Worldcon Chicago

For me the best parts of a Worldcon are always the Hugo Award Ceremony, the Masquerade and, of course, the Dealers' Room. But that is just me. One of the great things about Worldcon is that it is designed to appeal to a wide variety of tastes. You may prefer the Art Show, or chatting with your favorite authors, or just the endless stream of parties. Some people even go because it provides cheap rooms in top class hotels in great tourist cities. Read on, and see what you might find interesting.

Quick Tips:

With any big convention it helps to know a few people beforehand. You can get awful lonely in a crowd of 5,000 people if you don't know anyone, especially if everyone else seems to know everybody. The easiest thing to do is go with a bunch of friends, but if you don't know any other science fiction fans, it is easy enough to find them through the Internet. Check out the Conventions and Links pages of my web site for some ideas.

Best Way To Get Around:

Feet. One of the criteria that many people have in choosing a site for a Worldcon is compactness. Chicago is the ultimate in that regard, as the entire event is contained within three hotels more or less connected by an underground mall. Of course if you do want to see the city you will need transport, but one of the other requirements of a good Worldcon is good local tourism information in the member packs. Chicago did not let us down.

The Hyatt Regency is one of the biggest hotels in central Chicago. During most of the year it is host to a range of expensive business conferences, but over Labor Day weekend it would be half empty if it did not lower its sights a little and let in some less high profile business. The price I have listed is the convention rate and includes tax. Rack rate for the same room is over $300 plus tax. Non-US readers should also bear in mind that American hotels charge per room, not per guest, so Kevin, Raven and I paid a third of that rate each.

As big American hotels go, the Hyatt Regency is pretty standard. You know what to expect. The rooms are probably interchangeable with any other Hyatt in the country. It is the differences that are important, and here the Hyatt fell down badly. Firstly the service was pretty poor. There were endless complaints about mistakes with reservations and poor service in the cheaper restaurants (although see the separate entry on the excellent Stetsons). I suspect that the hotel had a lot of temporary staff in because it was a holiday weekend, but even so, a Hyatt is a Hyatt. They should have standards.

The other major failing of the hotel is that, while the basic room rates are reasonable, you get charged extra for everything you try to do. Even opening the mini bar to see what is in it incurs a $2/day charge for the rest of your stay. If you complain about these charges you can get them waived. The hotel is just trying it on, because in most cases its guests are on expenses, or are so rich that they don''t bother to look at the bill.

The Hyatt also has problems as a Worldcon hotel. Yes, it has massive underground conference facilities that can cope well with 5,000 people. Yes, it is connected to an underground shopping mall so you don''t really need to leave the building at all. Unfortunately the whole complex is massively confusing and can probably only be navigated successfully if you trail a ball of string behind you to mark where you have been. I now know why the Chicago basketball team is called the Bulls. I''m just glad that I didn''t meet him when I was down there.

Finally, a Worldcon specific problem. We have parties, lot of parties. And for parties you need suites. The Hyatt has lots of suites, but it is built high with one or two suites on each floor. This makes it hard to define quiet zones for people who prefer to sleep at night, and it is murder on the elevators. The hotel did a superb job of providing staff to monitor elevator usage and keep people flowing, but even so there were huge queues and one complete breakdown. For Worldcons, flatter construction and dedicated suite floors are better.

Stetson's is the top restaurant in the Hyatt Regency. While I was having a horror of an evening at Big Bowl, Kevin went to Stetsons with some friends, one of whom happened to be the convention's official liaison officer for the Hyatt. Naturally they were treated like royalty, and Kevin wanted to go back, so on Monday night, with everything winding down, we went for a quite dinner by ourselves.

I'm not sure whether Stetson's is used to having royalty as guests, but it is certainly used to the Chicago version thereof. One of the first things that you notice when you go in is a rack of steak knives, each of them bearing an engraved plate on the handle. These knives belong to regular honored guests. There is even one for Da Mayor, Mr. Daley himself. Important people dine at Stetsons, because it is good.

Unfortunately we were not that hungry when we arrived. It was a spur of the moment decision to go, and we had just come from the ice cream social that the convention management had thrown for the staff. We had, in effect, had our dessert already. This was a shame, because there were some truly sinful dishes on offer. As it was we shared a plate of deep fried calamari for starters, and then chateaubriand for main course. Hey, if you are going to a top class steak house, why not have the best steak? And yes it was all delicious.

