Tag Archives: Kevin Roche

San Jose Worldcon Online Conversion Nearing Readiness

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Kevin Roche, chair of Worldcon 76 in San Jose, posted a status report on Facebook about the online conversion/upgrade process that presupporters have been awaiting.

Kevin here, wearing his conference chair hat.

We’re thrilled at how enthusiastic everyone is about converting/upgrading their memberships, and we acknowledge it has taken longer than we expected to open the conversion process. We have at least 50 possible permutations of the upgrade path, and we want to make sure they all work. With ~1300 hand-transcribed voter forms, we want to keep glitches down to a minimum.

The good news is that we are in final testing of the voter conversion process and expect to send those invitations in the next few days.
In more good news, if you presupported the bid (and did not automatically convert to an attending membership) you may now log in to the regonline system via the “View or Change Your Existing Registration” link and should be able to access the Upgrade Memberships page once you log in. (If you did not set or do not remember the password you set there is a link to reset it.)

We have scanned the site selection records to ensure that pre-supporters voting status is reflected in their records.

Note: after we get the voter conversion invitations sent out, we will be sending more detailed instructions for upgrading presupporting memberships.

Thank you for your patience; the registration “doors” will open soon.

Main registration is accessible via http://www.regonline.com/worldcon76

PS: We think we’ve found and corrected all the typos in that 50-permutations set of paths. If you spot one, let us know and maybe you’ll get a t-shirt.

[Thanks to JJ for the story.]

San Jose Worldcon Bid Names Prospective Chair

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Kevin Roche

Kevin Roche

If the San Jose in 2018 Worldcon bid wins, Kevin Roche will chair the con. The bid’s press release says:

Kevin Roche is “a fan for all seasons,” with extensive experience in convention running and many other aspects of SF/F genre conventions. He co-chaired Westercon 66 in Sacramento in 2013 and chaired Costume-Con 26 in San José in 2008. Worldcon attendees will have most recently seen him as Masquerade Master of Ceremonies at the 2015 Worldcon, Sasquan. He also co-directed the 2011 Worldcon’s Masquerade as well as Masquerades at Anime Los Angeles, Westercon, and BayCon. He has been part of convention programming teams at several past Worldcons.

Kevin has extensive and well-received convention hospitality experience, including running the convention hospitality suite at the 2009 World Fantasy Convention in San José, and recently as bartender for the Helsinki in 2017 Worldcon bid. Fans across the USA have seen him as Fan Guest of Honor at conventions from the San Francisco Bay Area to Texas, Iowa, and Boston. He also has conference organization experience outside of the SF/F genre, having been the event registrar for scientific events (SpinCurrents 2009, SpinAge 2010, and Superconductivity 297k! organized under the direction of IBM Fellow Dr. Stuart SP Parkin).

The San Jose bid proposes to hold Worldcon 76 from August 16-20 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, the San Jose Marriott Hotel, San Jose Hilton Hotel, and other downtown hotels.

San Francisco Science Fiction Conventions’ full press release follows the jump.

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Send Tiki Dalek To Loncon 3

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Tiki DalekKevin Roche is raising money to bring his Tiki Dalek to the Worldcon —

The Tiki Dalek, aka TDK, is an award-winning costume I built based on the original 1963 designs for the creatures as they debuted in Doctor Who.

He is asking fans to contribute $1,500 through a Gofundme.com appeal, and in the first 24 hours more than $1,100 of pledges have been made.

Folks haven’t been so quick to help since Tom Sawyer whitewashed the fence. No wonder — fandom needs cheering up right about now.

Worldcon Masquerade MC’s Announced

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Phil and Kaja Foglio, creators of Girl Genius, will serve as the Masters of Ceremony for the 2011 Worldcon masquerade. And while the judges deliberate, Paul Cornell will entertain with his Worldcon edition of the BBC Radio 4 game show Just A Minute.

Masquerade Directors Kevin Roche and Andrew Trembley have named the first members of the panel of judges. Karen Dick (founder of Costume-Con) and Lindsay Tallman (producer of the Anime Los Angeles masquerade) will be backstage for close-up workmanship judging, with Toni Lay and John O’Halloran judging the entries as presented on-stage.

The full press release follows the jump.

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At the Pasadena Westercon, Part 1

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I had fun on the first day of Westercon 63. A lot of creative fans helped to insure that.

For example, set in the midst of the fan table area like a jewel was the big graphic appealing for people to support the Tonopah in 2012 Westercon bid : a poster of brilliant blue, with a sky-high mushroom cloud streaming heavenward, Kuma Bear beside a cactus in the foreground. It looks like the place Indiana Jones’ refrigerator rolled to a stop. (Of course, doesn’t most of Nevada?)

A second poster declared the Tonopah bid is NOT A HOAX. It just happens to be a bid that didn’t file (wasn’t eligible to file, as Kevin Standlee explains). Now the only way it can win is through a series of events beginning with the filed Seattle in 2012 bid failing to outpoll write-ins for Tonopah or None of the Above. (But that’s more than I need to know — I like the Tonopah bid material, not the idea of voting it in preference to Seattle.)

Later in the afternoon I answered the siren call to attend “The Modern Fanzine” panel. How often are fanzines explained with the contagious sense of fun that Kevin Roche, España Sheriff and Jason Schachat, the Yipe! editorial staff, bring to the subject? While they expanded my horizons about editing a digital fanzine on multiple platforms, they also fired me up to get back to work on my next ish.