dalekboy | A Tale of Two Natcons

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A Tale of Two Natcons

In the early 90's the media Natcon was going gangbusters (300-400+ attendees), the lit Natcon was dying with a slowly decreasing (around 200) and aging membership. With the success of a couple of joint media/lit Natcons, it was suggested that Australia's population was so small the two cons should be joined.

It would mean a bigger overall Natcon with a larger budget. Everyone would win. The media fans had no reason to do this. Their Natcon was doing fine. The only reason they did it was out of a sense of community. It would be good for fandom as a whole to have a single, bigger Natcon.

Both Natcons had their own awards. The ASFMAs (Australian Science Fiction Media Awards) and the Ditmars. Having both sets of awards would be huge and unwieldy. The only reason we still have the Ditmars is because the media fans not only agreed to the joining of both Natcons, but agreed to continue the Ditmars and discontinue their own award since a lot of older fans were concerned about the loss of the Ditmars, and their history, if a new award were started.

The only real requirement media fandom had was that the Ditmars have categories changed or added so that the media side was adequately covered, and the new Natcon have a program that fairly represented both media and lit fandom interests.

In a short time, with no separate Media Natcon to compete against, the Natcon program became heavily lit based.

With no guest or programs that addressed their passions, the fan clubs and groups more or less stopped attending the Natcon, and with their own yearly Natcon and awards gone, there was nothing to hold media fandom together through other issues.

We stopped having regular cons and Natcons in Victoria as we approached the worldcon, and while Perth picked up the slack with regards to the Natcon, it didn't advertise in the east terribly well. With no experience of a Swancon, which does tend towards a more balanced program, the east coast media fans expected more of the same they had already been given - Natcons with nothing for them. Why spend all the money getting to Perth just to be disappointed again?

Having already been hurt by the Natcon, to then have someone loosely associated with the then upcoming WorldCon loudly state at a major pre-Aussiecon 3 event, "We don't need the media fans!" didn't help things. For a group than had already been well screwed, a group that had been far more active in con-running over the previous decade than the majority of the fans working on A3, this was telling them that they, and their expertise, really weren't welcome.

The lack of action on the part of the WorldCon committee to rectify the damage didn't help. Having the creator of Babylon 5 as a guest was all well and good, but other than that, the only answer received to the question, "Why should we attend?" was "Because it's the WorldCon." The attitude was that if you didn't want to come to the WorldCon, there was something wrong with you.

On top of all this, fan politics within and between several clubs further damaged things within the media scene.

The big media expo-style cons had tried to get a foothold in Australia a few times, but previously couldn't compete with the fan-run media cons. Why go to a con where you couldn't really talk to or interact with the guest?

The best of the fan-run media cons was Multiverse, which not only ran good cons (and tried with variable success to also cater to lit fandom) but raised thousands and thousands of dollars for charity into the bargain. That was one of the interesting things about Media fandom - the profits of most Media cons were donated to charity. Again, there's that attitude of trying to help and be a part of the wider community - the same attitude that lost them their own Natcon.

But eventually the folks behind Multiverse decided it was time to finish up. Once they did, in came the expos to fill the vacuum.

Media fandom in Victoria had lost their last interesting media cons, while media fandom in general had lost its awards, its Natcon, and its history. Even the Doomsday Book, a book filled with humourous advice, info, and illustrations from previous Media Natcon committees to future ones, was lost. I think it was later recovered, but couldn't swear to it.

Certainly for a time before the Natcons joined, the two media fandom centres of Australia were Melbourne and Brisbane. But it would be up to someone from Brisbane to tell what effects, if any, losing the Media Natcon had on Queensland fandom.

With this history in mind, take the time to find and go through the last decade of Natcon program books, and decide for yourself if you think Australian media fandom has been well-served by their selflessness.

One of the architects of the change, in light of all that has happened, has commented to me on several occasions over the last ten-plus years, that he thinks they killed the wrong Natcon.

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I obviously was not part of this and didn't know a lot of the history. However, reading this account, I have a few follow-up questions:

* Why did the Multiverse people disband if they were successful? Is this another example you're citing of Australian media fandom's "selflessness"?

