Utah in 2024, being the only bid for Westercon 76, has been voted the rights to host the convention. The site selection results were announced at the Westercon 74 Business Meeting in Tonopah on July 3.
The Utah in 2024 committee composed of Charles Galway as Chair, Cheryl A. Sneddon, and Mike Willmoth will hold the convention at the Doubletree Salt Lake City Airport which is located on the edge of the city and right by the airport. The dates of the convention will be July 4-7, 2024.
The Meeting also voted that they should find a sponsoring non-profit organization.
At present attending memberships are $50 and supporting memberships are $25. Anyone who voted in site selection already has a supporting membership and may upgrade to an attending membership for the difference in price, $25. The current rates will continue through at least December 31, 2022.
The committee says a website will be created soon. For more information or questions you can email them at [email protected].
The Tonopah Telegraph – Westercon 74’s daily newzine – published the voting details.
| 2024 Site Selection Stats | |
| Voters | 60 |
| No preference | 2 |
| Total with Preference | 58 |
| Votes for Utah | 55 |
| Votes for “Any State that protects abortion rights” | 2 |
| None of the above | 1 |
More details and video of the business meeting will eventually be available online.
[Thanks to Kevin Standlee for the story.]
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Speaking as one of the two “Any state that protects abortion rights” voters:
Charles, Cheryl, and Mike are fine people, I hope and trust they’ll run a fine Westercon at the SLC Airport Doubletree Hotel, and I thank them for helping keeping Westercon alive. It’s an unfortunate coincidence that Westercon announced their bid on the very day Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was decided, and I sympathize with how that has polarized and hurt everyone.
But facts are facts. We among the 62% of Americans who disapprove of that SCOTUS reversal were left, starting on that day, deciding what to do about it: Just as happened 160 years ago, there is suddenly a stark difference between states stripping fundamental rights, and those that aren’t. This time, the US map divides between free states and coathanger states.
I’d love to attend and staff the Utah committee’s convention, just as I attended and helped out at the last two Utah Westercons (unofficially the first time in SLC, officially in Layton). In fact, my wife Deirdre and I weren’t even willing to attend the 2014 SLC Westercon until marriage equality came to Utah in January.
The easiest way would be for the Utah committee to hold it over the state line in Albuquerque, NM, or in western Colorado, the two nearest non-coathanger states. Unfortunately, that’s unlikely. Oh well. I look forward to seeing everyone in 2023 at the Anaheim Westercon, and (depending on venue) in 2025 somewhere else.
So, my wife Deirdre and I have landed, for now, at no more visits to, or any more dollars spent in, any coathanger state, period. No more visits to my sister in Scottsdale, but she can drive up to Hoover Dam and we can have lunch in Nevada.
On the evidence, only three of us at Tonopah felt strongly about this to make a voting statement, but perhaps more as post-Roe realities — e.g., which is next on the hit list, Griswold v. Connecticut, Obergefell v. Hodges, Lawrence v. Texas, or Loving v. Virginia? or perhaps the 19th Amendment? — and national unraveling sink in with fandom and with my countrymen in general.
I didn’t want this reality, but I’ll be damned if I’ll ignore it.
In regards to various states of the United States bidding for things and the objectionable stances they take, that would eliminate all the red states (assuming the objections were coming from the blue side of the house) from having conventions. I doubt if anyone on the committee of the Westercon in Utah or the NASFIC in Florida have any influence on those state’s policies. How about Chengdu China or the Saudi Bid? I am even less fond of the policies of those countries.
I fully support abortion rights etc. and I will be going to Utah to spend a nice weekend with nice people in a hotel that I suspect has nice staff.
@Linda, it goes without saying that Charles, Cheryl, and Mike never had any power, and never had significant influence, over the laws of the Beehive State. But that is entirely (even breathtakingly) beside the point: The point is that Utah and 21 other coathanger states have recently withdrawn a fundamental right from women, and in consequence the rest of us US citizens were left deciding what to do about that (quite grave) action.
My wife and I have decided, for the duration, we’ll neither visit any coathanger state, nor spend even a penny in one, as their denial of basic rights is entirely unacceptable. It therefore, in our opinion, should not be supported through tourism or commerce. Period. Full stop. Finis. No exceptions. Nonetheless, I certainly hope you enjoy a pleasant Westercon 75 in Salt Lake City, but think your assertion that you “support abortion rights” will be thereby undermined.
I will ignore those blatant whataboutisms concerning countries that are simply not mine.
As to so-called “red states”, the following among them have (so far) not made themselves coathanger states: Alaska, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. My wife and I — among others who actually care enough about fundamental rights to put our money where our mouths are — give full credit to those “red states” for respecting fundamental rights.
Obviously, nothing whatsoever about my and my wife’s (and possibly others’) acts of conscience will prohibit conrunners from hosting SFF conventions in those states. For that matter, (obviously) it doesn’t bar conrunners from siting conventions in actual coathanger states, either: Those just won’t have memberships or funding from us.
As I said, it’s unfortunate this national reality now exists, but I’ll be damned if we’ll ignore it.