The 2017 Worldcon will be in Helsinki, Finland. According to Kevin Standlee, who participated in the ballot count as a member of the Montreal bid, the unofficial tally went as follows:
Helsinki 1,363
DC 828
Montreal 228
Nippon 120
The total number of votes was 2,624 (which includes write-ins and no preference). The number of ballots expressing a preference was 2,605. Therefore 1,303 votes were needed to attain a first-round majority, which Helsinki achieved.
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
Congratulations, Helsinki. I’m sure everything will be great in the Ice Hotel or whatever.
j/k – I wish everyone who can afford a trip to Finland a wonderful time.
I will scrimp and save. Wait, who am I kidding? I have a credit card.
Hmm… the train journey from Istanbul to Helsinki could be interesting.
SUOMI! SUOMI!
I dedicate this video of the unforgettable MA Numminen singing Wittgenstein to Helsinki. See you in 2017, my brothers and sisters!
Congratulations to the Helsinki bid! Now all the hard work starts.
Woot! Let the World be part of the con. Bodes well for Dublin in 2019 as well.
Well, feh. No more Helsinki bid parties with great food. I’m so disappointed. 🙁
(seriously, congratulations)
@Hampus – great, now I’ve got that stuck in my head.
Seeing as “Castalia House” the publisher who participated in brigading this years Hugo Awards is situated in Finland, I am not in the least surprised that Finland won the Site Selection Vote. A very sad tragedy that the Worldcon is being used in such a way, to further the authors of one specific publishing house.
Wahoo! Congrats Helsinki, I can’t wait to go! Should be a great venue for the Dublin in 2019 successful (hopefully) site selection party 😉
hmmm… does Duolingo have Finnish as an option?
Of course, I’d need to suddenly get rich to make the trip. But a girl can dream.
There’s apparently no indication that Castalia House got behind the push for Helsinki in 2017. Reports I’ve seen identify alienation between Castalia House and the active Finnish fandom behind the bid.
Some people seem to have forgotten Kate Paulk’s support for DC because it is closer to her. There is no serious reason to think Helsinki was a Puppy favorite. Indeed, the Finnish agent for Castalia House said he is alienated from Finnish fandom.
Dang, I thought Kate Paulk was Australian.
Does anyone know what this con will be called?
I thought Kate Paulk was Australian.
She was. She emigrated.
I’m sort of fascinated by the 19 people who voted “no preference”. “I want to vote, but specifically I want to vote to tell people that I’m not voting for anything in particular.”
So excited to be going to Helsinki!
It was my 3rd choice simply because of the cost but it’s a first time site – maybe I can figure out a way to go in 2017.
Okay, my bitterness about the whole controversy might have spilled into my comment especially because I just had read twitter before and what those people utter and believe is.. just short of insanity, I should make myself a tea and just relax. I understand now there is probably no connection to this and the sadpuppies, and in the end I’m glad for the Finnish people.
Helsinki! Awesome. Well, in all probability I won’t make it there from the West Coast of the US, but it’s nice to see the con reaching some hitherto unseen corners of the world 🙂
@Jim Henley: I wish everyone who can afford a trip to Finland a wonderful time.
Don’t assume before getting the numbers that it’s even particularly expensive at all. That might depend on factors including nearby airports, and you could end up being pleasantly surprised. Along those lines, in the coming months, you can expect a comprehensive article about travel & accommodation costs for Helsinki at my wife the travel maven’s blog. (Me, I’m just a superannuated airline brat, but she knows all the travel tricks.)
Also, my thanks to the DC, Montreal, and Nippon bids who all provided excellent options such that we were all spoiled for good choices.
Congrats Helsinki! They have a great bidding crew and were my first pick. Even though I won’t be able to make it there I love seeing the worldliness of Worldcon.
I think it’s “I want to get supporting membership of the next Worldcon at the lowest possible price”.
@Marshall: Anyone who pays the fee to vote in site selection automatically gets a supporting membership in the Worldcon whose site is being voted on. Some of the “no preference” voters could have been people who didn’t care where the 2017 Worldcon would be held but knew they were going to want a supporting membership in it.
(Edited to add: As nickpheas wrote above.)
Ah, that makes sense, then.
Apparently most of the No Preference ballots are actually just people who didn’t sign their ballots. Unsigned ballots default to No Preference.
I am so excited to go to Finland! Eeeeee!
@notsurprised:
Wow. Maybe don’t go off half-cocked next time and spread falsehoods about real people like the ones on the DC bid committee.
