Dublin 2019 to host Irish Science Fiction Film Festival and Golden Blaster Awards

The National Irish Science Fiction Film Festival and Golden Blaster awards ceremony will take place in August as part of hDublin 2019 – An Irish Worldcon.

More than 4300 people have already registered for Dublin 2019, enabling the presenters’ films to reach an unprecedented audience. The festival has taken place and the Golden Blaster awards have been given since 2009.

“This event brings greater recognition to filmmakers who create speculative fiction in the short film format,” said James Bacon, the chairman of Dublin 2019. “It’s an honor to be involved in this long-running film world gathering and to bring the works of Irish speculative filmmakers to one of the planet’s largest fan-run events.”

The NISFF provides a platform for science fiction, fantasy and horror from all over the world. The final closing date for films to be entered is June 30, 2019.

Award categories include the Golden Blasters for Best Picture and Best Screenplay and the Silver Blaster Audience Award. Recent previous award ceremonies have been held at Octocon, the Irish national science fiction convention.

Dublin 2019 will be held from August 15 to August 19 at the Convention Centre Dublin and other locations around the city (Worldcon Fringe). It will be the 77th World Science Fiction Convention and is aimed at both veteran fans and newcomers. At least 700 of those registered say they will be attending Worldcon for the first time.

Other activities at the Dublin Worldcon will include the 2019 Hugo Awards, the world’s leading awards for excellence in science fiction and fantasy, as well as the spectacular Masquerade costume display. There are typically 650 to 800 separate programme items, including author readings and autograph sessions, feature films and videos, academic presentations, and panel discussions on speculative literature and other media, many involving fans and audience.

Guests of Honour for Dublin 2019 include screenwriter and Hugo winner Ian McDonald, as well as YA author Diane Duane and game designer Steve Jackson (Melee, Chaos Machine, Munchkin) and editor Ginjer Buchanan. Science Guest of Honour will be Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who discovered radio pulsars in 1967 as a postgraduate student. Bill and Mary Burns will be fan Guests of Honour.

[From a press release.]

13 thoughts on “Dublin 2019 to host Irish Science Fiction Film Festival and Golden Blaster Awards

  1. I am curious as to what portion of that 4300 memberships are Attending versus Supporting. I know a lot of people who would love to go, but are unable to do so. I’ve committed a ton of money to my arrangements at this point, and am desperately hoping that real life will not interfere with what I hope will be a lovely tourist vacation.

  2. I guess there will be a lot of European fans attending, who have problems attending North American WorldCons, which may make up for American and Asian fans who may have problems attending. And the member list dosn’t show a lot of names with the (S) added, though it’s probably not complete.

    Besides, the two last European WorldCons, London and Helsinki, were both very big. And at least in Helsinki, many members were European fans, including many first timers. In particularly, there were a lot of Finnish, other Scandinavian and East European fans.

  3. Well, at least one person will be there because he or she won the election as TAFF delegate. Obviously, I’m hoping ’tis me.

  4. I ran the current membership list on the Dublin 2019 website through a text editor and it had 3744 entries, of which 3185 are not supporting.

    This of course does not include anybody who registered after 12 October or chose not to make their name public. (And then there’s weirdos like me who haven’t upgraded their membership yet because they literally just booked their flight. Turns out loving one’s first Worldcon was a good encouragement to revisit my budgeting priorities.)

  5. I’m very excited about attending, and also making it a big vacation! I guess I get a big vacation every 10 years! Have paid for the flights, and will take care of my Dublin hotel pre-convention in a couple of weeks.

    Anyone else planning to go a little early and explore Dublin?

    I’m a little nervous about the size of convention, though my friend is also going and has been to Worldcons before. And another friend via an email list group will also be attending!

  6. Oh, Cora, I fully expect that Dublin will have a huge attendance just as London and Helsinki did, but I was curious as to how many will have bought their membership this far in advance.

  7. @JJ Wow that sounds amazing!

    I’m going to be flying in overnight on the Saturday before, landing Sunday morning. I do plan to do the tour of the Abbey Theater and see whatever is being offered there. Nothing else is settled yet but making lists!

    The week after the convention I’m going to London, with a day trip with my friend out to see Stonehenge and Avebury. WOOHOO!

  8. @JJ
    Well, buying attending memberships early is usually cheaper, so I buy my membership as soon as possible when I’m 90% certain I want to attend a WorldCon. In fact, I bought my attending membership for Dublin literally in Helsinki during WorldCon 75 as soon as the site selection results were announced. I wasn’t the only one either, there were several people upgrading their memberships.

    But if someone’s not certain that they can go, it makes more sense to wait to buy/upgrade your membership, even if you have to pay more.

    Anyway, I hope to see many of you in Ireland next year.

  9. @Cora: For me the deciding factor was that good flight prices are a lot more transitory (and liable for faster increase) than the current membership rate, so it made sense to wait for a good price on the right dates and then worry about the membership upgrade later.

    @JJ: Thirding the comments about how great that tour sounds and hoping it works out!

    I’m booked pretty tight to the convention dates but I’m hoping to make a little time on Tuesday morning pre-flight (or at odd hours during the con dates) to play tourist.

  10. @Goobergunch
    Since I’m in Europe, the flight won’t cost me much more than the membership in the end, but of course intercontinental flights are much pricier.

    I’m still debating whether to do EuroCon in Belfast the following weekend as well. It certainly is a unique opportunity to do two cons in one swoop.

  11. Cora Buhlert: I’m still debating whether to do EuroCon in Belfast the following weekend as well. It certainly is a unique opportunity to do two cons in one swoop.

    I thought wistfully about that for a wee bit, then came to my senses and realized that given my need to periodically hide in the bar with a book or go back to my room to get away from the mob for a while, two big cons in a row sounded a lot better than it would be in reality. I suspect that the coach tour may be a bit of a challenge, but an iPod and earbuds, and a book, will probably help with that.

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