perhaps it
should not have been. The number of Hugo finalists has been growing
steadily in recent years. We now have six finalists in each category
where once we had five, and Worldcon keeps adding more and more new categories
(this year, the Lodestar) without ever dropping any. Also, whereas in the
past categories like fanzine and semiprozines only had one editor, and
therefore one nominee (Andy Porter for ALGOL, DIck Geis for ALIEN CRITIC, Charlie
Brown for LOCUS, Mike Glyer for FILE 770, etc.), now most of them seem to be
edited by four, five, or seven people, all of whom expect rockets and nominee
invitations. It adds up. Since each invitation is a plus
one, Dublin’s request meant that 280 spots of out 450 were already gone, before
I had even invited a single guest of my own. That made me and my team
gulp a bit. Nonetheless, we complied. (Later, James requested
additional invitations for his own concom and “other worthy people.”
We provided those as well).
Despite
our trepidations, I still believed that 450 would be enough. I had
several reasons for that. A month before the con, I exchanged
emails with James Bacon, asking him for his best estimate of
attendance. Since Dublin had shut off registration, it seemed
likely that his estimate would be accurate. James told me he
expected about 5500 people, which turned out to be quite close.
That was smaller than last year’s San Jose Worldcon, and quite a bit smaller
than the Helsinki Worldcon, which drew 7900. A smaller con meant a
smaller party, I reasoned; fewer past Hugo losers, writers, editors, and other
people normally invited would be in attendance. (I was
wrong).
I was
also misled by our experience at Helsinki (2017). The steampunk bar
that year was easily the smallest of the five venues I’ve used since
2015. The Hugo Losers absolutely packed the place, to the extent
that the by the time I arrived, I could not get into my own party. Every
seat was taken, every booth full, people were lined up three-deep at the bar,
the dance floor was packed. Fortunately, there was an outside seating
area with tables and chairs, and lots of sidewalk, so the Helsinki party simply
spilled outdoors. The bar did not seem to mind. The
more people poured in, the more drinks they served, so they were happy.
Ecstatic, even. They thanked us afterwards. All that was in
the back of my mind when I considered the Guinness Storehouse. We
would have a LOT more room than we had in Helsinki… and I suppose I figured
that if we exceeded the 450 limit, we would simply pack in tighter, or spill
over to other areas of the building. The Storehouse had plenty of
space. Foolishly, I assumed the Guinness people would think
the same way they had in Helsinki: the more people we had, the more drinks they
could move. (I was wrong about this as well).
A
number of the louder Twitterers have stated SOMETIMES IN SCREAMING CAPS that it
is simplicity itself to calculate the number of attendees at a
party. That makes me suspect that none of them have ever organized
one, at least not one as big as the Hugo Losers Party. We are not
talking about a sit-down dinner with a set number of guests, nor an awards
ceremony with fixed opening and closing times. And while there is
certainly a relationship between the number of invitations handed out and the
number of guests, it is not one-to-one, as you might think. Not
everyone who receives an invitation actually comes. On the other
hand, every year we have invited guests who turn up with their plus one… and
a plus two, a plus three, a plus four, etc. “They’re with
me,” they announce, and some get very indignant if told their extras will
not be admitted. We also get people arriving at the door without an
invitation in hand, having forgotten to bring it when they donned their party
finery. Other people may not have received an invite this year, but
have attended past parties. Some never got invited simply
because we never encountered them at the con; if we had known they were
there, we certainly would have invited them. Bottom line, there’s
a certain amount of guesstimation going on every year when we try to figure how
many guests we’ll have.
Also,
parties ebb and flow. People come, people go. Some come
early and leave early. Some arrive late and depart at
closing. A few are there when you open the doors and still there when you
turn out the lights. We’d had four years of experience with these
affairs, so I had a good idea of the patterns. A few early birds show up
even while the awards are still going on. After the Hugos, there is
a big rush. Two rushes, actually; one made up of losers and
spectators, who leave right after the last rocket is handed out, and a second made
up of winners and friends, who tend to linger around the con accepting
congratulations and posing for photos. After that people continue
to trickle in, in smaller groups. Food is served, the band plays,
the party gets larger… until about midnight, which traditionally (if
something that started in 2015 can be considered a tradition) is when I present
the Alfie Awards. After the Alfies, dessert is served.
