The 1970 Worldcon was held in Heidelberg, West Germany. According to Ben Yalow, “An unofficial alternative convention was held in Toronto for those who couldn’t attend Heicon. As a result of the good feelings coming from this, at Noreascon (1971) the next year an amendment was made to the WSFS bylaws which stated that whenever a non-North American Worldcon was held, an interim Continental Convention would be held in the North American zone that would have been eligible to hold the Worldcon.”

The view of Toronto’s alternative convention as a successful, unofficial tryout of the NASFiC was not shared by some of that city’s leading fans. This mattered because the 1973 Worldcon was going to be held in Toronto, and the 1973 Worldcon would vote on Australia’s bid for 1975 Worldcon.

An Aussie victory would open the way for selection of the first NASFiC, which was sought by two bidders, both from Los Angeles. Or make that – sought by two gluttons for punishment. Each bid was led by a co-chair of L.A.Con I, the just-completed Worldcon, Charles Crayne or Bruce Pelz. But Toronto’s chairman, John Millard, advised by fan attorney Kenneth Smookler, took the position that the NASFiC rules were ultra vires, that is, outside the Worldcon-running purpose of WSFS. They would not administer the NASFiC site selection.

Crayne and Pelz reacted to TorCon 2’s simply by running their own site selection process at the con. I got my first bidding experience while helping Bruce Pelz and Milt Stevens haul cases of beer from a package store to their bid party in Toronto’s Royal York Hotel. “Strong backs, weak minds,” I think Bruce said. When the ballots were counted, we (Bruce and Milt may be thinking, “What do you mean, we?”) lost to Chuck Crayne’s bid. ~Mike Glyer

Half Sisters & Devil’s Rain (costume.org)

1979 - NorthAmeriCon ’79

August 30 to September 3, 1979
Galt House Hotel
Louisville, Kentucky

Guests of Honor:
Frederick Pohl (pro)
George Scithers (fan)

Chair: Cliff Amos

Attendance: 1,928

Filksing on the riverboat (fanac.org)

NorthAmericon’s highlight was a riverboat ride on the Belle of Louisville. It being a NASFiC, there was a little carping by a fan who commented that only 500 fans went on the cruise, including the entire committee, but nothing was planned for the other two-thirds of the members left on shore. Hm, makes me think of another cruise where people complained there weren’t enough lifeboats.
~ Mike Glyer

Program book cover (fanac.org)
The Weaver of Spinweb (costume.org)

NorthAmeriCon ‘79 was the second NASFiC to be held when the Worldcon was held out of North America. The convention was held over the Labor Day weekend in 1979 in Louisville, KY. It started as a “Nashville is Neat in 100 Degree Heat” ad in a 1975 MidAmeriCon progress report. This ad was a big joke pulled on Khen Moore by Ken Keller, who was MidAmeriCon’s chairman. It started to take off as a Worldcon bid for Nashville when Khen got a bad case of Worldcon fever. As it became more and more obvious that Nashville did not have the needed hotel space (this was before the Opryland Hotel was a factor) the bid somehow migrated north to Louisville as a NASFiC bid. ~ Steve & Sue Francis

A Southern fandom con tradition in the 70s was to go skinnydipping at midnight, and this tradition was followed at NorthAmericon. Unbeknownst to the swimmers, however, one wall of the pool featured portholes to the hotel bar. Drinkers probably were shocked sober by the sight of some of the fans swimming by.
~ Fancyclopedia

Bob Asprin and Murray Porath singing at a room party

1985 - LoneStarCon 1

August 30 to September 3, 1985
Hyatt Regency Austin, Sheraton Crest, Palmer Auditorum
Austin, Texas

Guests of Honor:
Jack Vance (writer)
Richard Powers (artist)
Joanne Burger (fan)

Chair: Willie Siros

Attendance: 2,800

Fans in hotel lobby (fanac.org)

The First Occasional Lone Star Science Fiction Convention and Chili Cook-Off was the most popular NASFiC ever. The bidding committee was as big, dynamic and creative as the state of Texas. They had the best bid party at the 1983 Worldcon in Baltimore, and Site Selection voters who picked Australia to host the 1985 Worldcon rewarded the LoneStarCon committee by approving Austin, Texas to host the 1985 NASFiC. LoneStarCon’s guests of honor included Jack Vance, a reclusive author attending his first large American con, artist Richard Powers, and fan Joanne Burger, co-founder of the Houston SF Society.

