Firstly, yes yes YES! I agree with what you are saying.
I think the real wakeup call was when Waicon broke the thousand member barrier in, what, 2 years? I heard the number 1700 from one of the committee at Swancon. That's a whole lotta bods!
One thing I have to ask is, is it because we are clinging to things with rapidly declining numbers?
We tend to pooh pooh fat fantasy, yet it outsells everything else we appreciate.
We tend to emphasize Hard SF over anything else, yet it has a small, shrinking, greying readership overall.
And don't get me started on the "Capital W" writers, who seem to have an inferiority complex and look down on anyone who isn't putting out a book this year. (Thankfully they are in a small minority, but they are out there)
Now there are BROAD generalizations, and I may be wrong in some of my points but yeah, we need to start working on bringing new blood.
Some things completely off the top of my head: More stuff about video games. Playoffs on something like Guitar hero. Try and find some filking less than 10 years old. (this could work, for instance) Karaoke for nerds instead of filking maybe? Maybe we need to contact the uni clubs again and find out what is relevant. Maybe organize some stuff in some of the virtual worlds, such as WoW.
This is all stream of conscious, so I reserve the right to edit for sanity and decency ;-)
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Firstly, yes yes YES! I agree with what you are saying.
I think the real wakeup call was when Waicon broke the thousand member barrier in, what, 2 years?
I heard the number 1700 from one of the committee at Swancon. That's a whole lotta bods!
One thing I have to ask is, is it because we are clinging to things with rapidly declining numbers?
We tend to pooh pooh fat fantasy, yet it outsells everything else we appreciate.
We tend to emphasize Hard SF over anything else, yet it has a small, shrinking, greying readership overall.
And don't get me started on the "Capital W" writers, who seem to have an inferiority complex and look down on anyone who isn't putting out a book this year. (Thankfully they are in a small minority, but they are out there)
Now there are BROAD generalizations, and I may be wrong in some of my points but yeah, we need to start working on bringing new blood.
Some things completely off the top of my head:
More stuff about video games.
Playoffs on something like Guitar hero.
Try and find some filking less than 10 years old. (this could work, for instance)
Karaoke for nerds instead of filking maybe?
Maybe we need to contact the uni clubs again and find out what is relevant.
Maybe organize some stuff in some of the virtual worlds, such as WoW.
This is all stream of conscious, so I reserve the right to edit for sanity and decency ;-)