In past years, we’ve had a large cake fashioned in the shape of a rocket
ship crashed into a pile of books. This year, our friends from
CoNZealand offered to take care of dessert, so we had small individual cakes of
a sort popular in New Zealand (and, because of a lapse in communications, we
also had a second sort of small individual cakes arranged by my staff).
After dessert, guests start to depart. Not all at once by any means
— the party usually runs for several more hours — but midnight is
definitely the high point.
Our
past experience with party ebb and flow was another reason why I figured a
maximum capacity of 450 would be sufficient. The Guinness
Storehouse was a good ways away from the convention center. Too far
to walk; we figured most guests would take taxis. Knowing that some
con-goers would be on tight budgets, however, we also provided free transport;
a minibus with twenty seats that would shuttle back and forth between the
convention center and the Spencer and the Guinness Storehouse. It
would take some time to make the trip, so the guests would be arriving in
small groups throughout the evening. Three or four trips into the
night, past experience told us that some people would be leaving even as others
were arriving.
In
any case, this was how it was supposed to go. But you know what
they say about the best laid plans…
We got
the first bad news when we arrived in Dublin and some of my staff went down to
the Guinness Storehouse to go over all the arrangements. It was there
that the Guinness people made it very clear to us that the 450 maximum capacity
was an absolute hard limit. There would be no packing more people in, as
at Helsinki. If we went over 450, the party would be shut down
immediately. Also, though there was nobody else in the building that
night, we would not be permitted to spill out onto unused floors. Our
guests would be restricted to the Arrol Suite and adjacent mezzanine rooms, the
areas we had booked, and there would be security on hand to make certain no one
went wandering. That was… well… firm, but hardly something we could
quibble over. We got what I paid for. And the Guinness
people were extremely accommodating in many other ways, so by no means do I
want to blame them for our problem. They were perfectly correct.
(There
will be some, undoubtedly, who are now saying, “well, why didn’t you rent
more space.” Yes, so simple. But renting more floors would
have cost more money. A LOT more money. Also, more space meant
more guests, which meant a larger bar bill to be paid. Plus food.
We had an open bar. The Guinness people also informed us that when you
have an open bar, Irish law requires that you provide food for however many
guests you are anticipating, as a measure against drunkenness. Not bowls
of pretzels or finger food either, but meals. And we did just
that, with several food stations throughout the party serving sausages and
Irish stew and other substantial eats, and waiters circulating with smoked
salmon, pigs in blankets, etc. A larger space would have meant
ordering sufficient additional food to feed the new maximum capacity, at
substantial additional cost. And Dublin, we had learned, is an expensive
city. The Guinness Storehouse was not the largest venue we had ever
used, but it was definitely the most expensive. This year’s party cost
almost twice as much as last year’s bash in San Jose).
Which
brings me, finally, to The Night, and how things went wrong.
The
party was on the second floor of the Storehouse. Just inside the
entrance, on the ground floor, was an escalator to the party floor, and an elevator
for those unable to use an escalator. For the past three years, the
following year’s Worldcon has assisted me with the Hugo Losers Party.
This year it was our friends from New Zealand. In addition to a
cash contribution to help defray the expenses of the party, CoNZealand provided
the desserts (as previously mentioned), and people to man the door.
Guinness had its own people on the door, of course, but as in past years, I
also wanted fans there, someone who might recognize a Hugo loser or BNF or
editor if they showed up without an invite. The Kiwis also had
gifts for all the Hugo nominees, winners and losers both, a tradition that
sprung up some time during the long years when I wasn’t doing the
party. To reach the escalator/ elevator and the party floor,
arriving guests had to pass the door just off the parking area, where the Kiwis
were checking invitations and Guinness had stationed a man with a counter who
was clicking every guest as they entered to keep an exact count.