It’s a crazy plan, I know, but it just might work.
http://www.worldcon.fi
@rcade: Does anyone know what this con will be called?
This may not be news if you’re following liveblogging, but it’s just been announced as Worldcon 75.
@Marshall: Joni Dashoff the site selection administrator just explained the No Preference votes (at least some of them) as voters who failed to sign their ballots (per, IIRC, somewhere in Section 4 of the WSFS Constitution).
Glenn Glazer passes on $23,000 surplus from recently closed MilPhil Worldcon to Helsinki.
The Helsinki site is up:
http://www.worldcon.fi/
Guests of honor are Nalo Hopkinson, Walter Jon Williams, John-Henri Holmberg, Johanna Sinisalo and Claire Wending. Williams has a personal tie to the country — all four of his grandparents were born there.
Edit: Third!
Yay for WJW!
@Notsurprised: might I recommend having a nice cup of Vietnamese lotus green tea? Not only will it calm your nerves, but it tastes bizarrely like you’re drinking warm ice cream (but nice!)
Also congrats to Helsinki! Sadly I don’t think I’m going to be in Europe much but a lot can change in two years, so we’ll see how it shakes out and I may be able to make it to Helcon. (Helsinkon? Finncon? Any ideas on the name yet?)
ETA: ah, so it’s called Worldcon 75.
Based on this Wikipedia list, there’s never been a Worldcon titled this way. I can’t say it is a bad idea, though, since it makes the milestone of a 75th event so prominent.
Unfortunately, they have misspelled Claire Wendling’s name throughout the site. 🙁
I dropped them a note.
From Vox Days comments, Markku has a couple of posts.
Seems like they will be planning a presence, perhaps a booth, and Vox Day may be making an appearance.
Maybe a throne to go with it.
@rcade: The Wikipedia list is correct. (Go figure!)
Yes, I’d speculate that that such might have been the main reason. They might also just not have been able to come up with a sufficiently clever moniker. Not every bid committee has, for example, the dumb luck the Philadelphia in 2001 enjoyed. ;->
I realised afterwards that I had paid the voting fee but not actually voted. Do I get a supporting membership or not?
Possibly I misunderstood this, but I think Helsinki may be granting attending memberships to site selection voters.
@Wildcat
Not according to http://www.worldcon.fi/memberships/
There is an upgrade path from voting to attending, which is what you may be thinking of.
@Andrew M: Sorry to hear that happened. That’s an interesting question. Best to inquire with the site selection administrators.
There is no conversion fee for Helsinki Friends and pre-supporters. There is a $70 conversion for other site selection voters.
Thanks for the clarification, that’s what I was wondering.
@notsurprised: The Finns were runners up to run 2015 (this Worldcon) two years ago; they run a con every single year that has up to 20,000 people, so they’ve *absolutely* got the chops, and the Finnish government is supportive enough that they’re offering free public transportation to every con-goer(!) They earned this on the merits. There’s a huge fandom contingent in Finland, and there’s never been a Worldcon there. It’s notable that they won on the first ballot.
I believe Andrew M’s factual question is whether he’s deemed to have voted for purposes of membership cost. (I assume he pre-supported Helsinki.) Offhand, I’d guess that paying the fee means you’re deemed to have voted. After all, when voting in person, you are ticked off as having voted when you show up and pay your $40. In that scenario, the admins wouldn’t be able to easily determine whether you actually stuffed a ballot in the box, even if they cared, which they don’t.
Congrats to the Helsinki folks! I hope I can go. 🙂 And wow, they have a regular con of 20K people?! Yikes. 😉
I heard of this news from a Finnish fandom-acquaintance and am pleased for her happiness, on the personal level. Also, very amused at some of the travel suggestions listed on the official Helsinki-Worldcon website. I too will be agog with interest should someone decide to follow through on that suggestion of swimming.
Am myself in the bizarre position of being an SFF fan who has never been to a con, dearly wishes to do so, and at the same time suspects that it would be more stressful than anything else.
(Not a party person, travels badly, early-to-bed insomniac, has literal panic attacks on top of the insomnia if there’s people making noise at night… even if I wait for a local con and commute, everything I read is that the parties and late-night shenanigans are an integral part of The Experience.)
Finland, Finland, Finland…
I’m pretty excited. They were my pick. I even wore a bright turqoise T-shirt for them, which freaked out all my friends who were pretty sure a non-black T-shirt on me would spontaneously combust.
I’ve wanted to go to Scandinavia forever, so this is a good excuse.