Author Mia Tsai has announced ConCurrent Seattle, a one-day SFFH con intended to be an alternative program to Worldcon, will be held Thursday, August 14 at the ACT Theatre in downtown Seattle across from the Sheraton.
“ConCurrent was created as a response to Worldcon’s use of ChatGPT in the panelist vetting process,” says Tsai. “The use of ChatGPT at Worldcon has been a breach of trust in an industry of writers whose work has been stolen to train genAI.”
For more about the ChatGPT issue see “Seattle Worldcon 2025 Chair Delivers Update About Panelist Vetting”.
The ConCurrent website contends, “The event is not intended as a replacement for WorldCon, and it is the organizers’ hope that people will be able to attend both without judgment in the spirit of the connection and discovery that has helped the SFFH community thrive.”
And, “ConCurrent’s aim is to provide programming only, with a focus on what is currently happening in the SFFH genre.”
Two participants already advertised are Rebecca Roanhorse and Andrea Stewart.
A crowdfunding appeal has been launched to raise $5,000 to pay for the venue and other expenses. At this writing $1,770 of donations have come in, of which over $500 was contributed by author David Levine.
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
If there must be dueling cons during Seattle Worldcon, might this not be better held just across the border in Canada, for those international fans and pros who don’t want to travel to the U.S. at this moment?
Looks walking distance from the main part of the convention. May check it out.
It actually is a block closer to Worldcon than the Sheraton Grand, the HQ hotel.
“…it is the organizers’ hope that people will be able to attend both without judgment in the spirit of the connection and discovery”
skeptical scoffing noise
And as long as we’re living in a fantasy world, it is my hope to roam the plains of Barsoom with John Carter.
I am fairly liberal but sometimes things can be too PC even for me. I hope this rival convention is not that.
@Frank Catalano
“If there must be dueling cons during Seattle Worldcon, might this not be better held just across the border in Canada, for those international fans and pros who don’t want to travel to the U.S. at this moment?”
If one is down the block from the other, attendees can switch back and forth on a near-hourly basis. If they are separated by dozens of miles and an international border, it’s pretty much day-by-day.
Pingback: Robot Hallucinations Revisited | Cora Buhlert
Almost 150 miles from Seattle to Vancouver, actually. Super not doable even as a day by day difference.
I don’t think some of commenters understood that I was suggesting if an alternative to some Worldcon programming is desired during Worldcon, that it perhaps instead appeal to those attendees who don’t want to travel to the U.S. at all and be held just outside of the U.S. northern border. No one who is not interested in coming to the U.S. right now would want to commute between Seattle and Vancouver (or Richmond or Surrey) because, well, that would mean coming to the U.S. But if I have to explain this too much, I did not make my original point clearly. That’s on me.