LoneStarCon had an exceptionally large and diverse program. Its most popular item was the Secular Humanist Revival, a satirical event led by Orson Scott Card and John M. Ford. Jane Jewell wrote in Locus: “Card called on the congregation to confess their beliefs in logic, reason and the scientific method…. Rev. Card invited members of the audience to testify for their favorite scientific theory by boldly writing it on a sheet of paper, signing their name, and passing it to the front. The Reverend then respectfully intoned the names of these theories, most of which were met with enthusiastic applause…. Gravity received a particularly thunderous ovation.

One of the more crowded parties was the Aussiecon II reunion, involving around 150 members of NASFiC who came there straight from the Australian Worldcon. ~ Mike Glyer

Alan Dean Foster in a lunatic shirt (fanac.org)
GoH Jack Vance (fanac.org)

1987 - CactusCon

September 3 to 7, 1987
Phoenix Hyatt Regency Adams Hilton, Phoenix
Convention Center
Phoenix, Arizona

Guests of Honor:
Hal Clement (pro)
Marjii Ellers (fan)

Chair: Bruce Farr

Attendance: 2,800

Masquerade entry (Flickr user lfics)
CactusCon program book (Bruce Farr)

Phoenix held back nothing as it prepared for an honored guest. However, that turned out to be the Pope, who was in town at about the same time.

Marjii Ellers, fan GoH, embodied fannish high spirits, wearing antenna to panels and working indefatigably on the costume programming. CactusCon was a magnet for costumers. Locus said such a large Masquerade was expected that the committee divided it into Friday and Saturday night sessions, possibly in reaction to the ’84 Worldcon’s marathon costume event. (However, Janice Gelb reported one of CactusCon’s sessions involved only 20 costumes.)

By 1987, dances were becoming major evening fare at American conventions. CactusCon ran a 50’s dance one night and a 70’s rock and roll party the next night. Another sign of the times was the presence of a CompuServe SF Forum party.

The pseudo-highlight of CactusCon was the lead story of the hoax daily newzine, reporting: “Calamity on the Hyatt’s fourth floor last night, as drunken revelers at the Alcor Life Extension party took their cryonics equipment and invaded the ‘Hell in ‘91’ hoax bid party. Hell froze over, and as a result Harper & Row has announced The Last Dangerous Visions for publication this spring.”

However, it’s hard to top the con’s most unusual program item. Mary Mason led a dozen participants armed with scalpels in a study of the anatomy and function of pig brains. Jane Jewell wrote, “I arrived near the end of the hour to find an enthusiastic group slicing away at the pig’s brains provided by the committee.” ~ Mike Glyer

Access Desk (Bruce Farr)
Site Selection Desk - CactusCon was the first NASFiC at which site selection was held for the following NASFiC (fanac.org)

1990 - ConDiego

August 30 to September 3, 1990
Omni Hotel, San Diego Convention & Performing Arts Center
San Diego, California

Guests of Honor:
Samuel R. Delany (pro)
Ben Yalow (fan)

Chair: Albert Lafreniere II

Attendance: 3,000

Con t-shirt & Con publications (ebay.com)

Neither a fine speech by pro GoH Samuel Delany, an excellent Masquerade, a well-stocked Dealer’s Room, a top-quality Press Relations department, nor a successful Regency Dance, could divert the avalanche of sentiment which quickly made ConDiego a byword for haphazard convention-running. Not after fans were handed a typo-riddled Program Book which misspelled the hotel’s name, the guests of honors’ names and even the con’s own name – that in headline type: ConDigeo. And not after fans started seeing other problems and glitches. Not even herculean efforts behind the scenes by the other GoH, conrunning guru Ben Yalow, could bind up so many loose ends.

Most fans responded with a crotchety sense of humor. Someone coined an immortal wordplay referencing The Princess Bride: “My name is ConDigeo Montoya. You killed my weekend. Prepare to die!”

