By Rich Lynch:
OPENING CEREMONIES. Wayne Brown on stage. Alan Dean Foster (in straw hat) said this is the first convention of any kind he’s been to in ten years.
GoHs seated at podium, left to right: Suford Lewis, Tony Lewis, Nilah Magruder, Kaja Foglio, Phil Foglio, Alan Dean Foster.
VIRTUAL GUEST IS INTRODUCED. Cheryl S. Ntumi, all the way from Ghana.
And yeah, the real time closed captioning was (as usual) doing wonky things.
PANEL: EARLY FANDOM. Late afternoon panel about “Early Fandom in Upstate New York”. David Ritter of the First Fandom Foundation described the 1943 Schenectacon and the 1944 Buffalocon, including mini histories of many of the fans from that era. About a dozen in the audience, and we were all fascinated and entertained.
PANEL: ARE TRADITIONAL SF CONS DYING? Short answer: probably.
Randy Hoffman, Michael Ventrella, Tony Lewis, and David Stephenson expound on the topic.
HYBRID PANEL: An entertaining one: “Science Fiction in 60s Comics”.
Left to right: Stephen Wilk, Chuck Rothman, D.G. Valdron and (virtually) Martin Shoemaker
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Are traditional cons dying? No. They may not be the size that they hit in the 80s and 90, but they’re not dead yet, thankyouveddymuch.
200-500 has long struck me as the perfect size for a convention.
Are traditional cons dying? Not in Denver! MileHiCon 56 will be held this fall, and although it is somewhat smaller than at its pre-Covid peak of 1200-1300 memberships, it still runs to 900 or so. Prior to 2000, MileHiCon was usually smaller than it is now, too. Like any other longtime Denver fan, I can recall when MHC averaged 300 members, but it hasn’t been that small in decades.
“HYBRID PANEL: An entertaining one: “Science Fiction in 60s Comics”.
Left to right: Stephen Wilk, Chuck Rothman, *D.G. Caldron and (virtually) Martin Shoemaker”
Technically, it’s D.G. Valdron. But no worries, my autocorrect tries to do it to me all the time.
I’m glad we were entertaining. It was a fun panel to be on, and Chuck, Stephen and Martin were all great.
[quote]HYBRID PANEL: An entertaining one: “Science Fiction in 60s Comics”.
Left to right: Stephen Wilk, Chuck Rothman, *D.G. Caldron and (virtually) Martin Shoemaker[/quote]
Technically, it’s D.G. Valdron. But no worries, my autocorrect tries to do it to me all the time.
I’m glad we were entertaining.
It’s not just traditional cons that are having issues. Fan-run events in general are up against demographics and changing taste. I went to my local (volunteer run but massive) anime con for the first time in about 10 years earlier this year. The average attendee was at least 10 years older than they were 10 years ago. The hordes of teenagers that used to define the event were nowhere to be seen. There was a fan history track. My basic take on cons is that Gen Z is basically not into them and that unless something changes, fan-run events will shrink and become fewer and farther between until the very last ones shut down in the 2040s or 50s as the last millenials get too old to continue.
Got that corrected to Valdron now.
Now that I’ve seen a photo of you, I hope to do better noticing your name is misspelled if this happens in another caption.
I look at the picture and what immediately strikes me is that attendance is sparse and everyone is old.
So, you’d fit right in?
In the picture of the Hybrid Panel, I think you’ve misidentified someone. That looks to me like Tony Lewis, whom you’ve identified as J. D. Valdron. In the picture of the Opening Ceremonies, Tony is wearing what looks like the same red jacket.
The photo of the Hybrid Panel is BELOW the headline, not above it. I hope the identifications now make sense for you.
“People often mistake me for an adult because of my age.”
Yes, I would fit right in, but I don’t want to join a club that would welcome me as a member. I haven’t gone for too many years, but I much prefer a con like DragonCon, full of young people as well as old people, and with tremendous energy. Organizations that have a static membership steadily aging lose their dynamism and eventually peter out. That’s true of my synagogue too.
You and Groucho. I’ve had that feeling too at times.
@Hyman Rosen: “People often mistake me for an adult because of my age.”
There is some real wisdom in that.
In the 4:00 pm panel (Intersections of Religion and SF/Fantasy), all the participants eventually got in and had a good discussion.
1) after the panel on “are traditional cons dying”, Debbie commented that she got into fandom to find people she could talk with, not for contact with Big Stars. Young people today don’t have that problem –
a) SF has become popular culture, vs “a proud and lonely thing to be a fan”;
b) social media allow for that connection without having to go stay in a hotel room with 20 other people.
2) Gary Blog offered a cogent argument: concoms still program for ourselves, the greying fans of the 70s and 80s. If they want to attract younger people, program material to match their interests. I’d note Arisia did that consciously, and grew as big as the 1980s Boskones before the plague.
My apologies to D.G. Valdron. I know I spelled it correctly but autocorrect apparently felt differently. I’ll pay more attention to proofreading after this.
I have noticed at Balticon that the young folks we get, and there are some, tend to hang out in the anime, gaming, dealers, hallways, and artshow. The last place they seem to be observed attending is in formal educational type program and panels. They do show for the masquerade.
An outside observer last year pointed out to us that all of the pictures we take of things going on at the con tend to be the panels which skew to the older and in many cases the oldest folks in attendance.
I’ve been to cons as small as 60 people and as large as 85k. Some of the smaller ones have good longevity; Shore Leave and Farpoint come to mind. Many people bring their kids, and the kids are starting to get into it. If you can’t attract younger attendees, just make some. -grin-
I have never been to a sfcon, but i went to a local comicon in S.E.A in the mid/late 80s-Todd McFarlane and Brian Bolland were guests(though maybe at different cons). Maybe Mike Grell was at same one as McFarlane(way before he became super famous).
The big thing here would be Literary Festivals.
Young people here typically go to events organized by people closer to their own age(30s/40s), but Worldcon and such seem to skew older, in organizer age. ACG(anime, comics, games) conventions/festivals are also seemingly shrinking here from peak around 10/15 years ago I think(I was too busy/uninterested to go then or now, i did attend 1 in the 2010s but i faded/petered out after a few hours, too commercialised-ie selling merch, toys, other stuff).
Outside Asia, I think cost of attending/organising might be factor in attracting younger attendees/organisers. I have no answers/suggestions/ideas about that(since I’m not there/have never gone to America).
DaleA and MixMat: about panels and programming… after the first six or eight years of attending cons, I, my late wife, and a lot of other long-time fen would joke about “we’re here to socialize, and we’ve seen all the panels, these are just rehashing them”, or “Real Fen don’t attend programming”.
I only started going back to programming maybe a dozen years ago, and I’m already starting to see duplicate panels.
Mm the older ageing demographic for main-stream Cons is notable on this side of the pond also (ie in Europe/UK (*))- tho my not attending the media-orientated “comicons” has meant I was not aware of this similar but, later, diminishing trend there. No easy answers here. [ * There are exceptions on the European continent: eg very very active Poland and Croatia..] best wishes and BCNU at both Worldcon/Glasgow and at (1 week later) Eurocon/ Rotterdam..