Attendance 7,951 (on-site) | Inaugurated 14-18 August 2014 | |
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Country England, United Kingdom | ||
The 72nd World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), also known as Loncon 3, was held 14-18 August 2014 at ExCeL London in London, England. The convention committee was co-chaired by Alice Lawson and Steve Cooper and organized as London 2014 Limited. Loncon 3 sold the most memberships (10,833) and had the second largest in-person attendance (7,951) of any Worldcon to date.
Contents
Guests of Honour
The Guests of Honour for Loncon 3 were:
Site selection
At the March 2012 filing deadline, only one committee who had announced a bid to hold the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention had filed the required paperwork to be on the site selection ballot. That bid, "London in 2014", was chaired by Steve Cooper and Mike Scott.
London's bid to host the Worldcon was formally unopposed and won in balloting among the members of the 70th World Science Fiction Convention held in Chicago, Illinois, in 2012. With 932 ballots cast, the voting breakdown was 864 votes for London, 29 ballots expressed no preference, and there were 39 write-in votes for various sites, including "Peggy Rae's House", Phoenix, Stockholm, and Tonopah, Nevada.
As a result of London's win, a vote for the 11th North American Science Fiction Convention to be held in 2014 took place at the 71st World Science Fiction Convention in San Antonio, Texas, in 2013. Of the two announced bids, Detroit's bid was certified as the winner with 231 votes over a Phoenix bid that garnered 210 votes. The Detroit convention was named Detcon1.
Staff
Loncon 3 was co-chaired by Alice Lawson and Steve Cooper. Division heads included Helen Montgomery for Events, Farah Mendlesohn for Exhibits, Mike Scott for Facilities, Eemeli Aro for Hospitality, Nigel Furlong for Logistics, James Bacon for Programme, Nicholas Whyte for Promotions, Kees Van Toorn for Publications, and Carolina Gómez Lagerlöf for Services.
Awards
The Hugo Awards, named after Hugo Gernsback, are presented every year for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. Results are based on the ballots submitted by members of the World Science Fiction Society. Other awards, including the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, are also presented each year at Worldcon. The 1939 Retro Hugos were presented in 2014 to honor the 75th anniversary of the 1st World Science Fiction Convention.
The convention received 3,587 valid ballots for the 2014 Hugo Awards and 1,307 for the 1939 Retro Hugo Awards. Both figures are record participation by members in these awards. More than 99% of the ballots were cast online with just 16 by postal mail for the 2014 awards and 12 for the 1939 awards. Authors Mary Robinette Kowal and Rob Shearman hosted the Retro Hugo Award ceremony.
On March 1, 2014, the convention committee announced that comedian Jonathan Ross would be the host of the Hugo Award Ceremony; this choice was met with some controversy, and directly led to Farah Mendlesohn's decision to resign from the committee. Ross subsequently tweeted that he was withdrawing from hosting the ceremonies. Authors Geoff Ryman and Justina Robson were later named as hosts for the ceremony.
2014 Hugo Awards
1939 Retro Hugo Awards
Other awards
Future site selection
Two committees announced bids and qualified to be on the site selection ballot for the 74th World Science Fiction Convention: "KC in 2016" for August 17–21, 2016, in Kansas City, Missouri, and "Beijing in 2016" for August 14–19, 2016, at the National Convention Center in Beijing, China. The 2016 site selected by the voters, Kansas City, was announced during the convention's final World Science Fiction Society business meeting on Sunday, August 17, 2014. The vote was reported as 758 total votes with 651 for Kansas City, 70 for Beijing, and miscellaneous sites receiving 1 or 2 votes each.