Westercon

It was the best of times, it was… the best of times. 1,673 members, with 1,577 actually showing up for the biggest Westercon in 20 years. With Westerconpairing up with GEAR Con for the weekend, there were many new things to explore for most long-time Westercon attendees. The Tesla Coil crackled in a very satisfying and exciting fashion. The Masquerade had amazing cosplay. And the Monday event, watching the Juno spacecraft successfully achieve polar orbit around Jupiter, with commentary from Bobak Ferdowsi, was nearly standing room three hours after the convention “officially” ended. And of course, Bobak passed a jar of peanuts around the room because it is a NASA tradition to shell and eat peanuts to celebrate the success of the mission. It was great fun. 

The Art Show and Masquerade award winners are listed on their individual pages. Look for the names of those people. If you don’t know them now, chances are that you will in the future. They were all that good.

Thank you to everyone who came, everyone who presented, everyone who enjoyed the weekend with us. We had a great time. 🙂

If you are still looking for a room, email our Hotel Liaison and we will attempt to get you a con-rate room at the Courtyard Marriott. Marriott rooms are subject to availability, however. All direct reservations with the hotels are now closed for all of our room blocks. 

We still have rooms available at the Overflow Hotels and the Courtyard Marriott offers a free shuttle that can take you to the convention. More information can be found on the Hotel page.

The hotel room block for the Portland DoubleTree is closed for reservations. If for whatever reason you need to cancel a reservation at the Doubletree, please contact hotel@westercon69.org. Please do not call the hotel directly. We’ll assign your room to someone on the waiting list.

We’ve added another Overflow Hotel, the Courtyard Marriott Lloyd Center. We will close down our discounted room blocks on the 3rd of June. If you don’t have your room by then, it will be full holiday pricing. More information can be found on the Hotel page.

Site Selection rules and ballots will be mailed out in Progress Report #4. You may download a PDF copy of the Site Selection Ballot to print and mail in for Site Selection. Mail-in ballots must be received by June 21, 2016 to be counted. Follow the instructions carefully.
 More information about site selection can be found on the Business Information page.

The Denver bid filing mets all of the requirements for a valid filing and will appear on the ballot at Westercon 69. Since Denver filed before January 1st, the rest of the North zone is excluded from bidding. More information about the Denver bid can be found on the bid website. More information about the bidding process can be found on the Westercon site.

The Denver bid filing mets all of the requirements for a valid filing and will appear on the ballot at Westercon 69. Since Denver filed before January 1st, the rest of the North zone is excluded from bidding. More information about the Denver bid can be found on the bid website. More information about the bidding process can be found on the Westercon site.

Wow – it’s been quite a year. With the passing of the gavel at Westercon 68, we’ve kicked into high gear to create the best Westercon ever! If you were at Rustycon, Radcon, Norwescon, Baycon, Westercon 68, Sasquan, OryCon or Loscon, chances are that you saw us at a fan table or a party. You might even have seen me, hawking chocolate as fast as I could go. 🙂 It’s been a busy year!

And with all the busy, comes the fen. We’re up to 449 members already, and we’ve already filled almost half of our room block at the Doubletree Portland. If you haven’t made your hotel reservation, sooner is better than later! Also, Westercon memberships make lovely holiday presents, and the current prereg price of $50 is good through January 15th.

In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve added a few more guests of honor. It’s going to be a very good con!

Author: John Scalzi, author of Old Man’s War and winner of the 2013 Hugo for Best Novel, Redshirts. 
Artist: Theresa Mather, painter extraordinaire of dragons, cats and dirigibles.
Science: Bobak Ferdowsi, also known as Mohawk Guy from the Mars Rover Curiosity landing.
Filk: Alexander James Adams, Celtic Bard for the ages.
Fan: David D. Levine, Hugo award winner and long-time volunteer in the Portland con-running community.
And, Special Guest, thanks to a grant from Renovation, the Reno Worldcon: Charles Stross, winner of seven Hugos for Best Novel.

To keep up with our goings-on, follow us!

Facebook Official Page: https://www.facebook.com/Westercon69/
Facebook Group Discussion Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Westercon69/
Twitter: @westercon69

Hope to see you in July!