2024 UK Worldcon Bid Picks Glasgow as Venue

It’s now called “Glasgow 2024 – a bid for the 2024 World Science Fiction Convention.” Today the committee announced that the venue they’ve chosen for the 2024 UK Worldcon bid will be the Scottish Event Campus (SEC), Glasgow.

Previously known as the SECC, the Glasgow SEC has already hosted two Worldcons – Intersection in 1995, and Interaction in 2005. We are delighted that our new bid is once again based around this internationally-renowned venue, which has seen considerable growth in the last few years, including new onsite hotels and reworking and expansion of the spaces inside the convention centre. The SEC has recently announced a further £200 million development plan to support the growth of conventions around the campus.

Our bid team is a dedicated band of fans both international and local, experienced and new. Our working party and support team already contain previous Worldcon Chairs and Bid Chairs, who volunteer alongside newcomers. We draw our experiences from the many events that take place around the UK and beyond, and celebrate the huge enthusiasm to continue hosting Worldcon after the success of Loncon 3 (2014 – the event’s most recent visit to the UK), and ongoing passion for Dublin 2019, an Irish Worldcon (2019).

The bid Chair is Esther MacCallum-Stewart, who invites everyone attending Ytterbium, the British Eastercon, to join them on Sunday evening, April 21, at 7 p.m. to celebrate this announcement and meet the team.

They will start taking pre-supports when the bid launches officially at Dublin 2019 in August.

The bid art is by Sara Felix.

For more information or to get involved in bidding for a UK Worldcon in 2024, contact them at [email protected] or watch for updates on their new website at www.glasgow2024.org.  

14 thoughts on “2024 UK Worldcon Bid Picks Glasgow as Venue

  1. The ExCel was a good site except it was 2 hours by public transportation from London. That is, the London that contains the theatre district and the British Museum. The SEC is in Glasgow. Yay.

  2. Glasgow, huh? Never been there, but my sister loves it. Hope they put a good bid together.

    @Linda Robinett

    What route were you taking that took two hours? Typical travel time on public transport from Excel to central London wouldn’t even be half that.

  3. Not that it matters that much since the bid is for Glasgow, but once Crossrail opens, the ExCel should only be a few minutes from central London. All of the construction we were dodging during the 2014 Worldcon was for Crossrail, which, despite being marketed as the “Elizabeth Line,” is not a London Underground/Tube line, but is actually a conventional railroad line tunneled underneath London and connected to the national network.

  4. Two hours? I cycled from Excel to St Paul’s in 45 minutes, it’s hard to believe DLR world be that slow.
    Admittedly, one of the common mistake of the tube is to assume that you need to use it. You can quite easily spend twenty minutes waiting for a connection to get you right to where you wanted to be, while it would have taken less than five to walk from the first stop.

  5. Yep I agree with Meredith here. It is only 35 minutes by tube from Bond Street (including the walk to the Excel from Custom House station).

    Even the bus doesn’t take anywhere near 2 hours.

    I am pretty sure I could get to the Excel in quite a bit under 2 hours from where I live (and that is 80 miles north of London).

  6. So am I right in thinking that’s a fight between Glasgow and Nice? Or were they going for 2023?

  7. It’s almost 10 years now since I visited Glasgow, but I do think steampunk enthusiasts will habe a fun time at Sharmanka Kinetic Theater it would be a nice place to visit as a group. I remember visiting an occult shop too, but can’t remember where.

  8. The times we’ve been there (including the 2005 Worldcon), my wife and I have found Glasgow a delightful place, with good public transportation but also rewarding to get around by just walking. The many Victorian-era buildings and (particularly) local pride Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Art Deco architecture are a highlight. It’d be good to visit, again.

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  10. For those that remember Glasgow from 2005 or 1995, the SEC has vastly expanded. There are over 1500 hotel rooms on the site now, not just one middling-sized hotel. And there are multiple new venues. (notably the Armadillo, a large theatre/arena).

    Also, there is now a regular train to central Glasgow (for God’s sake, don’t walk, it’s not unsafe, but it’s a really boring bit of the city).

  11. @Chip Hitchkock: Yes, the Armadillo was very much the centre of things in 2005, and I’ll always associate it with that inspired Prix Victor Hugo Awards Ceremony routine that Kim Newman and Paul McAuley performed during Opening Ceremonies. (Much as I love ‘The Empty Child’/’The Doctor Dances’, I really did think it deserved the BDP Short.)

  12. There was also regular train service between Convention Centre and Glasgow Central in 2005.

    There very definitely was the Armadillo, which was why the theme of the 2005 Worldcon was “Spaceport Glasgow,” featuring the launch of the White Star Federated Spacelines ship WSFS Armadillo, under Captain Kevin Standlee. Thus everyone working in the Events division (under me) were “crew” while everyone working on all of the other divisions in the “spaceport” (convention centre and hotel) were “ground staff.” This is why you’ll still see me in my WSFS captain’s uniform from time to time (depending on whether I can still fit into it.)

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