* Did the media fans actively participate in the 1999 worldcon committee and submit ideas and panelists for programme that were rejected?

* Have media fans actively participated in the universal natcon committees and submitted ideas and panelists for programme that were rejected?

Multiverse was the passion of two people. Although the idea was for it to be a shared project of all of the Melbourne media clubs it really came down to those two people driving it. When they finally decided to move on in life it all collapsed. At the time there was a bit of the changing of the guard with quite a few club stalwarts moving on. For a time a number of the clubs looked ready to collapse but only the alternate ST club (Enterprise) and the alternate DW club (Gallifrey) ultimately folded.

The media clubs have for a long time been the bulk of Melbourne fandom. A lot of the people involved in A3 were unknown to them and vice versa. A3 stuck to people it knew and didn't consult. There was a lot of talent out there that could have been used but wasn't. Ultimately A3 made the lit/media divide larger than before.

Ultimately A3 made the lit/media divide larger than before.

Yep. A2 asked the clubs to be involved, and made the media fans feel like their knowledge and expertise would be welcomed and could only make the WorldCon greater, which would in turn help their clubs. It was very much a, "Of course we want you on board, without you this will be a lesser event for everyone."

Quick replies (in the middle of looking after Lex :) )

Multiverse disbanded as a con-running entity for two reasons.
One was that they had a hard time finding people willing to take it on. This is one of the reason I tried to build in my own obsolescence with Continuum. I didn't want people saying, "Only such-and-such can do XYZ."
The other of the reasons is also part of why they had a hard time finding people to take it on. Serious changes would have had to be made to the running due to public liability issues. Around that time we had the chair-lift disaster and a number of other things happen that meant for a large volunteer group to get insurance was difficult in Victoria. Some people would have needed to take on running Multiverse as a full-time job to meet the requirements of insurance at the level they were operating.

Multiverse still exists as an entity, and every year raises money for the Good Friday appeal. To date they have raised over $350,000 for charity.

I can't say how many would have been willing to participate in A3 after they had already been told they weren't needed, but you of all people know how that program came together. Even if they did submit ideas and panels, it doesn't mean the programmer followed through on them. However there may have been significantly fewer items submitted simply because they didn't feel welcome.
I do know that Multiverse did a hell of a lot of advertising for A3 off their own bat and out of their own pocket. Sending out flyers to their fairly huge membership list, other cons and clubs, etc. They got dragged over the coals for referring to JMS as a Guest of Honour on flyers. While this may have been an issue for the WorldCon committee with regards to woldcon politics, it could probably have been handled more graciously at the local level.

As I mentioned, media fandom was also having its own issues at the time which hurt things. Media fandom was having a meltdown, and the Natcon wasn't catering to them, so they weren't going to it, and therefore weren't likely to be involved in its politics, committees, program, etc.

And while you can say, well they did nothing to change things, the Natcons didn't do anything to draw them in, either.

Might I suggest that the current A4 concom approach the clubs (which are all still going strong) and ask them to be involved? Every year for the past few years they have been doing their own minicons, but to be honest they really did feel like they were shut out by previous committees, so one can see why they have no interest in approaching the Natcon/Worldcon committees to submit manpower and ideas.

Have media fans actively participated in the universal natcon committees and submitted ideas and panelists for programme that were rejected?
Yes.

Approaching the clubs is a very good idea, and should be done with every regional SF con IMO.

I've been to Swancon every year since 1993, I've run several of them, administered the Ditmars, won Ditmars, sat on the board of the WA Science Fiction Foundation twice, and the only reason I went there in the first place was because someone went to the Perth Doctor Who club and asked if a few members could come along and present a panel on the subject.

Actually, A, already doing that. Aussiecon 4 are actively seeking people with experience from the clubs, and not only those here in Melbourne. Many have taken the opportunity to be involved and help shape the 2010 worldcon.

Rose Mitchell
Aussiecon 4 Co-Chair

Good to hear. Somfbabe's reply read as though this was not the case and that the current committee was assuming that 'media fans' (to use a blanket term) would approach them if they wanted involvment, which is not the case given the past history (which has obviously been discussed here.)

