Baycon (Worldcon)

(Did you mean a different Baycon?)

The 26th Worldcon (combined with Westercon 21) was held August 29 to September 2, 1968, at the Hotel Claremont in Oakland, CA.

GoH: Philip José Farmer. FGoH: Walter J. Daugherty. Robert Silverberg was Toastmaster, replacing Anthony Boucher, who died beforehand. Takumi Shibano from Japan was announced as a Special Guest, brought by the Trans-Oceanic Fan Fund.

Co-chairmen: Bill Donaho, Alva Rogers and J. Ben Stark.

Riots protesting the Vietnam War took place during the con in Jack London Square, between the Claremont Hotel and the overflow hotels. The National Guard was required to protect fans. Besides the Claremont, the Durant Hotel and the Shattuck Hotel (both in Berkeley) and the Leamington Hotel in Oakland were used with 24-hour transportation arranged by the committee.

The Hotel Claremont was not air conditioned, and the convention was held during an exceptionally bad heat wave. Perhaps connected with that, the hotel buffet (opposite the banquet) gave people food poisoning.

Another memorable feature of the banquet was GoH Philip José Farmer's GoH speech that went on and on and on... Afterward, some fans swore that seasons had changed during the speech. The speech was critical at length of John W. Campbell: who was in the audience.

This was the first convention to show all-night movies, which were sponsored by the St. Louis bid committee. Unfortunately, it was mostly the same movie. Jack Chalker, who had a room above the movie room, memorized the script for The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

Other special events at the convention included an SCA demo outside (they had misadventures with black spiders and wasp nests) but apart from those mishaps, the SCA gained quite a bit of visibility in the sf community. The tournament part of the demonstration featured Randy Garrett and Poul Anderson unsuccessfully defending a challenge against the Clan Campbell (as in John W.) from Paul Zimmer and a compatriot. Following the combat, there was an evening of revel, including medieval food, music, and dance. The SCA also staged a Medieval Fashion Show of all types of garb, including a 60-pound suit of chain mail.

Other events included the Knights of St. Fantony initiating Forry Ackerman into their order, a performance of a fannish musical, "H.M.S. Trek-a-Star" (what a Star Trek episode might have been if it had been scripted by Gilbert & Sullivan) and the committee arranged for a light show to accompany readings by Harlan Ellison and Fritz Leiber. Ed Meskys held a meeting of the Tolkien Society of America at Baycon.

Toastmaster Robert Silverberg was so witty he stole the show from everybody else on the program. After Philip José Farmer's long speech, Randall and Alison Garrett sang a calypso review of Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. Ellison presented the Hugos, except when Silverberg wouldn't let him (Ellison was nominated in three categories). See 1968 Hugos, 1968 Hugo Ceremony Transcript.

Special Committee Awards were given to Harlan Ellison for Dangerous Visions and to Gene Roddenberry for Star Trek. The First Fandom Award was presented by Edmond Hamilton to Jack Williamson. The Big Heart Award, to the elation of all, went to Walt Daugherty, who had founded the award and had never expected to receive it. The Invisible Little Man Award, presented by the Little Mens Club, went to J. Francis McComas.

Chester Anderson's The Butterfly Kid, an "hilarious hippy zeitgeist novel" which was "an engaging expression of countercultural exuberance", but only mildly SF, was on the Hugo ballot. There was a rumor (never substantiated) that, in case their votes were needed to make sure other nominee won, some members of the con committee waited to vote until it was clear that they did not need to do anything. Note that there is no rumor, even, that they actually did anything.

Attendance was estimated to be about 1430. Total membership was 1841, with "just short of 1300" registered attending members, and 200-300 "non-registered walk-ins at various times".

Site selection for the 1969 Worldcon was St. Louis vs Columbus, OH, with St. Louis winning. The race was fraught with considerable ill-feeling. See 1969 Worldcon Site Selection for full details.

Financially, Baycon was solidly in the black. It paid for the casting of the Hugo rockets for St. Louiscon, the 1969 Worldcon and passed on $500 (a large sum for the time) to St. Louiscon and $100 to Funcon II while holding $1000 to publish a Proceedings, though that project seems never to have been completed.

Site Selection of Baycon

Worldcon was combined with the 1968 Westercon, sharing Guests of Honor and Chairmen.

Besides the winning Bay Area in '68 bid, there were two other bidders for the 1968 Worldcon: PanPacificon and Seattle in '68. See 1968 Worldcon Site Selection for details.

On the Westercon side, besides Bay Area in '68 bid, there were one other Westercon bidder: Las Vegas in '68. See 1968 Westercon Site Selection for details.

See also Bay Area Worldcons.

• Baycon publications and photos on fanac.org.
• 1968 Hugo Ceremony Transcript.
• Fred Pohl's Baycon Reminiscence.
• Long con report in the October 1968 issue of Science Fiction Times.
• Hotel of Usher
• A classic con report, Ginjer Buchanan's "I Have Had No Sleep and I Must Giggle."
• Photo retrospective compiled by Gideon Marcus, Galactic Journey, September 4, 2023.

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Nycon 3	Worldcon - Bidding - Hugos	St. Louiscon
Westercon 20	Westercon - Bidding	Westercon 22
	1968

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