Eastercon
| Eastercon | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Venue | varies |
| Location(s) | varies |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Inaugurated | 1948 |
| Attendance | ~800 |
| Website | |
| http://www.eastercon.org/ | |
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. It has taken place over the four-day Easter holiday weekend ever since then. The pre-1960s conventions are generally considered to have been "Eastercons" even though they were not held over Easter.
British science fiction 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, 2009, no serious bids are made, but one usually emerges in the following year (See "Two Year Bidding" below) 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, donating to the Science Fiction Foundation to fund a variety of educational projects relating to science fiction, and funding international fannish visits (often through The League of Fan Funds).
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