The Kiwis also set up at the top of the escalator, where they were giving the
nominees their gifts as they went by, and putting funny hats on the
winners. (We do allow winners to attend the Hugo Losers Party, but
only if they don a conehead or chicken hat so they can be suitably mocked by
the losers). James Bacon and other members of the Dublin concom did
attend the party, but had no role there save as guests, and should not be
blamed for anything that happened thereafter. I had four staff members
with me at Worldcon… my minions, as I call them. One minion was solely
devoted to assisting my wife Parris, who was recovering from recent surgery and
walking with a pair of canes. The other three were assisting me
with various aspects of the party; food, drink, photography, awards, what have
you.
The
party was scheduled to open at 10:30 and run until 2:00, but the early birds
started to arrive well before we opened the doors. A few even got
there before my staff. They were turning up earlier than usual
because they could not get into the awards ceremony. (I do find it
curious that, with all this Twitter talk about people being “turned
away” from the Hugo Losers Party, no one is mentioning the far larger
number of people turned away from the Hugos themselves. I’ve been
attending Worldcons since 1971, and in all those years all you ever needed to
get into the Hugos was a con badge… but this year, that was not
enough. You also needed to queue up and get a wristband. As
it happens, some people did not get that message, and others were unable or
unwilling to queue). Turned away from the Hugos, many of these people
opted to grab taxis and hop over to Guinness instead. Their numbers
included editors, publishers, writers, long-time fans, past Hugo losers, past Worldcon
GOHs, even a Grandmaster. Some of the angry Twitterers seem to be
suggesting that these early birds were cheating somehow or doing something
underhanded, that they should not have been allowed at the party,
etc. Nonsense. Yes, some turned up sooner than expected, but
the vast majority of them had invitations, and all of them were welcome.
The
awards themselves ran long. I was the designated acceptor for two
nominees who could not attend, but both of them lost, so there was no need for
me to linger once the last Hugo had been presented. I departed
immediately, and grabbed a ride over to the Guinness, travelling with John
Picacio and several of his ladies from the Mexicanx Initiative. It was a
little before 11:00 when we arrived, by which time the party was already
hopping… though by no means overcrowded. A lot of other guests
were turning up as well, most coming straight from the conference center by
cab. The minibus we had chartered made its first delivery around
the same time, then turned around and headed back to collect more.
Once on the scene, I went up to the second floor and stayed there for the rest
of the night. I was the host here, people wanted to see me and talk
with me, there were a hundred party details to see to… my minions and I were
kept very busy over that next hour. All the while, more and more
guests kept arriving, and the security guard down on the door kept clicking and
clicking his counter.
Up on
the second floor, I had no notion of what was happening down on the door, and
even now I am not sure of the timing, but as best as I can determine sometime
between 11:30 and 12:00, that counter hit 450, and the venue, as per their
previously stated policy, informed us that no one else could be allowed in until
some of those presently there left. I was first informed of this
just as I was about to take the stage to present the Alfies. But
even then I had no inkling of the magnitude of the problem. I imagined a
handful of latecomers waiting at the door. Maybe our minibus had turned
up with twenty new guests. But I knew from past years that once I
announced the Alfies, people would start to leave, so I figured the new
arrivals would get in soon enough.
But
there was something I didn’t know, something I did not find out until
twenty/thirty minutes later. It seems that there was some sort of
major sporting event in Dublin that evening (forgive me, I am spotty on the
details). When our friends from New Zealand heard of this, they were
concerned that taxicabs might be scarce on the ground, making it difficult for
people to reach the Storehouse… so, with the very best of intent, and
entirely at their own expense, they chartered two buses to carry guests from
the conference center to the Storehouse. These were not minibuses,
like the one I had shuttling back and forth, but full size buses, each capable
of carrying 80 people. My own staff knew nothing of CoNZealand’s generous
gesture until far too late… but the upshot was, just as the venue was reaching
its maximum capacity, two big buses came lumbering into the parking area and
disgorged something like 150 people in rapid succession.
I was
up in the middle of the party during this, so I cannot speak with any certainty
as to precisely what happened next. From what I have been able to gather,
a few people from the first bus were admitted before the counter hit 450.
