CoNZealand Chairs Offer
Hugo Finalists Full Passes and Partial Refunds

CoNZealand Chairs Kelly Buehler and Norman Cates today announced:

“We apologise that Hugo Finalists were not treated equally. It was never our intention to treat any Hugo finalists different from any other Hugo finalists. Unfortunately, the way some technology issues have played out, and some mistakes that were made resulted in unequal treatment. We take full responsibility for this problem and will do all we can to mitigate it.

“Initially, we want to offer a full pass (attendance for all days, no voting rights, no printed materials) to CoNZealand to all Hugo Finalists. This is a pass, not a membership.

“We also want to offer a partial refund down to the Supporting Membership level to any Hugo finalists who would like it. Any Hugo finalist taking advantage of this offer will still be treated as if they have a full Attending Membership. We cannot offer full refunds at this time as printed materials have already been mailed. Due to the proximity to CoNZealand, these refunds will not be processed until after CoNZealand closes.

“Anyone who would like to take advantage of either of these offers should contact us at [email protected]. we really are sorry about pushing the action onto the people we have wronged, but due to privacy laws, this is the best way for us to handle this.

“If anyone, Hugo finalist or not, has an issue with programming, please contact [email protected] as soon as possible. It is very important to us to have the best programme possible, and our programming team is working to make changes to ensure that panels better reflect the individual participant’s areas of interest.

“If this mitigation does not meet the needs of any particular Hugo finalist, they are welcome to contact us at [email protected] .”

One thought on “CoNZealand Chairs Offer
Hugo Finalists Full Passes and Partial Refunds

  1. That was a bad decision. I hope CoNZealand reveal how much that decision is costing them, and I suspect there are many better uses for the money. The professional authors could have claimed back their memberships against tax as obvious expenses of their profession, so the committee are just using membership fees to increase income tax takes across the world.

    A Hugo finallist can hope to appear on the programme, but many other programme participants are contributing more to the event, as are the multitude of other volunteers running the event. This creates a bad two-tier precedent.

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