There's a panel at Lunacon this weekend called "Where are the Fen?" The description is:

Bringing SF readers to cons seems harder than ever... how do we reach them? How does a generalist con continue to attract an audience when their interests are no longer stigmatized, the Internet allows them to connect to other fen year round, and specialized events dig deeper into individual fannish interests?

Wow.

Just -- wow.

Okay, first of all, I have to disclose that the people who've been in charge of running Lunacon the past few years are friends of mine, and I appreciate the crapshit situation they inherited.

Having said that....

SF is more mainstream and SF fans can communicate better with each other, and you think that makes it harder to attract people to your con? Really?

Conventions in general seem to be doing quite well. On the large scale, San Diego Comic-Con, Dragon*Con, Fan Expo, and New York Comic-Con keep growing every year. On a smaller scale, Arisia, MarsCon, and MystiCon have all outgrown their hotels in recent years (and Arisia's in danger of outgrowing the current one), Balticon is still pootling along nicely, Geek Media Expo is growing, and so on. All of those that I just listed are "generalist" conventions (as opposed to, say, Farpoint, Polaris, and Shore Leave, which are also doing well attendance wise, but are really media cons).

So, no, it isn't "harder than ever" to attract fans. And the fact that this question is being asked is a pretty scathing indictment..........

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: "Love of the Common People" by Bruce Springsteen