FantasyCon 2009 has published its budget. You can see it here (PDF).

It is a relatively small event – maybe 300 people, but the numbers are still instructive. Here’s what I noticed.

Just like a Worldcon, their major expense was hotel function space.

You can lose money on a banquet if you don’t sell enough seats (though thankfully their loss was quite small).

The cost of your program book can be covered by selling advertising (though it isn’t clear where all of ad sales appeared).

Insurance is Very Expensive (but essential).

And no, I don’t understand why sale of books is only an expense, not a source of income.

Here at World Fantasy the Press Office is rather busy. We have a number of in-community journalists here for the whole event, but what really makes me happy is getting in people from outside of the community. Today we have a number of people in from the local media, and that’s keeping me busy. Thankfully I have Kevin and Jean Martin here to help out.

I have also managed to spend some time in the dealers’ room and have come away with one bag of swag. There’s still a lot more I’m looking for, though. I have been away from the US for around 9 months, and a lot of books can get published in that time.

Today is, of course, Halloween. There are people in costumes. Some of them are well known authors. The Blue Meanies are doubtless none too happy, but that’s their problem.

For the benefit of those people who think that Kevin is my sock puppet, or vice versa, here is his take on the Mike Resnick Worldcon article. Kevin chose to zero in on some of the wilder accusations in the article, especially the one about Anticipation padding their membership figures. As a Director of Anticipation’s parent organization, and a member of the WSFS committee responsible for auditing historical membership data, he obviously took that one fairly personally.

Gary Farber points me to this article by Mike Resnick called Pros and Cons — meaning Professionals and Conventions. Guess what Mike has to say:

I think what the Worldcon movers and shakers haven’t yet figured out, or possibly don’t particularly care about, is that if the publishers stop supporting Worldcon and support other conventions instead, their editors will show up at those other cons.

And like it or not, writers will go where the editors are. This is, after all, a business.

And eventually — and it’s clearly happening; all you have to do is look at the attendance figures for the last few Worldcons — the fans will follow the writers.

My, where have I heard that before? Not all of Mike’s article is sensible — in particular he’s flat wrong about pointing fans at World Fantasy because most fans would find it very poor value. However, the gist of what he’s saying is just what Lou Anders and I have been saying. SMOFdom cannot rely on writers and editors coming to Worldcon out of a sense of loyalty to a community. And if the SMOFs turn up their noses and say, “Well we don’t want you then,” Worldcon will die.

A bit of catch-up here. In the wake of the Balloon Boy debacle, The Guardian thought we should all be reminded about the first Great Balloon Hoax. It was a good thought, especially with this year being the 200th anniversary of Poe’s birth. There might even be a convention coming up that is having some Poe-related activities. Will there be balloons? Hoaxes? You’ll have to wait and see.

This year’s Octocon is now over and I have been seeing some very nice things being said on Twitter about it. So I thought I would create a thread where those people who attended the convention can talk about how it went. After all of the negativity last week I’m hoping we can hear something positive about the con for a change.

I received the following in an email from James Bacon earlier today. I am delighted that the matter is now settled and am very grateful to James for his work in bringing the two sides together. In view of the wishes of both sides that the matter end here I have closed comments on this post, and on the two earlier posts about this subject.

Joint release from Octocon and Pádraig Ó Mealoid

To whom it may concern:

Following some mediation and frank communication Octocon and Pádraig have resolved their issues thus:

Nichola Hannigan, Co- Chair of Octocon, recognised that the banning of Pádraig may not have been the best way to deal with the situation they faced.

The committee regrets that better wording was not used in the communication of Pádraig’s ban and realises that the closing of communication lines was an error.

Pádraig recognised that online and other criticism should be tempered and that his enthusiasm for SF activities may be perceived as aggressive. He is sorry that he upset or hurt anyone, and regrets that he did not communicate his criticisms more appropriately.

Both parties regret that previous private communication opportunities were missed.

Given this understanding between parties, Octocon have rescinded the Ban on Pádraig.

The Octocon committee will continue to welcome criticism in a measured manner and try to deal with it as best they can. They make it their duty to continue to deal promptly with queries which are submitted in the normal way.

The committee are considering setting up an online public forum, which may be a better way for people to raise and discuss queries.

Pádraig understands all con committees are free to run their own convention.

Octocon understand that con members may have expectations.

On behalf of Octocon, Nichola has apologised to Pádraig. Pádraig unreservedly accepted this and has apologised to the committee for his part in these events.

Both parties wish to draw a line under this now. No further discussion online or in person will be entered into in this matter by either party, as both parties want to move on and put this whole matter behind them.

Both parties request that everyone else who was affected by or had interest in this dispute also move on and look forward to positive future events.

Padraig and The Octocon committee would like to thank James Bacon for his timely intervention and are grateful for his mediation in this matter.

Signed

Nichola Hannigan and the Octocon Committee

Pádraig Ó Méalóid

Over at Con-news.com Petrea Mitchell explains the economics of convention centers and makes some very interesting points about how Dragon*Con keeps down costs at the expense of making program harder to attend (and probably effectively segregating different sub-groups of attendees). One of the reasons that Worldcon is expensive is that it has a commitment to keeping as much as possible under one roof. It also has a commitment to trying to avoid queues, which is something that comes back to bite us on a regular basis.

As per my latest comment on the previous post, I have decided not to attend Octocon this weekend. I’ll be out an air fare, but I think I’m in time to cancel the hotel room. I will certainly miss meeting a bunch of Irish friends, but given how busy I am right now, and how keen some people in Irish fandom are to involve everyone possible in their feud, I’m going to spend the weekend doing something less stressful instead.