Cytricon IV

Eastercon 9, Cytricon IV, was held at The George Hotel in Kettering over Easter 1958, 4-7 April. There was no GoH and no programme as such. The committee was Dave Newman and Norman Shorrock. It was the last of the four consecutive annual Cytricon Eastercons and the birthplace of the BSFA.

Science Fantasy News 15 (February 1958) described it as

'The word-of-mouth Con' and '... one of the most closely kept secrets of modern fandom. Only 50 or so fans with personal contact with the Liverpool group know the Facts but SFN brings you the undercover story NOW...

Membership was 8/6d for the whole or part of the weekend to cover postal expenses and 'provide hooch for a Saturday night party in the basket lounge. Any surplus cash will go to TAFF.'

Hotel rooms were 25/- per head per day bed-and-breakfast. The main hall was not booked.

As of February, there were 36 members and the hotel reportedly had capacity for about 14 more. Rob Hansen has identified 48 known attendees based on contemporary reports and photographs and so puts the likely attendance at around 50. It was thus considerably larger than Cytricon III but notably smaller than I and II.

Several attendees are pictured wearing blazers with a Knights of St. Fantony following the first public appearance of the group the previous year. On the Sunday there was a meeting to discuss the state of British fandom. Describing the meeting in Space Diversions #10, Dave Newman said:

It was universally agreed that what fandom needed was a return to its root source – science fiction – and what SF needed was more support from its fans. As a result of all this the British Science Fiction Association [BSFA] was born.

Between 1971 and 1989, the convention was recorded on the canonical list of Eastercons as Cytricon III as the original Cytricon III had been omitted. This is despite it being clearly identified as Cytricon IV in the Science Fantasy News announcement.

No programme book is believed to exist.

• History pages.
• Rob Hansen's pages on the convention, including photos and a list of known attendees.

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Cytricon III	Cytricon	Cytricon V
Cytricon III	Eastercon	Brumcon
	1958

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