I don't know about the last of those, but for the first two:

* Multiverse was basically run by a couple of people who were spending astronomical amounts of their own time to run events for hundreds of fans. There were many events, not just cons. If anyone sane had wanted to take it over, there would have had to have been a bigger group of them plus a quick absorption of knowledge. It was indeed a great shame that the excellent Multiverse era ended.

* A3's very first open meeting was on the same day as two media clubs held their meetings. Only those involved would know whether this was because A3 actively wanted to ensure media fans didn't turn up, or simply had no interest and no contact with media fandom. When some of us made the effort to go to the A3 meeting anyhow, we found a room which didn't even have enough chairs, as they clearly didn't intend (want?) many attendees apart from committee. Those who turned up to that first meeting volunteered to participate, left contact details, and were never contacted. A3 made it abundantly clear right from the start that media fans were unwelcome.

Didn't know about the open meeting being on the same day as two club meetings, though that sort of thing is easily done if you're not in the loop.

I still think that the comment about not needing the media fans did the most damage. It doesn't matter that the guy wasn't on the committee, he was perceived as being associated with the con. By basically ignoring the situation and hoping it would go away, they made it worse. It was a very bad start.

Combine that with the aggression that is leveled at those who disagree with them, and it gets worse and worse.

Yep,

jocko55, myself and a few others left the B5 club meeting to go over there.

Quite agree that it's easily done if you're not in the loop, but doesn't that hit to the core of the issue? The people running a worldcon should have been "in the loop", or at the very least asked someone who was. The obvious contrast is that we in the media clubs knew about A3 and were (at least initially) interested, while A3 appeared to neither know nor care about media fandom.

You say that a comment about not needing media fans did the most damage, but for those for whom actions speak louder than words, the actions matched those words.

"Quite agree that it's easily done if you're not in the loop, but doesn't that hit to the core of the issue? The people running a worldcon should have been "in the loop", or at the very least asked someone who was."
This is something that i have raised many times actually, the fact that those doing a lot of the organising haven't even been down to the MSFC in years (or ever) where a lot of fandom actually still hangs out. how can they know what the people want if they won't hang out with the people. Coupled with people essentially being told to go away when they do stick their heads up. I have found it very frustrating. i don't think it's an unsolveable problem, but yes, the Worldcon committee do need to go out and talk with some other people a bit more than they have I believe.

You've touched on a point which transcends the whole media/lit issue altogether.

Some of those who were involved in running A3 are simply uninvolved in fandom in Australia. I don't understand why such people would wish to run worldcons. They are never seen at the MSFC and never seen at a Swancon or Continuum or Convergence or Conflux (... except maybe for a few hours to push a worldcon bid) and are thus unknown to 99% of fandom.

The main reason I'd like to see a Worldcon in Perth is that those who have shown interest in giving it a shot are members of fandom. By which, I mean involved in Australian fandom, not those who go to Worldcon once a year and schmooze some smofs and seldom have any input to local fandom.

I don't understand why such people would wish to run worldcons.

Ego. It's what I call "Event Fandom." If they're going to run a con, it's going to be an 'important' one. A good chunk of those types of folks aren't interested in anything else, and rarely go to other things. And if they do go to them, it's rarely social. It's usually to fly the flag of their event, or to headhunt people.

To them, smaller cons are unimportant. I know of one person who gestured to the successful smaller con around them to their friend, and said loudly, "None of this matters, you're with World Fantasy!" Doesn't matter they were drunk, to me it showed their real attitude to standard conventions.

Personally, I see the smaller cons as the important ones, because they bring new people in and keep things alive between the event cons.

I'm fully behind a Perth bid.

Have media fans actively participated in the universal natcon committees and submitted ideas and panelists for programme that were rejected?

The history of the Natcon post A3 has been dominated by Swancon, and Swancon has always had a fairly mixed media/lit approach, especially post a certain degree of changing of the guard around swancon 16-18. High profile, primarily media, fans like

angriest and

robinpen (who are also avid readers) made quite a bit of difference there.