What really impressed me, however, was how the restaurant staff adapted to their unusual clients. Remember that this is a restaurant where Mayor Daley and the captains of Chicago industry often eat. Recommended dress is smart business. And here they were with a hotel full of scruffy science fiction fans in jeans and t-shirts. Heck, there were a couple of tables with family groups. Small kids eschewing the wonderful steak for pizza and generally making loud and happy. Did the restaurant get upset? Did they throw us out? Not a bit of it, they were just a polite and attentive as they would have been if we were a bunch of top lawyers. That's top class customer service, and I'm delighted to recommend the place.

By the way, I should give a small warning about price. Kevin doesn't drink, and I've got past being able to consume an entire bottle of wine by myself. The wine list looked very good. If you are a wine drinker, expect to pay a lot more. Also we did not have dessert, which would have added to the bill.

Every good Worldcon has a good restaurant guide, and Chicago's was something spectacular. It was written by a local Chicago fan, Leah Zeldes, who happens to be a professional restaurant critic. If she says something is good, then you know it is good. So when the convention newsletter team decided to go out for dinner to get to know each other on the opening night, we chose one of her top picks.

Big Bowl is an Asian restaurant specializing in large bowls of noodles topped with wonderful, spicy stir-fry. It being Asian cuisine there is a good supply of vegetarian fare available, and there are non-spicy dishes for those of you who prefer a milder meal. A house specialty, which Leah correctly highlighted in her review, is their home made ginger ale, which we consumed in large quantities.

It should have been a really good evening, and I should say that the food, what there was of it when it came, was superb. But the service was shocking. Admittedly we were a big group, and that always causes problems for a restaurant. But we did our best to help them out. We split up onto multiple tables, and on the largest one we deliberately ordered one of the set meals to make life easy for the staff. Big mistake.

Firstly, we waited well over an hour before we got any food at all. That's unacceptable under any conditions. Second, there was hardly anything of it. The set meal was advertised for four people. We asked for it scaled up for nine. It looked like what the restaurant had done was served food for four and charged us for nine. We were, to put it mildly, steaming furious. Chaz Baden, the newsletter editor, took charge and did a wonderful job of negotiating a discount, but those of us in that group left hungry and annoyed.

You get this sort of thing in a restaurant occasionally. Big groups always irritate them. But what I can't understand is this. They knew we were from the Worldcon. We told them that we were from the con newsletter, that it was the first night of the con, and we had an audience of 5,000+ people, most of whom would be looking for good places to eat of an evening. And the restaurant still treated us like shit. That takes a really special kind of stupidity.

The Illinois Center is the underground shopping mall that connects to the Hyatt Regency labyrinth. There were a number of places to eat, but Kevin and I settled on Houlihan's. It is a classic anything-American restaurant. You can get steak, pasta, jambalaya or fajitas. We, however, were using it mostly for breakfast. Kevin is a big fan of the traditional American fried pile: funny little breakfast sausages, overcooked streaky bacon, mountains of scrambled egg stuffed full of yellow food coloring. You know the stuff. He was very happy, at least until he discovered too late that they had an excellent-looking omelet bar.

As for me, I do like a good corned beef hash. Sadly that wasn't on offer, so I settled for a few sausages and then hit the coffee and carbohydrate. I wasn't expecting to have time for lunch, so I figured I should stock up on stimulants and energy. Good muffins, good pastries, thank goodness I would be on my feet most of the day and able to walk off all that weight.

We did try the restaurant for dinner one night. I had some shrimp pasta, while confirmed carnivore Kevin tucked into a Black and Bleu New York Steak. Both meals were of good quality, but not outstanding. The restaurant is a good place for a quiet evening meal as the layout involves a lot of alcoves with big wooden seats. It is very cozy.

The price range I have quoted is for dinner. You should expect to pay around $10 for breakfast. The restaurant is part of a chain with branches all over the USA.

All that eating out can add substantially to your convention bills. Not wishing to drive anyone away, Worldcons generally provide for those on a budget. The facility is called the Con Suite. Like everything else, it is staffed by volunteers. They don't have the money or equipment to do anything posh, but they can roll out a fine selection of fruit and bagels for breakfast, or hot dogs and the like for dinner. What you get depends heavily on the people running it, and they vary from year to year. Generally there is a lot of junk food, but a conscientious staff will try to provide cheap and healthy fare too.

So why should you eat there rather than go out to some nice restaurant? Because it is free. Zilch. No payment. Well, you paid for it as part of your convention membership, but the convention may have arranged sponsorship to help them get in more and better food. Of course it will be packed, but that makes it a good place to meet new friends.

Please note that Con Suites are a particular feature of American conventions. In Europe and Australia food hygiene regulations prevent convention organizers from providing this kind of service. But if we can do it, we do. It all helps to make the Worldcon experience excellent value for money.

