Paris in 2023

It’s official: a committee of French and UK fans are bidding to host the 2023 Worldcon in Paris.

Interest in the idea of a Worldcon in France has been growing since 2009 and last year its proponents started sending up trial balloons in social media, hints that a bid was on the way.

Now the chair of the bidding committee, Cécile Reyer, has sent a press release saying they intend to launch at Loncon 3, just two weeks away:

I am pleased to announce the formation of Paris in 2023, a Worldcon bid to host the 81st World Science Fiction Convention in Paris, France in 2023. We will be launching our bid at this year’s Worldcon, Loncon3 in London, where we will have information table in the Fan Village.

We strongly believe that Europe has the fannish resources and facilities to host more Worldcons, and with Loncon 3 being held in London this year together with bids for Helsinki in 2017, and Dublin in 2019 we feel that France would be an ideal location for 2023.

Our vision is to run a family friendly Worldcon and we have chosen the dates of Thursday 3rd August to Monday 7th August 2023, and have preliminarily selected the convention  facilities at Disneyland Paris as a possible venue to host the convention.

At this early stage in our bid the committee comprises a small group of Anglo-French fans, but as time goes on we wish to grow and add international expertise from fans from all over Europe, the USA and the rest of the world.

Paris in 2023 will be voted on at the 2021 Worldcon, the location of which has yet to be determined. Further information about our bid can be found on our website at:  http://parisin2023.org/

The members of the bid committee are: Chair: Cécile Reyer (France); General Committee: Léandre Boulez (France); Clarisse Lamarque (France); Pierre Messiaen (France); Jonjo (Wales); and Sharon Lewis-Jones (England).

There’s precedent for the idea of holding a Worldcon at Disneyland Paris, mixing Mickey Mouse and Hugo Gernsback. Three worldcons have been held across the street from Disneyland (L.A.con II, III and IV), and the Orlando in 2015 bid wanted to host the con in a DisneyWorld hotel.

I suppose the only obvious misstep in this launch is that the French language webpage is “still under construction.”

The bid also has a social media presence on Facebook and Twitter.

Update 08/15/2014: Jonjo (Jonathan Lewis-Jones) and Sharon Lewis-Jones asked me to report they are no longer part of the bid committee.