The 2000 World Science Fiction Convention is just a few hours down the 
road, in Chicago.   I thought I'd start an item to see if anyone was 
going.  Leslie and I are probably not going, since she's probably spending
the summer singing in school at Aspen and we're unlikely to want to make 
a trip as soon as she gets back.
 
The convention is scheduled for August 31 - September 4.
At this point attending memberships are hellaciously expensive:
$150 before July 15, $195 at the door.
 
It feels odd for us not to be going to a Worldcon this close to home;
I guess we really are gafiated.

11 responses total.

Tempting, but this one's a bit too expensive. If I ever encounter hard
evidence that money can once again be a renewable resource before then, I
might consider it.

I'm already committed to attend a pagan festival in the
Ottawa area that weekend - even more amusing, since that
will be a longer drive for me than Worldcon!

   $200 for a con?  just to get in?  sheesh.

Why do you think they call it a "con"?!  :-)

Worldcon membership rates have far outstripped inflation.  My first worldcon,
1974, the advance membership was $5 and at-the-door was $10.
Of course the worldcon itself has gotten pretty inflated in the inter-
vening years.

I'm sorry to see the Midwestern types aren't going.  I'm in California, 
and I'm going, even though I don't really have any vacation time for it.

But that's not to say I'm a dedicated attendee.  This was more a case 
of "I've already got a membership, and I haven't been to a Worldcon in 
3 years, and I like Chicago, and I can afford the plane fare and hotel 
room, so why not?"

That is the other thing, of course -- quite a number of us bought Chicon 
memberships when they were *cough* cheap.  However, the large reason they've
gotten -so- high is because of the increases in hotel rates, as far as I can
tell.

In our case it's been five years since we were at a Worldcon: Glasgow in 
1995 was our most recent one.   I think the last convention of any sort
we went to was the Wiscon which David Bratman also attended, back maybe
three years ago.   It's amazing how effective Leslie's school and performance
schedule have been in knocking down conventions we want to attend: 
missing this year's Corflu made us very sad, since it was in Seattle, 
a city whose fandom I have long felt special ties to.

Curiously, I did have a dream in which we attended this year's Chicago 
worldcon.  I could almost see us making a last minute decision to 
drive out there; but the con is *after* Leslie's school term starts.

Ken, I'm miffed at having had to miss this year's Corflu too.  Minor 
medical problem, first time that's ever forced me to cancel a con 
attendance plan.

Well, it's almost here.  Reading people's plans in the rec.arts.sf.fandom
newsgroup has me going "Wahhhhhhhhhh......" and thinking about driving 
overnight to Chicago just to crash the rasff party.

There's a rasff party?  I supose I should drop back into rasff long enough
to go...

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