Even so, there were still many events of interest. Taras Wolansky’s con report is full of program highlights. He encountered one of sf’s most colorful real-life characters, Thorarin Gunnarson, writer, Danish television personality and Icelandic opera singer. Wolansky snorted at Julian May’s attitude about psychics who are revealed to be frauds: It’s tragic, she said, when people with real psychic powers are forced by circumstances to become charlatans! And he enjoyed hearing Sheila Finch talk about her story in the Benford anthology Hitler Victorious, on the leading wave of today’s thriving alternate history sub-genre. ~Mike Glyer

Music at ConDiego (Flickr user lfics)

1995 - Dragon*Con 1995

July 13 to 16, 1995
Atlanta Hilton & Towers, Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel, Atlanta Civic Center
Atlanta, Georgia

Guests of Honor:
George Alec Effinger (writer)
Harlan Ellison (writer)
Timothy Zahn (writer)
Michael Whelan (artist)
Bjo Trimble (fan)

Chair: Ed Kramer

Attendance: 14,312*

* Despite Dragon*Con’s overall attendance of over 14,000, Locus estimates only about 1,000 came just for the NASFiC. This may not have offset the cost of special things done to enhance the NASFiC side of the con.

Hall costume (myoldbox.wordpress.com)
Harlan Ellison reading (harlaneslllison.com)

When the Atlanta bid for the 1995 Worldcon was defeated by the Glasgow bid, an unrelated group of fans connected with Atlanta’s huge annual popular culture convention, Dragon-Con, successfully bid to hold NASFiC in conjunction with their event in July 1995. Reports suggest that the Dragon-Con committee and Worldcon regulars who went looking for the NASFiC’s promise of “Worldcon-style convention” both came away feeling they’d gotten less in return than the experience cost them.

The committee did a number of things designed to appeal to fans looking for a focus on printed sf. In addition to its own slate of GoHs, Dragon*Con named as “NASFiC Honored Guests” George Alec Effinger, Harlan Ellison, Bjo Trimble, Michael Whelan, Timothy Zahn. They also hosted several major awards ceremonies. Charles N. Brown agreed to have the Locus Awards presented there, with Joe Haldeman as MC. The Chesley and Prometheus Awards were also given at the con.

Of more lasting notoriety, many who came for NASFiC reacted critically to the rest of Dragon-Con. Charles N. Brown wrote in Locus, “On the whole, the super-combined convention did not work well. The program, all 18 tracks of it, was out-of-hand and badly organized.” Having gone to the trouble of importing non-media guests, Dragon-Con/NASFiC seemed to have little idea what to do with them. George Alec Effinger was assigned to one reading, one autograph session, and no panels, and finished his assigned duties on the second day of the con. The reading was scheduled opposite Harlan Ellison’s talk!

Fans could not believe that the art show was crowded into a tiny space with aisles only 30” wide (not as wide as some fans….) Some were astonished by the huge amount of pornography and bondage equipment for sale. Overall, the experience showed it was not really possible to graft a Worldcon-style NASFiC onto a huge popular culture convention and satisfy the fans of either. ~Mike Glyer

Dealer Jim Groat (Fred Patten/Dogpatch Press)
Convention mailing (mycomicshop.com)

1999 - Conucopia

August 26 to 29, 1999
Anaheim Marriott
Anaheim, California

Guests of Honor:
Jerry Pournelle (pro)
Ellen Datlow (editor)
Richard & Nicki Lynch (fan)

Chair: Christian B. McGuire

Attendance: 1,734

Lord Darth Maulingo (Hazel’s Picture Gallery)
Conucopia Souvenir book (ebay.com)

After “Australia in ‘99” was selected over the “Worldcon in Zagreb 1999” bid as the World Science Fiction Convention to be held in 1999 (as “Aussiecon Three” in Melbourne), the 1996 WSFS Business Meeting directed that a written ballot contest be held to select a NASFiC site for 1999. For the first time, both at-con and by-mail balloting were possible as this NASFiC site selection contest was held one full year after the overseas Worldcon site was selected.