But I don't think the media fans have been as consistently well served by Natcons other than Swancons -- and to some extent this isn't just because of the historical issues that

dalekboy refers to, but also a natural bias because several East Coast con-running organisations grew out of writers groups/writer focussed organisations, and so had a big books and writing bias. I'm very happy that those organisations exist and run cons, bias and all, because seeing the resurgence of strong natcon bids from a variety of states has been terrific, but they do have a natural bias, and it does sometimes show.

And I'm pretty sure that this point of view isn't just my Swancon bias showing here, just that Swancon does have a very strong mixed media/lit culture that isn't shared by all Australian con-running organisations - it is notably shared by the Continuum Foundation, but the Continuum Foundation has not so far in its existence been in a position to run a Natcon.

Actually, we have been in the position, twice.

I always said, "Never ever a Continuum Natcon," and in fact have things set up in such a way that while not impossible, it's not easy. You'd basically need to convince two committees to back you up.

I'm only going to talk about the one time it nearly happened.

We very nearly bidded against a Natcon at the last minute. I actually got phoned up by the Chair of a Continuum and told, "Talk me out of bidding for the Natcon."

I asked what had happened, and it seemed that the Natcon bid was pushing itself as being run by people with 'lots of recent experience in running conventions' and allowing people to draw their own conclusions.

As it wasn't a Perth or Canberra bid, naturally people thought of Continuum. Nothing was said by the runners to clarify which group was running. The first we knew was people approaching the then current Continuum Chair and saying, "Continuum's bidding for the Natcon! That's great!"

On top of this, the Chair had previously been approached by the bid organiser and asked if we minded if they ran a 'small' event around the time we normally ran our cons. We said no problem, go for it. At no time was the Natcon bid mentioned.

This is the same person who came up to me personally and congratulated me on nailing that middle of the year slot as the 'Continuum slot.' She said it was good because people knew it was on around that time and wouldn't go up against it. Then she snuck in and grabbed it!

Other cons were asking us when we were running, they didn't want to be up against us. In one case, we didn't have a date set, so we told the con, "You tell us the dates you want to run, and we'll stay as far away from them as we can." We didn't see it was fair to make them wait on us while we ummed and ahhed.

We treat fandom as a community, not a power game.

Of course history has been rewritten, so I've since heard how she told us all about her plans for a Natcon and we said it was fine. Apparently, we're the ones rewriting history.

Why would we rewrite history in such a way as to make ourselves look bad? It doesn't make sense.

Thing is, if instead of sneaking around, she'd just asked us outright, it would have been fine. Oh we would have grumbled a bit, but we would have said yes, take the weekend.

The Continuum Chair and I talked about it at length. Eventually we decided not to go for it. But we were very, very unhappy about the game-playing.

Given where we were at at the time, do you think another Natcon would have got the bid over what would have been a Continuum Natcon if we had actively gone for it? I don't.

And needless to say, that ended up being the Natcon where the chair turned up to Swancon, and totally failed to spruik her Natcon at the closing. Nor was there any hint that she had arranged for anyone else to do it.

So I stood up and did it at the very last second because I felt it had to be done, because people would want to know about it. I didn't have all the info, so then you saved things when you chimed in with the guest list. And people were impressed. And wanted to go.

Part of me still says I should have let the Natcon go unmentioned at Swancon. If she didn't care about it, why should I? But I would have regretted it if I hadn't spruiked it, because all those people who then decided to go would have missed out.

See? Things like spontaneously leaping up and spruiking that con? That's why we gave you that pretty kaleidoscope thing.

Today on my facebook my status is --sorting out details of trip to Adelaide Conjecture and work time in Lieu for Friday afternoon. I also put up the web address after people started to say "there's a con on in Adelaide next weekend?" This first happened to me with Suncon, in Brisbane in 1991, when a local friend didn't know there was a con the next weekend till he read my letter. The only cons I have ever seen that I felt promoted themselves enough were Constantinople in 1994 and Swancon 17, as previously noted. With cons, I feel the committee just have to do some things and promotion is Numbers 1, 2, and 3 on a top ten list. You also need to have something arractive to promote--I did like the "party over the weekend" line.

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A Tale of Two Natcons

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