Have you ever watched the Oscars ceremony on TV and wondered what it would be like to be sat there amidst all those glittering people, waiting breathlessly for the results to be announced? Well, not everyone can get to the Oscars, but other arts groups have awards ceremonies too, and while they might not have Tom Hanks or Steven Spielberg in attendance, they are great fun all the same.

The Hugo Awards are handed out each year at Worldcon on behalf of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS). Unlike the Oscars, these are awards voted on by ordinary people. Everyone who is a member of that year's Worldcon may vote, and indeed you do not have to attend as there is a special class of "supporting member" which gives you all the rights of WSFS membership without having the expense of going to the convention. Whether this democratic set-up makes the results more valid or not is open to debate, but the ceremony is certainly more interesting when you have had a part in the results.

The two most high profile award categories are those for Best Novel and Best Dramatic Presentation. This year both were hotly contested. The Novel category was a fascinating fight between Neal Stephenson's massive best seller, Cryptonomicon, Vernor Vinge's excellent evocation of an alien society, A Deepness in the Sky, and A Civil Campaign, the latest episode in Lois McMaster Bujold's hugely popular Miles Vorkosigan saga. Greg Bear and J.K. Rowling also made the nomination list. As it turned out the award went to Vinge who rewarded us with one of the shortest acceptance speeches I have ever heard.

The Dramatic Presentation category was even harder to call. We had the superb special effects of The Matrix, Bruce Willis's tear-jerking Sixth Sense, the critically acclaimed Being John Malkovich, and the hilarious Star Trek spoof, Galaxy Quest. The children's cartoon, Iron Giant, also made the nominations. Prior speculation had made The Matrix favorite, but in the end the award went to Galaxy Quest, and what a good choice it was. Often Hollywood ignores the Hugos as not sufficiently high profile for them. But Dean Parisot and Robert Gordon, the Director and Screenwriter of Galaxy Quest, were clearly overjoyed with their awards and were hugely entertaining in accepting them.

As with the Oscars, there are many other awards as well. These cover short stories, art, non-fiction, magazines, editing and even fannish activities. Kevin and I were particularly pleased to see our good friend Mike Glyer win a Hugo for his fanzine, File 770.

Other than that, the ceremony is a wonderful excused to get dressed up, to gossip, and to commiserate with friends who were nominated but did not win or, like me, who narrowly failed to make the final ballot. As they say, there is always next year.

Talk to most people about science fiction fans and they will say, "oh, those people who go round dressed as Mr. Spock". While I would contest the idea that dressing up is the be all and end all of SF fandom, I can't deny that there are some people who do enjoy it. What is more, there are some people who are very good at it. This was recognized long before Star Trek was on TV, and in consequence many SF conventions now hold a costume competition, a.k.a. The Masquerade.

Worldcon masquerades are the other major attraction alongside the Hugo ceremony. Between them they provide the Saturday and Sunday night entertainment. The format is somewhat like a fashion show. There is a big stage, contestants in strange garb come forward, often to music, perhaps with a small act, and there is rapturous applause. Some of these guys are very, very good indeed.

I usually spend the evening backstage helping the contestants with their costumes. One of the great things about Worldcon is that, with it being a volunteer-run event, you can just stick your hand up and get put in the middle of things. I get a much better view of the costumes this way. It is also a very necessary service. Some of these costumes are very heavy and difficult to move in. Or you might end up looking after someone who is covered in latex and make-up and needs to be hand fed if he gets hungry. The discomfort that some of the contestants put themselves through in the hope of winning a prize is quite phenomenal.

The photos for this year are rather patchy because I was very busy on the night. However, with them being backstage shots you sometimes get some interesting views. I'm particularly sorry that I didn't get a better shot of Raven. She spent half the weekend in our room making that puppet and it seemed to work very well. If you are interested in this sort of stuff there are pictures from previous years' Worldcons, and from masquerades at other conventions, on my web site.

Those of you not manic enough to get involved the way that Raven and I do can spend the evening relaxing in the audience (or, if you prefer, your hotel room as the Chicago folks had a video feed piped through to the hotel TV systems). Keen photographers amongst you might be interested in the organized photo-shoot that is arranged during the judging. You get the opportunity to join the press guys in shooting individual contestants close up under good light. If you do want to participate, just sign up. There are no requirements other than talent for making and displaying costumes, and a commitment to turn up at rehearsals so that the tech guys can get your lighting and music sorted. If you are really keen there are panels on costuming at the Worldcon, and even specialist costuming conventions that you can attend.