At the 1997 Worldcon in San Antonio, Texas, a total of 491 ballots were cast, 101 by mail and 390 in person, with Los Angeles barely edging Phoenix after the first round but no site claiming a majority of the vote. It wasn’t until the third round of “instant runoff” preferential vote tallying that the Los Angeles area bid was awarded the 1999 NASFiC.
~ Wikipedia

Chaz Boston Baden models “the wig” as chest hair while Anastasia Hunter looks on (Hazel’s Picture Gallery)
Kate Morgernstern as one of the “Ladies of Star Trek” (Hazel’s Picture Gallery)

Being in the film center of the world, it would have been unusual if the convention committee had not taken advantage of the available resources and people who work in the industry. Media-oriented panels and events abounded, and there was even a Hong Kong movie festival, featuring some strange but yet pretty entertaining films of reasonable fantasy content (some featuring Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan when they were much younger). The strangest and maybe most entertaining of them all was The Bride With White Hair, which was described in the ConuCopia Pocket Guide as “the best sword and sorcery movie ever made by anyone anywhere.” It might very well be! How best to describe it? How about: a ‘Magic Realism’ fairy tale where Chinese martial arts meet up with sorcery, with an heroic fantasy leading man, a mysterious beautiful witch who could ensnare victims in her long hair, and a fantastic yin-yang male-female villain who was leader of an Evil Cult. And on top of this, it was also a love story!

Besides the movies, there were also some television-related items, including a Buffy the Vampire Slayer panel (that Nicki was on) which had the misfortune of being scheduled the same time as Harlan Ellison’s one man show. It resulted in a smaller audience than expected, though they made up for it in exuberance which carried through the divider walls – some of the attendees at the Ellison hour wondered if an even bigger event was being held next door.
~ Richard & Nicki Lynch

2005 - CascadiaCon

September 1 to 5, 2005
Seattle Airport Hilton and Conference Center
Seattle, Washington

Guests of Honor:
Fred Saberhagen (Writer)
Liz Danforth (Artist)
Toni Weisskopf (Editor)
Kevin Standlee (Fan)
Marc Abrahams (Science)

Chair: Bobbie DuFault

Attendance: 1,785

Aliens in front of crashed rocket exhibit (Hazel’s Picture Gallery)
Phil Foglio (Hazel’s Picture Gallery)

The Exhibits area was tucked away in the corner and was a pair of small rooms. The first room had a selection of Hugo Statues, a bunch of Japanese fanzines, which were very cool, and Kevin Standlee’s little display. That was a great thing showing the history of the Fan Guest of Honour. I know he put a lot of effort into putting it together and he had a lot of great material, including a number of photos of Kevin in a pink dress and the dress itself on a mannequin. There were badges and photos and the like from all along Kevin’s fannish career. This was really good.

The other room was good, really good. Ed Stiner put together a great series of displays from the Science Fiction Museum in Oregon. He had all sorts of magazines in display cases, including issue 10 of Fantastic Four and issue 17 of Spiderman. There were board games and props and photos and paintings and a small little theatre. I’m biased, since I’m on the board of advisers, but I really think Fandom should get on getting the Science Fiction Museum a permanent home.
~ Christopher Garcia

Part of Kevin Standlee Fan GoH exhibit (Hazel’s Picture Gallery)
Captain Standlee himself, with Marci Malinowycz (Hazel’s Picture Gallery)

At Interaction the convention center had, for its shape, been re-named, and adopted as the starship WSFS Armadillo, “WSFS” supposedly “White Star Federated Spacelines” being the convenient initials of the World S-F Society, beneath whose happy wingspread Worldcons and NASFiCs stand. Standlee was Captain, Docherty was Admiral. The self-proclaimed Cabal that produces Plokta having won the Hugo for Best Fanzine, and having each been armed with a rocket by means of Hugo trophies, all invaded Closing Ceremonies as space pirates. At CascadiaCon, under the guise of raising money for relief from Hurricane Katrina, Standlee was court-martialed. Around midnight at the L.A.con IV party my roommate Tom Veal arrived with news. “We acquitted Kevin, and convicted Seth.” Two hours later I found Seth Breidbart in the lobby. “Of course it’s true,” he said. “Were any charges brought against you?” I asked. “Of course not.”
~ John Hertz

