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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.
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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Here in Perth Swancon continues to tout itself as the only significant show in town, while the local anime convention quietly has an annual attendance ten time larger (@3,000 people). I used to run a Star Trek club with a monthly attendance double that of an average Swancon.
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Personally, I love Swancons, was rather underwhelmed with the two Perth anime cons I've been to, but I love that they are both available. Although I wonder if the anime cons are going to be a big deal for a short while and then fade away.
I dunno. I'm a big fan of anime, but I am most definitely *not* an anime fan, based on the Perth anime conventions.
Thanks for posting this, Danny. Interesting to hear more about the history of Melbourne and East-coast fandom.
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I was in charge of marketing Swancon last year and I thought we did a pretty good job. Web and print marketing, cohesive brand, we were on Facebook and Myspace, got some strategic coverage in key Perth-based e-newsletters as well as some support from local radio. We also got the highest attendance at a Swancon since the 1980s, so I think it worked.
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And yet, somehow the profile of Swancon doesn't seem to be rising very much. Maybe I'm just too close/in the wrong position to really see the differences.
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The profile of Swancon isn't rising, but that's (purely IMO) due to the product being sold rather than the way they're selling it.
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Fan run cons tend to tell people to come along and lots of fun... oh, so long as you have fun our way. No, don't worry, you'll learn.
We'll make you.
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One of the things that's driven me up the wall in recent years is the wholesale inability by organised fandom to recognise they are closed off, unwelcoming and based around cliques.
Even when there are people holding up their hands saying "um, I'm a big fan of SF and I've felt deeply unwelcome", people deny it to their faces.
I'm not making this up: actual people verbally denying newcomers' experiences to their face. The conversation goes like this:
NEW FAN: "This place isn't very welcoming or nice to me."
OLD FAN: "You're wrong."
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It's one of the reasons I try my best to talk to new people. I've always tried to do this, but as I've become better known just felt it was even more important.
This year I had someone who was new a year or two back tell me how much it meant to them that I took the time to chat with them, not just at their first con, but at subsequent cons too.
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I always get all confused and blushy when people say things like that to me :)
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They achieved this by doing something really weird... they contacted Melbourne shops and arranged to get their flyers into them. For nearly twelve months, there wasn't a genre bookshop in Melbourne that didn't have the latest versions of the flyers and or the poster.
Madness!
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Naturally, I'm having to go on memory, and have had a few people remind me of other factors (i.e. the insurance issues of the late nineties, and I had quite forgotten the nightmarish Media Natcon constitution), but I was someone who tended to go to most of the media and lit cons, so I got to see both sides.
I can still remember the very serious conversations at a couple of media Natcons about whether or not there should be a merge, or just let the lit Natcon die.
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Importantly, attendance figures aren't an indicator of quality. Many people went to Supanova, stayed for an hour or two, got bored and/or complained about the autograph prices, and went home. That's really not a valuable experience, but many of us did it, because it was there and it didn't cost much.
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