Mancon 1

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Mancon 1 was a one-day convention held October 5, 1952 in Manchester, UK. It was probably chaired by Dave Cohen with Eric Bentcliffe, Frank Simpson, Sid Klepper, Bill Jesson and Sandy Sanderson. It started around noon and ended in the evening. Speakers included John Russell Fearn, John Brunner, Frank Simpson, Mike Rosenblum. The program also included games, a radio play, and a film.

Rob Hansen's Then Volume 2 Chapter 2 reports:

MANCON was held on 5th October 1952 in the concert hall of the Waterloo Hotel, the venue for the Manchester group's regular meetings. The con attracted around 100 fans and brought about the fannish resurrection of Harry Turner. Guest of Honour was John Russell Fearn who screened a film he had produced and starred in, with Peter Ogden, titled 'Black Saturday' and based on his story 'Black-Out'. (Ogden later published ERBANIA, and moved to Florida.) Other items included '1966 And All That', a play by Frank Simpson; 'Fear', a play by the Lancaster Group (Wood and Potter); a talk on fandom by Mike Rosenblum; a quiz between teams from the Liverpool and Manchester groups; and a display of 'Future Fashions' by Frances Evans. It was apparently a reasonably successful con but the fact that no London fans bothered to show up was taken as a deliberate snub by Northern fans, salt rubbed into the wound the North/South split was fast becoming. Protestations from the London Circle that no snub had been intended and that Manchester was too far away were treated with derision by Northerners, who regularly travelled down to London for the national convention.

first Mancon Supermancon
1952
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