What is a holiday without an opportunity to do some serious shopping? Well, OK, that might be a very girly way of looking at things, but we do make about half the human race. Besides, this is not a tale of your ordinary shopping mall.

Now I could, of course, have simply headed into Chicago and hit the big stores. But big stores are big stores pretty much anywhere. A Worldcon dealer's room, on the other hand, is something you won't find anywhere else. It is an entire mall full of shops catering to science fiction fans.

Well, OK, we don't actually build a mall. It is more like a market, OK. Lots of stalls, and a wide variety of merchandise. Obviously there are books. There are all the current releases, there are second hand dealers with all sorts of rare stuff, there are small press publishers whose output is normally only available by mail order, and there are people who specialize in importing foreign-published books. And there is lots more.

What do science fiction fans buy besides books? Well merchandise from TV shows and films, of course. They buy toys and games, costumes, if they can't make their own, and t-shirts if they are not into costumes. Jewelry is a big hit, with the work generally made by the stall owners. And let us not forget that SF fans often read fantasy as well, so there are stall selling crystals and herbs and other New Age stuff, not to mention the stalls selling swords, daggers and other forms of weaponry.

Personally I find the Dealers' Room the biggest danger at any Worldcon. I buy lots of books, and there is a vast amount of other tempting stuff too. I have to keep myself out of there as much as I can; otherwise I would spend far too much. People come from all over the US to set up stall at Worldcon for a week because they know that they have a guaranteed captive audience of at least 5,000. And the members know that they will have an amazing choice of the sort of shops that they normally have to travel miles to find. It is a perfect business relationship.

One of the most obvious things about science fiction and fantasy books is the quality of the cover art. You can sell a romance book with a photo of a buxom, longhaired girl swooning into the arms of a tall, dark handsome stranger. You can sell a spy novel with a picture of a gun or a glass of Martini. For the likes of Danielle Steele and Jackie Collins all you need to do is put their name on the cover. But for SF&F you have to have good cover art.

Now the artists that produce these covers don't survive on that alone. They like to sell their work: the originals for high prices, and prints for something more affordable. Where better to do that than at a Worldcon where you have an ideal captive audience. Therefore Worldcons have an art show.

There are basically two purposes to the Art Show. Firstly, the artists want to sell. Most pieces of work will have a small index card mounted next to them on which people can make bids. Come the end of the convention, any pieces that have been bid on heavily go into an auction to allow all bidders a final try.

For those of use who can't afford to buy art, who have run out of space on their walls, or who spend too much money on books to be able to afford art as well, there is still a very impressive art gallery to wander around. Remember that the likes of Jim Burns, Michael Whelan and Bob Eggleton will probably be up for the Best Artist Hugo Award, so there is a good chance that some of their stuff will be on display. Indeed Eggleton was one of the Guests of Honor in Chicago and he kept himself busy doing painting demonstrations for his fans.

Of course we are not talking museum of fine art stuff here. A major city like Chicago can do much better if that is what you want. But what you will find in a Worldcon art show is affordable by non-billionaires. And if you have come to Worldcon anyway it is probably the sort of thing that you like. You might even have the opportunity of picking up work by someone new before they become famous, because many amateur and semi-professional artists exhibit too.

Talking of people who are good, I can't leave the art show without giving a plug to my good friend Sue Mason, some of whose excellent pyrography work was on display in Chicago. Check out her web site, she's great.

Most of the other activity entries I have written about involve major events that attract large numbers of people. But a Worldcon will also have a large number of small events catering to specific tastes. Most of these are in the form of a discussion panel. A small group of experts gets to hold forth on some topic for a while, and then takes questions from the audience. Other events include speeches by the major guests, autograph sessions, and "Kaffeklatsches" - limited attendance events at which an author discusses his or her work with a small group of fans.

The principal Guests of Honor in Chicago were author Ben Bova, artist Bob Eggleton and editor/publisher Jim Baen. I confess to having been too busy to attend any of their speeches, but I know that Eggleton kept himself very busy because I kept seeing him around talking to people and painting.

Other than the main guests, there were over 100 published authors at the convention. Many of them had paid their memberships just like the rest of us, because Worldcon is the place to be. A quick flick through the program book reveals famous names such as Forry Ackerman, David Brin, Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, Joe Haldeman, George R.R. Martin, Larry Niven, Robert Silverberg, Harry Turtledove, Vernor Vinge, Connie Willis, Gene Wolfe and many, many others.