The rest were stopped and told the venue had reached capacity. Who
was on the door at that point? I don’t have names. What precisely
did they say? I don’t know that either. How many people in
the crowd at the door did they speak to? Did someone stand on a chair and
make an announcement to the crowd, was it handled more
individually? I don’t know. I don’t doubt that
the people on the door said, “You can’t go in” or some variant
thereof. That was, in fact, the case. I doubt very much that this
was all they said, however. I would hope that they also
added the word “now” and explained the reasons. “You
can’t go in now, we are at capacity, but as soon as some people leave, you will
be welcome to enter.” That’s what should have been
said. With such a large number of people descending on them all at
once demanding entrance, however, it is possible that the fans on the door felt
overwhelmed and defensive. If any of them were rude or dismissive,
that should not have happened, and I am deeply sorry for it. By the
same token, however, I would hope that the new arrivals were patient and
understanding, once the situation had been explained to them, and that they
treated the folks on the door with courtesy. None of this was the
fault of the fans who had agreed to man the door. They were doing
what they had to, to prevent the party from being shut down. They
were obeying what we were told was the law.
What
happened outside after that gets a bit murky. Some guests hailed a
cab and went back to their hotels, or to a bar, or to another
party. Others waited patiently for admission. At least
one person decided the world needed to hear of this outrage and began to tweet
furiously from the parking lot. Meanwhile, inside the party, I
climbed on stage and asked for quiet. I had the Alfies to present, but
before that I made a couple of announcements. One of the guests had
her service animal with her and requested that I ask the partiers not to pet,
feed, or step on her dog. I was glad to do so. I also
reported that we had some people outside who could not get in because we had
reached capacity, who would be admitted when space permitted… but I didn’t
want anyone thinking I was kicking them out, so I also said that no one had to
leave unless they wanted to. Then I presented well-deserved awards
to two giants of British publishing, Jane Johnson and Malcolm Edwards.
Each of them said a few words, then the band began playing again, the party
resumed, and the servers started serving cakes.
And
people began to leave. Just as I had anticipated. Just
as they had in previous years. Some guests always leave after the
cake.
As
they left, the people outside began to be admitted.
Not
all at once, no. There were a lot of people outside. No
one ever gave me a number, but the Guinness guard with the counter was keeping
track as guests came and went. For every person who left, a person was
admitted. If ten people left, ten were let in. All the time
keeping the count at 450. This was exactly what should have
happened, given these circumstances, and most of those waiting for admission
were happy enough once the line started moving again… but not
everyone. The finalist who had first started blasting us on
Twitter, angry that he was denied entrance, seemed to become even angrier when
the door admitted thirty people… on the grounds that more than thirty were
waiting, and somehow this was ‘playing Hunger Games.’ Well,
no. I have heard no reports of death matches in the parking
lot. Thirty people had departed, so thirty were admitted. The
rest would also be admitted when more guests took their leave.
And
here’s the important thing, the crucial fact that none of the Twitter reports
seem to mention: eventually everyone who waited got in.
They had to wait, yes, and I am sorry for that, and it should not have
happened, and a number of mistakes were made, most by me. But my
minions and the Kiwis, and even the Guinness folk, did everything they possibly
could under the circumstances, and sometime between 12:30 and 12:45, they
cleared that parking area. Yes, a certain percentage of those
denied entry had left, some departing with a shrug and others with a snarl, but
those who simply waited were all admitted eventually and were able to enjoy the
last hour and a quarter of the party. There was still food, there
was still cake, the band was still playing, people were dancing, talking, and
mocking the winners in their funny hats. New guests were
still arriving even then by taxi and minibus. Anyone who arrived after
1:00 am walked right in. And by the way, some of the people
who had to wait were among my oldest and dearest friends. I’ve
known Joe and Gay Haldeman since my first con in 1971. They arrived,
could not get in, and chose to head back to their hotel. The next
day they joked with me about it; no anger, no recriminations, they had seen
overcrowded parties before. Ellen Datlow edited some of my most famous stories
during her years at OMNI. She was stopped at the door, but she
waited, and was finally admitted, and I ran into her inside the party around
1:00 am. She seemed to be enjoying herself. The same
was true of Pat Cadigan, another old friend. Pat had a cane, and
when the folks on the door saw that, she was offered a chair while she
waited. Mary Robinette Kowal did not have to
wait. She arrived late enough that she could just walk right in,
once she’d donned her stupid hat. That was true for everyone who arrived
after 12:45 (except for the part about the funny hat). The circumstances
were trying for everyone, but my minions and the Kiwis did their best to make
things right. They do not deserve to be vilified. A
mistake was made, that was all. There was never any intention to
slight or mistreat anyone.
