The future of Worldcon has become a race between China and Canada. Fans will get to determine where 2023’s Worldcon will be hosted. If China wins, it will be a first for Worldcon.

Next week the world will see the launch of DisConIII, the 79th World Science Fiction Convention, hosted in Washington DC, USA.  Part of the convention will be to allow fans to decide where 2023’s Worldcon will be hosted.   Worldcons are a long-running international Science Fiction convention that tends to be hosted in North America or Europe, and the next venue is determined two years ahead of time.

Recent years have seen the convention come to other parts of the world, such as Japan and New Zealand. Chinese fans have been actively seeking to bring the world-renowned event to Chengdu, China since 2014.

Previous attempts from China have met with failure, with a low number of convention attendees voting for the Chinese bid during the Site Selection process. This may change at DisConIII however, as over 800 convention members are Chinese, a record for any Worldcon.  These members are mostly ‘supporting’ members; they will not be attending DisConIII but have purchased a special membership that allows them a say in way parts of Worldcon is ran.

With a total of 6416 members attending, supporting or virtually attending the convention,  China is definitely in with a strong chance.

Worldcon is a relatively small but highly significant convention, mostly due to its international standing. Truly ran by fans for fans, it has a number of long-standing traditions that have made it resistant to the usual commercial concerns of more modern geek gatherings. It tends to draw in academics, novelists, script-writers, content creators and sci-fi super fans as a crowd and has done so for decades.

It’s influence on science fiction and fantasy media over the years has been incredible though largely unacknowledged. Until recently, the majority of Worldcons have been hosted in North America.

You can find out more about Worldcon Site Selection here.

 

 

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