David Kyle and family (Hazel’s Picture Gallery)

2007 - Archon 31/Tuckercon

August 2 to 5, 2007
Holiday Inn Gateway Center
Collinsville, Illinois

Guests of Honor:
Barbara Hambly (Featured)
Darrell K. Sweet (Artist)
Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett (Media)
James Ernest (Gaming)
Elizabeth Covey (Costuming)
Barry & Sally Childs-Helton (Filk)
Nancy “Cleo” Hathaway (Fan)
Lani Tupu (Media/Workshop)
Richard Hatch (Last-Minute Special)

Chair: Steve Norris, Michelle Zellich

Attendance: 1,700

Collection of Bob Tucker convention badges (Keith Stokes)
Masquerade costumes (Keith Stokes)

Now before I get accused of bad mouthing a con, I really did have a wonderful time there. It was a brilliantly programmed con with lots of great stuff happening. The facility was really good and there were cheap hotels all around the convention center so there was no problem getting a place that would suit the needs of almost any attendee. I had a lot of fun, there were a lot of good people around and I’d happily attend another Archon anytime I could make it happen.

But it wasn’t supposed to be an Archon. It was supposed to be a NASFiC.

The thing about the Big SF Con of the Year, typically a Worldcon though once in a while it’s a NASFiC, is that it feels like the Big SF Con of the Year. It draws people from all over, the major players, the big writers, the beautiful people of fandom and prodom. You get people in who you’d never see at the local con and people who only make it out for the Big SF Con of the Year. With the NASFiC this year, it never felt like a NASFiC; it felt like an Archon. It was a big regional convention that drew all the locals (or at least the important locals) and a smattering of people from the two Coasts.
~ Christopher Garcia

Firefly hall costumes (Keith Stokes)
Opening Ceremonies (John Shoberg)

Friday evening was the annual Archon Dinner Theater Banquet. It was followed by the Guest of Honor Speeches, First Fandom Awards, Golden Duck Awards, Sidewise Awards, and Archon Hall of Fame and Tucker Awards, emceed by Roger Tener. It sounds like that would have gone on forever, but everyone paid attention to the instructions to be brief, and it went through fairly quickly and enjoyably. Roger concluded the event by bringing out a couple of bottles of Beams Choice and leading the remaining members of the audience in a Smooth.

…For me, TuckerCon was the most fun of any convention in the past few years. I would like to see Archon retain some of this year’s feel when they return to their regular weekend next year.
~ Keith Stokes

Save the Penguins masquerade costume (Keith Stokes)

2010 - ReConStruction

August 5 to 8, 2010
Raleigh Convention Center, Raleigh Marriott City Center, Sheraton Raleigh
Raleigh, North Carolina

Guests of Honor:
Eric Flint (Author)
Brad Foster (Artist)
Juanita Coulson (Fan)

Chair: Warren Buff

Attendance: 750

Masquerade contestants (Rodford Edmiston)

This could have been Nolacon. It was totally possible that ReConStruction and TorCon could have been synonymous. It was totally possible. Instead, what we got was a small con with a few hiccups and a lot of great fun. It was, in some ways, like the Vegas Westercon, which was miniscule but highly entertaining.

The Fan Lounge wasn’t quite as busy as the BayCon or Westercon Lounges; we were never packed. I don’t think we could have been packed if every attendee of the con showed up to hang out.

And maybe that’s what this NASFiC will be remembered for. The idea was, for a good while leading up to the con, was that there’d be at least 1,000 or so folks, and they ended up with somewhere in the range of 700. That’s a very small number for a NASFiC, but on the other hand, it was a great crowd, many of the bigger names in Fandom, and we had a great time. Folks who hung out in the Lounge were some of the usuals, like Joe Major, John Hertz, Steven H Silver, and the like, and a bunch of folks I rarely see, like George Wells, The Lynches, Warren Buff and more. It was a fun place and it was low impact. We had hours of good conversation, and a bunch of new folks dropped in to chat.