That’s
the story. Guests who came early walked right in. Guests who
came late walked right in. Some guests who arrived at the party’s
peak, where the crush was at its thickest, had to wait outside for a period of
time. Not fun, I know. I hate waiting myself. But
the same thing happens every weekend at nightclubs all across the
country. It’s not anything anyone wanted to happen… but it is not the
same as saying “droves of nominees were turned away,” as some people
are saying on Twitter. (Mostly people who were not there, repeating third
hand tales). That’s just wrong. For all its problems, for
all the mistakes and miscommunications, the 2019 Hugo Losers Party was overall
a great success. A lot more went right than went wrong.
When all the coming and going is taken into account, we welcomed more than 600
guests, we fed them and plied them with Guinness Stout and other adult
beverages (and soft drinks as well). We had Irish dancers, a band, two
professional photographers taking pictures, a caricature artist, little cakes,
and an Alfie presentation. We provided free transportation… and
CoNZealand provided a lot more of same. My minions worked for
months planning the event, and even harder on the night. So did the
Kiwis. To see them being pilloried on Twitter just confirms
the sad fact that no good deed goes unpunished. They deserve some
thanks instead.
That
being said… I need to clear up some misconceptions.
Some
of those in the parking area who were not allowed to enter were finalists who
had lost Hugo awards that night. That made them Hugo losers,
certainly. And as nominees, all of them had party invitations,
supplied to them in their registration materials by Dublin 2019. But
much of the outrage about what happened seems to have its root in a mistaken
belief that this was their party, intended to “honor” or
“celebrate” them, that it was being staged “for” them, that
they should have been given preference over everyone else, an assertion that
just reeks of entitlement. Some Twitterers have even gone so far to
suggest which other guests should have been thrown out to make room for
them. Eva Whitley Chalker, for instance, suggests we should have
tossed out “Tor’s staff & the herd from Locus.”
No. Just no. LOCUS has been part of the Hugo Losers Party since the
beginning; Charlie Brown was at the first one in 1976 and wrote after that it
was the best party at the con, and I gave LOCUS a well-deserved Alfie in
2016. I am not tossing out Tor either… nor Orion, nor Voyager, nor
Random House, nor any other editor or publisher. Nor any of my
other invited guests. (And yes, I dared to invite some GAME
OF THRONES cast members, an Irish filmmaker and actress, a Broadway producer,
and other friends of mine own, some not even members of the con, to the
party I organized and paid for. Shocking, I know. How dare
I). All of them had just as much right to attend as any of the
people on the bus. They got there earlier, so they got
in. If they had arrived later, they would have been the ones who
had to wait outside. You cannot get more fair than that.
The
Hugo Losers Party is not intended to honor or celebrate the current
year’s cop of Hugo finalists or exalt them above all others.
Never
has been, never will be, not so long as I am throwing the party.
LOSERS WELCOME. WINNERS WILL BE MOCKED. NO ASSHOLES. That’s
how our invitations have read since 2015. There is not a word about the
current year’s nominees or finalists.
Gardner
Dozois and I threw the first party at my room at MidAmericon in 1976, with
stale pretzels and leftover booze scrounged from other parties, but we’d been
Hugo Losers long before that. The first time I lost, in 1974,
Gardner inducted me into the “Hugo Losers Club” by chanting “one
of us, one of us” from Todd Browning’s FREAKS. The next year,
when I won, he threw me out (of our fictive ‘club,’ there was no party).
But he let me back in again. “Once a Hugo Loser,
always a Hugo Loser,” he said.
