SMOFCon 37-1/4 Update

SMOFCon 37¼ reports they are approaching 200 members. Fans are welcome to join up for this one-day virtual event about conrunning, and also encouraged to ask questions of the participating future Worldcon and SMOFcon bids. 

SMOFCon 37¼ will be on Saturday, December 5, 2020 from 08:00 to 23:59 Eastern Standard Time (UTC – 5; you can convert to your local time using online tools such as Timeanddate.com). 

Membership is free, but you must register in advance here. Most fans should select the regular registration option. The committee asks: Please do not select a Program Participant registration unless you are representing a Worldcon or SMOFCon bid or seated convention or have been invited to be a program participant.

The SMOFCon 37¼ program schedule is here.

The first three program items will be; Question Time for future Worldcon bids, then for the two seated Worldcons, and then for seated and finally  bids for future SMOFCons. 

The committee has sent questionnaires to all of the groups involved, and received many replies, and encourages fans to peruse and consider these FAQ’s. 

They also say:

We note the bidding calendar is busy! 

We welcome questions for the bids and if any member wishes to ask a question, we are collating them for the moderators, and have forms linked as follows. 

The form for each item is the link next to the words “Submit questions here” in the description of the program item. The deadline for submitting questions is Thursday, December 3, 2020. You must be a member of SMOFCon 37¼ to submit questions. The moderators of each item will select which questions to ask the bids/conventions.

Question Time for Worldcon bids will be taken in reverse chronological order, with bids for 2027 first, then 2026, and so on. Bids for later years will have less allocated time for presentations and questions, with the time increasing per year, ending with bids for 2023. The detailed schedule for each year is in the listing for the item, and includes planned time for internal breaks during the scheduled three-hour item.

The two other scheduled items are a session with CoNZealand chairs Kelly Buehler and Norman Cates discussing aspects of the change to virtual and experience that they had, and a panel looking at the pivot fandom has successfully made to virtual events.

In addition, the Virtual Con Suite has breakout rooms. If you are interested in holding a special-interest group discussion or a meeting in one of the breakout rooms, request a slot using the form linked from the front page of the web site: ReqConSuite  

Con Suite breakout sessions will not be listed as separate program items. They are listed in the program listing for the Con Suite.

If you have questions about registering for SMOFCon 37¼, the convention program, or other aspects of the event, write to [email protected]

SMOFCon 37¼ is jointly organized by SMOFCon 38 (Montreal, Canada 2022) and SMOFCon 39 (Lisboa, Portugal 2021).

[Thanks to James Bacon for the press release.]