London in '54

London in '54 was a likely impulsive and perhaps not entirely serious bid for the 1954 Worldcon to be held in London. Little is known about it – in fact, it was so completely forgotten that in the decades before Australia in '83 lost to Baltimore in '83 it was a truism that an overseas bid never loses.

It appears that London did no advance bidding – bidding wasn't an established tradition yet – and relied entirely on activities at Philcon II, where the site for 1954 was decided. H. J. Campbell, the editor of Authentic Science Fiction, was attending the Worldcon and Rob Hansen believes that Campbell's bid was essentially a spur-of-the-moment idea.

Campbell represented the bid committee and Rita Krohne seconded. The bid lost, coming third behind the winners, San Francisco, and Cleveland although it received 61 votes.

Reta Grossman writing in Canadian Fandom #16 (December 1953) felt this was 'in appreciation of [Campbell]'s delightful speech plugging London for a truly "world" con.' 'Old Woodchuck' writing in the same issue said:

I got quite a surprise when Bert Campbell's London bid garnered 6l votes, I think a few people figured the trip would be shorter to London than to Frisco. Others voted for London because they knew and liked their contact with Bert, which is a good omen for future voting. I think London could possibly swing the deal by 1956 or 57. This would be something to really look forward to. There are many very stalwart hands 'over there' to run a convention, so remember Can Fan predicted it first.

Walt Willis wrote in his 'Fanorama' column in Nebula #6 (December 1953):

Bert made another and unscheduled appearance later on in the day when during the voting for the site of the 1954 Convention he put in an unexpected bid for London. He actually got 61 votes, too, which makes one speculate what would have happened if in some moment of madness he'd been given a majority. Since only about two of those present would have been likely to afford to come to London, the other 648 would presumably have had to vote all over again for their 'regional' convention or do without one altogether. An unthinkable thought.

In his editorial in Authentic Science Fiction #39 (November 1953), Campbell said:

In the future I am sure that there is plenty of opportunity for non- American cities to win the distinction of staging this annual get-together of the world's fans. I hope that ASF [which is to say Authentic SF in this case] readers in Britain, the Commonwealth and Europe will be coming strongly forward with a claim for their cities. In this way we can play our part in making Science Fiction truly international.

London came back in 1956 with a very well-run London in 1957 bid and won.

See 1954 Worldcon Site Selection

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1954 Site Selection

1954

This is a page about a convention bid. Please extend it by adding information about who was bidding, officers, committee list, what they were bidding for, who their opponents were, and who won.