The
party is not just for the 2019 Hugo losers… it’s for the people who lost last
year and the year before, or ten years ago, it’s for the guy who was nominated
in 1963 and never again. And it’s for winners too, at least those
with a sense of humor (see Alfie Bester, for whom my award is named). And
for editors, and publishers, and the smofs and conrunners who work so hard
putting on these cons. The new losers, the guys and gals who lost for
the first time this year, are certainly welcome… but they are joining a
community, a battered brotherhood of defeat. Every year at the party I
have a handful of HUGO LOSER ribbons, and I am always delighted to give one to
someone who has just lost for the first time. Most of these virgins
(with a couple of exceptions) are delighted to receive it. There’s
a sense, as Gargy put it so long ago, that they are now “one of us, one of
us,” welcome at our party. That does not mean it is now
their party, and that everyone else should get the hell out.
For
what it’s worth, there IS a party that honors the current year’s
nominees, and them alone. That’s the reception that is held before
the Hugos. Only nominees, presenters, and acceptors are allowed
into that party. I’ve seen multiple Hugo winners, past Worldcon
GOHs, even SFWA Grandmasters turned away from these receptions if they were not
on the list. The Dublin reception was very nice. Lots
of drink, some tasty hors d’oevres, nominees were lauded and had their pictures
taken and were escorted out to reserved seats in the auditorium. That
was the party for the 2019 finalists. My party is for them and a
lot of other losers, who have just as much a right to be there as they
do. And it is my party. Gardner and I started it
in 1976 and I ran it (in borrowed hotel suites for the most part, since a
single hotel room no longer sufficed) for the better part of a
decade. Since Parris and I revived the party in 2015, well…
Random House covered the bar one year. This year, Harper Collins
Voyager chipped in some pounds for that, and CoNZealand provided our door
staff, the cakes, and some money as well. The San Jose Worldcon
helped in Helsinki, and the Dublin Worldcon helped in San Jose, but mostly it
is me and my wife and our minions doing this.
Parties
were once the heart and soul of Worldcon, but more and more they are becoming
an endangered species. Con hotels shut down room parties at the
least excuse, or don’t allow them in the first place, or restrict them to a
single floor. Hall parties have become extinct, and publisher
parties, what few still exist, are hot, noisy, and even more overcrowded than
that Losers Party at Helsinki. But this field has been very good to
me, and I am a firm believer in the idea of giving something back to the
community I’ve been a part of for all of my adult life.
That’s something I would like to continue to do, but this year’s experience has
made it plain that any future parties face real challenges. No one
wants this to happen again. But how to prevent it?
There are two easy, glib answers to that: hire larger venues, or invite fewer people. But there are problems with both those solutions. The number of Hugo Losers keeps growing. Even if we stop adding new categories, this year’s losers will still be around next year… and a whole bunch of new virgins will be joining them. I cannot just keep booking larger and larger venues, and providing ever increasing amounts of food and drink. That road ends with me booking the Superdome for some future New Orleans Worldcon. But inviting fewer people is not so simple either. Who gets cut? Yes, we can be harder at the door with the guests who turn up with a plus four instead of a plus one, but that alone won’t make much impact. Do I drop the two “not a Hugo” categories? Ban the winners instead of just putting them in funny hats? Stop inviting my own friends and fans and colleagues? I don’t think so.
When
I revived the Hugo Losers Party in 2015, for some years there had been a
“Post Hugo Nominees Reception” run by the following year’s Worldcon.
At LonCon, the party thrown by the Spokane people was so pathetic that I
decided to get back in the game. At Spokane, however, Kansas City
still had their party, and at Kansas City, Helsinki threw one.
Those two parties ran concurrently with my own, though mine tended to keep
going after the other had shut down. For Helsinki, however, the San Jose
people reached out and suggested we merge parties, and I agreed. So San
Jose helped with our Helsinki party, and Dublin joined me for San Jose, and
CoNZealand this year. But maybe the merger was a
mistake. Maybe, going forward, we should embrace the “two
party solution.” Two parties running concurrently would divide
the crowd and make overcrowding much less likely. It might even
spur future Worldcons to put a little more time, effort, and money into the
“official” party, so dismal affairs like the LonCon party would not
reoccur. Is that the answer? I guess I need to talk to
Washington, see how they feel.
One
thing you can bet on. I am not going to rent the bloody Superdome.