Dublin 2019 announced today there were 18 successful applicants for its scholarships to attend SMOFcon Europe in Lisboa, Portugal, being held December 3-5. The committee said in a press release:

Following in the footsteps of CanSMOF, there was a very positive response to our scholarships and the winning applicants have already been notified. Dublin 2019 worked cooperatively with CanSMOF to ensure that we could facilitate as many applications as possible to broaden the field of con-runners who could participate in SMOFcon. Successful applicants are travelling from Canada, USA, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, the UK and Ireland.

Dublin 2019 recognizes that, like many areas, convention running has had a rough time of things lately. We are glad we were able to facilitate bringing new people to SMOFcon Europe as an extension of the goodwill we hold towards fans of all nationalities and fandoms. 

Vincent Docherty, the Co-Chair of SMOFcon Europe said: “It’s great to see so many international fans coming to SMOFcon for the first time and we are looking forward to their involvement in our programme and the fresh perspectives they will bring for discussions. With the opening of our hotel bookings, we’ve seen an increase in interest and membership uptake and look forward to hosting fans in person as well as virtually this December.”

Meanwhile, CanSMOF itself announced that due to a lack of response they ended up awarding only one of three available scholarships offered for the purpose of attending Smofcon 39. That scholarship is going Joro Penchev of Sofia, Bulgaria.

Dublin 2019 did not publicly name the recipients of its scholarships.