The panel sessions can cover all sorts of topics. Generally a Worldcon program is organized into "streams" to try to ensure, for example, that no two panels on space exploration, or the craft of writing, or costuming, or games are scheduled against each other. But as a member you can pick and choose what you go to. Here is a random selection of topics, which will hopefully illustrate the diversity, and in depth knowledge, that was available:

Writing for children, discoveries made by the Gallileo spacecraft, how to enjoy a convention, copyright and the Internet, commercializing space, the Robin Hood legends, the making of Toy Story 2, designing computer games, developments in longevity, the treatment of gender issues in SF, building your own rocket, nineteenth century fantasy writers, low budget filmmaking, computer viruses and, most fantastic of all, the prospects for a Cubs v White Sox World Series.

And if you were really unlucky you could come and listen to me holding forth of how to review books.

The important point to note here is that I have barely scratched the surface of what went on. I haven't even mentioned the gaming, or the films, or the kids program, or the music and theatre performances. There were 22 separate rooms used for programming, all of which were kept busy for most of the day for five days. The biggest problem I normally have with a Worldcon is deciding which events to go to, because there is so much interesting stuff going on.

One very important thing that you have to bear in mind about a Worldcon is that the action doesn't stop just because the sun goes down. Some of the programming will go on into the evening, there will be dances and concerts, but most people seem to go out to dinner and then hit the parties.

There are parties? Sure there are parties. The biggest and best of them are generally put on either by commercial organizations such as online magazines, or by people bidding to hold a Worldcon. As I said elsewhere, the location of future Worldcons is chosen by vote, just like the Olympics, and the voters are the members of the Worldcon three years previous. With over 5,000 potential voters you can't exactly bribe them with expensive gifts as is rumored to happen with the Olympics, but you can run ace parties with lots of free food and drink.

The people from Boston are particularly good at this. Having helped run the parties for San Jose when we were bidding I know what is involved and I am in awe of what the Boston folks achieve. They are bidding for 2004, so they will be running their best parties in Philadelphia next year, the year of their vote. Then there is Glasgow, bidding for 2005. They brought along some fine British cheeses, and stocked up with duty free malt whisky on their way over. And of course there was Tokyo, bidding for 2007. They haven't got the hang of the food and drink yet, but they had loads of cute Japanese giveaways and their room was always packed.

People run parties for other reasons as well. They might have other conventions to promote, or fan clubs, or they might just love running parties. One of the silliest ideas is hoax bids. This is where people devise daft ideas for Worldcon bids as an excuse for having fun and holding parties. My friend Dave Clark ran one for Alcatraz back in '96 (bars in every room, magnificent sea views, you'll feel you can't leave). OK, you are right, we are all mad.

Normal practice for the evening is to party-hop. There is a notice board on which all of the evening's parties are listed, and the convention newsletter has pretty good coverage too. So, armed with a list of room numbers, off you go. If one party has particularly good food, or you get into a good conversation, then stay a while, otherwise, check out what they have, and after a while move on.

The World Science Fiction Convention is the annual gathering for lovers of science fiction and fantasy stories, however they may be told. Like the Olympics, it travels around the world with cities bidding for the right to hold it. Recent conventions have been as far afield as Glasgow and Melbourne, but around two-thirds of Worldcons are in the USA. That is where most science fiction fans live, and also where most of the best convention facilities can be found. Worldcon is the second largest wholly amateur-run convention in the world (the largest being the annual US square dancing convention). As such, it is tremendous value for money; if what it offers happens to be to your taste.

So what does happen at a Worldcon? Is it an opportunity to chat to all of your favorite authors? Is it where you will find the science fiction equivalent of the Oscars ceremony? Is it an opportunity to spend the week dressed up as Mr. Spock or Xena? Is it where you can find the latest news on astronomy, NASA's plans for Mars missions, or amateur rocketry? Is it just a 5-day-long party for a bunch of people who happen to like SF? It is all of these things and more. Hopefully this journal will give some idea of the flavor of the event.

As for cost, membership of the convention varies from around $100 to $200 depending on when you book. The hotel rates are very good because of the block booking, but bear in mind that Worldcons do tend to use big hotels in major cities, and even their discounted rates are high. It isn't necessary to stay in the official hotels, and the convention will probably supply details of cheaper options nearby. When budgeting, don't forget that there will be all sorts of tempting things to buy, and if you are into books, make sure that your suitcase is half empty when you arrive, and has wheels.

There is a small amount of information about Worldcon on its official web site. However, as each year's convention is run by a local group based in the host city you will find a lot more information on the individual sites for each year. The Chicago web site is still on line here. You can also find web sites for the three known forthcoming Worldcons: Philadelphia in 2001, San Jose in 2002, and Toronto in 2003.