The party scene was dead on Thursday, but Friday and Saturday were pretty amazing. The London party was fantastic, a busy party both nights and they got a ton of pre-supports, something like 1-in-5 attendees joined up. Chicago had an amazing smoothie bar, and I love smoothies! All in all, good parties.

There was so much more going on. The fact is that most of the folks there were long-timers, very few newbies, which means that there wasn’t much of a new vibe, but it was still a good time. John Hertz said that we were a group who already all spoke the same language. Good con. Strong con. Small con. I’m all for another Southern convention, this one showed the kind of good time you could have. Sadly, the lead-up to the convention was weak, with lots of balls dropped left and right and some serious pains, but it came off brilliantly. It’s a good thing to have happen, and it only would have been better if there had been a bunch more folks to share the goodtime with. ~ Christopher Garcia

Dead Dog Party & Exhibit Hall (Rodford Edmiston)

2014 - Detcon1

July 17-20, 2014
Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center
Detroit, Michigan

Guests of Honor:
Steven Barnes (Author)
John Picacio (Artist)
Bernadette Bosky, Arthur D. Hlavaty & Kevin J. Maroney (Fan)
Helen Greiner (Scientist)
Bill & Brenda Sutton (Music)

Chair: Tammy Coxen

Attendance: 1,450

Panelists (Al Bogdan)

I would have been honored and enjoyed myself as 1/3 FanGoH at any con, but I’m especially proud to be associated with DetCon1. It occurred to me that the con actively worked to include the best of the past, present, and future.

Past: The honored presence of Roger Sims and Fred Prophet, co-chairs of Detention, the 1959 Worldcon in Detroit; an excellent bunch of panels on the history of the genre(s) and of fandom.

The Present: Not having been to an sf con for four years, I caught up by playing Cards Against Humanity (and a very special version, Cards Against Fandom), delighting in the steampunk wear around me, learning about authors that have been around for a while but I still need to check out.

Also, I’m especially proud to be associated with a con that provided free memberships for locals who could not afford the membership fee. While this action was especially relevant to Detroit, I hope every con does this. And this was on top of keeping the price as reasonable as possible to begin with.

The future: Most noteworthy were the positive efforts to reshape fandom for a more inclusive future, including reaching out to PoC as guests and for programming, holding a ceremony to give a YA fiction award, a healthy and attractive track of programming for children, and panels that examined where fandom is going as well as where it has been. Even that slippery-slope stalking horse, a poly marriage, for Fan GoHs, ha ha.
~ Bernadette Bosky

Toastmaster Jim Hines and the official convention selfie (Jim Hines)
Merrie Haskell receiving the Reading Robot Award for middle grade SFF (Al Bogdan)

I’ve already written about John Scalzi’s ’80s dance but it bears repeating: bodacious, dude. Totally radical. Some folks dressed up, some didn’t, but I still smile at the memory of one of my favorite authors rocking out in a tiara, and executing a pratfall-roll off of a chair he’d been dancing on. I even broke out the neon headbands and entered a dance floor for the first time in… well, let’s not go there. A long time.
~ Marta Savage

‘80s Dance with DJ Scalzi (Al Bogdan)
“A Glamorous Evening of Galactic Domination,” Jennifer Swarski, Best in Show (Al Bogdan)

I was gd terrified when I got to DetCon1 at the Renaissance Center in Detroit. I was tired. I was lost. The hotel! IT IS A LABYRINTH! Detroit is based on a circle structure, rather than a standard city grid…and apparently so was the damn hotel/convention center. There are these escalators, but only to certain floors and hi-rise elevators vs. low-rise elevators and I was like WHERE THE HELL IS EVERYTHING? It all got better from there. Less scare. More Squee.
~ Patty Templeton

2017 - NorthAmeriCon ‘17

July 6-9, 2017
Sheraton Puerto Rico Hotel and Casino
San Juan, Puerto Rico

Guests of Honor:
Daina Chaviano (Author)
Tobias S. Buckell (Author)
Brother Guy Consolmagno, S.J. (Science)
Javier Grillo-Marxuach (Media)
George Perez (Art)
Paula Smith (Fan)

