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Eastercon is the common name for the British National Science Fiction Convention. From 1948 until the 1960s, the convention was held over the three-day Whitsun bank holiday at the end of May. Since then it has been held over the four-day Easter holiday weekend. The pre-1960s conventions are generally considered to have been "Eastercons" even though they were not held over Easter.
Future Eastercons
- 2007: Convoy will be held at the Britannia Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool.
- 2008: Orbital 2008 will be held at the Radisson Edwardian Heathrow Hotel in London.
- 2009: No bids have yet come forward.
Organisation
British SF fandom is far too disorganised to have anything so formal as an organisation to arrange its conventions. The British Science Fiction Association does not have anything to do with organising conventions. Instead, groups of fans (typically 5-8 in number) get together to form "bid committees" and plan where they want to hold the Eastercon, who they want to be their guests of honour, what the theme of the convention will be, etc. The winning bid is chosen by a vote among the people who attend the bid session at the Eastercon two years in advance, or one year if no bid was successful at the bid session two years out. Until the early 1990s there were commonly several bids to hold the Eastercon, but since then the realisation appears to have grown that putting on an Eastercon involves a lot of hard work, and now it is normal for there to be only one serious bid. There may also be a number of joke bids - it is rumoured that in 1989 the joke bid for Inconceivable narrowly beat the serious bid for Speculation on the initial show of hands, but the chair arranged a lobby vote which then went the "right" way. In some years e.g. 2005, no serious bids are made, but one usually emerges in the following year (See "Two Year Bidding" below) It is rumoured that the concom for the 2003 Seacon'03 was put together in the bar shortly before the bidding session at the 2001 convention, in the absence of any other bidders - the Seacon name was extremely ironic as the convention was held in Hinckley which is about as far from the sea as it is possible to get on the British mainland.
As Eastercons are fan-run/not-for-profit events, the money raised by membership, advertising etc. is spent on running the convention. It is traditional that any surplus is used for the benefit of the convention members, fandom in general or donated to charity. This may include sponsoring items at other conventions, buying equipment for use by other conventions, donating to the RNIB to get works of SF literature converted to talking books for the blind, and funding international fannish visits (often through The League of Fan Funds).
Certain Eastercon host venues have fallen in and out of fashion at various times. Often a particular hotel offers a good package for several years, then either the management prices itself out of the market (perhaps trying for more lucrative conference customers instead), or fans get bored of the location and demand to go somewhere different. For example the Liverpool Adelphi was used five times between 1988 and 1999, but it is not due to be used again until 2007. Glasgow was used four times between 1980 and 1991, then there was a break until 2000. Hinckley was used three times between 2001 and 2005, and was seriously considered for 2008 before Heathrow was chosen instead.
Finding suitable venues for an Eastercon (enough function and social space of the right types, enough bedrooms, low enough rates, not in a city that's already hosting a big event on the Easter weekend, willing to put up with Eastercon's numerous unusual requirements such as supply of real ale, etc.) is a difficult job. Every year people say "there must be somewhere else we can go," and a lot of effort is put into trying to find new venues - usually with little success. There are plans to document the results of some of the most recent venue searches at Eastercon.org. If you know of a hotel that hasn't been used before and may be suitable, please mention it on the Eastercon Yahoo group or the Eastercon Livejournal community.
Two Year Bidding
Some people claim there is little need to actually have a two-year lead time as the convention can be organised in less than a year. Others point out it is hard enough finding venues with more than two years to go, so potentially losing some of those makes it even more difficult. It also means only one year to get people to join, so the committee can't predict the number of members (and hence their budget). This is a contentious issue and a frequent subject for debate.
Trademark
In 2003 at Seacon, in a momentary lack of disorganisation, a fan offered to obtain the UK trademark for "Eastercon" on behalf of UK fandom and this was agreed by the small percentage of that year's convention who attended that programme item. This trademark was subsequently obtained and so any group that now wants to run an "Eastercon" and use that name must clear it with the trademark holder first. This clearance will be given to any fannish group that wins a bidding session at an Eastercon to run a future Eastercon. Any document that uses the word Eastercon is supposed to include the following statement:
"Eastercon" is the registered trademark for Eastercon, an unincorporated society.
List of Eastercons
Notes: Early conventions did not always have a particular name, and sometimes were given a name retrospectively when another Eastercon was held in the same town, e.g. Brumcon only acquired its name when Brumcon II was held in Birmingham. The 1957 convention held in Kettering has recently acquired a semi-mythical status among British fandom, since at a distance of nearly 50 years nobody who might have attended can definitely remember actually attending this one, as opposed to the other Kettering conventions in 1955, 1956 and 1958, and there does not appear to be any surviving contemporary documentation from the con itself; however, there is just enough evidence from fanzines of the time and other fannish memorabilia to suggest that it did, in fact, take place. The official numbering of the conventions has been somewhat adjusted, following the naming of the 1972 convention as "Eastercon 22" which necessitated the counting of 21 previous Eastercons, which is why the 1951 Festivention is not counted.
External links
- Eastercon.org - the central Eastercon website
- ConCussion - the 2006 Eastercon
- Convoy - the 2007 Eastercon
- Orbital 2008 - the 2008 Eastercon
- Running the Eastercon - a "how to run an Eastercon" guide by Steve Davies, Chair of Reconvene
- The Conbledegook File - a glossary of Eastercon related jargon
"Eastercon"