Chair: Pablo Vazquez

Attendance: ~200

GoHs & chair at opening ceremonies (Jan & Tyrell Gephardt)

In short, it was a lot better than we expected such a small con to be. We got chances to actually meet the Guests of Honor, the panels were interesting (with a limited schedule, they wisely avoided what we call “the drunk panels”–late-night, supposedly funny panels that tend to flop), the trip to Arecibo was great (and a lot cheaper than a commercial tour!), and our biggest complaint was the lack of choice of reasonably priced restaurants within 15 minutes’ walk of the convention. ~Evelyn C. Leeper

Fans at Arecibo observatory (Kevin Roche)

Wednesday night, went out to the bar with friends, old and new. The El Psycho Deli, a dive bar with drinks whose names shock for the sake of shock. A ward against those more timid souls capable of being shocked. The night was sticky and dark. We huddled underneath a ceiling fan for shelter. We took over the outside porch, pouring forth through the bar windows.

Friday night. A live band played. A Cube Libre sweated under the spotlight. Smiles all around. Fans infected by the driving salsa rhythms. Some on the floor. Others huddled around the sides, laughing in groups. ~Christopher Hensley

“You have not seen ‘Star Trek: until you have seen it in the original Spanish.”
~George Mustafa, Starfleet Puerto Rico (picture by Tobias Buckell)
Coqui astronaut art (Ray Van Tilburg)

Fans gathered by the pool for Closing Ceremonies, followed by the (now) traditional NASFiC chair dunking and “Wet Dog” party. Overheard: “I’ve never seen so many fans in bathing suits before!”

Closing Ceremonies held poolside (Jan & Tyrell Gephardt)
Tammy Coxen dunks the conchair (Lisa Hertel)

2019 - SpikeCon

July 4-7
Davis Conference Center
Layton, UT

Guests of Honor:
David Weber (author)
Laurell K. Hamilton (author)
Vincent Villafranca (artist)
Dragon Donet (artist & costumer)
Linda Deneroff (fan)
Susan Chang (editor)
John & Bjo Trimble (MCs)

Chair: Kate Hatcher

Attendance: ~850

Costume montage (Twitter via Jan Gephardt)
Lucy A. Synk’s Art show panel (Jan Gephardt)

Since 1975 a North America Science Fiction Convention has been held when the Worldcon is overseas; in 2019, the Worldcon was in Dublin, so there was a NASFiC; Kate chaired the bid for the 2019 Westercon, also the bid to host the NASFiC conjointly, and chaired the two combined cons after both bids won in two separate votes; also, joined with them, a 1632 Minicon (fans of Eric Flynt’s 1632 series), and Manticon 2019 (fans of David Weber’s Honor Harrington series, with its Royal Manticoran Navy i.e. Space navy).

Some of our cons get names; this combination of four was called Spikecon, being 50 miles from where the Final Spike was driven to complete the Transcontinental Railroad 150 years earlier. Railroad engineer’s caps were part of the con. The Transcontinental Railroad is historic. So are wrongs in its accomplishment. Human history is part honey, part aloes.
~ John Hertz

Panelists for “Write What You Don’t Know” (Jan Gephardt)

I’m happy to report that there were some excellent panels and readings at SpikeCon this year. As I sometimes do, I discovered that I kept bumping into some of the same interesting people over and over at this convention. Of course, that’s partially because many of us have similar interests, and partially because, although some 1,100 memberships were sold to SpikeCon, for a variety of reasons only about 850 people showed up.

This explains why several of the people in some of these pictures are the same people as the ones in other pictures! In fact, the identical same group was scheduled together for two different panels I attended. Lucky for their growing group of devoted followers, they had a range of different things to say each time.
~ Jan Gephardt

Attended today and I loved every minute of it! Did a few book signings and my favorite author signed my shirt too! Eeeee! Bought a few things and kept wishing I had won the lottery to be able to get a few more things. Very great place to be. Staff and volunteers were very friendly- even to a con first timer like me. Way to go guys!
~ Sarah Moffit

Check out that view! (Rodford Emiston)
Royal Manticorn Navy (Rodford Emiston)