SFCon
(Were you looking for the regional named SFCon?)
The 12th Worldcon, first to be run in the Bay Area, SFCon was held September 4–6, 1954, at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco, CA. The Worldcon and 7th Westercon shared the hotel and basic committee, with Westercon held on Friday, September 3, while Worldcon was held Saturday–Monday September 4–6. They had separate convention chairmen and Guests of Honor.
The Worldcon GoH was John W. Campbell, Jr., Robert Bloch was Toastmaster and the co-chairmen were Lester Cole (best known as "Les Cole") and Gary Nelson. Poul Anderson was an active member of the committee and wrote most of the progress reports.
The Westercon GoH was Jack Williamson, and it was chaired by J. Ben Stark.
In the 1954 Worldcon Site Selection, San Francisco won the convention in a sympathy vote after being “robbed” in the 1953 Worldcon Site Selection.
Cleveland was selected as the site of the 1955 Worldcon, Clevention, in the 1955 Worldcon Site Selection held at SFCon.
- Sam Moskowitz' SFCon Reminiscence.
- SFCon publications and photos on fanac.org.
- Con reports:
- Don Wegars in Abstract 8 (p. 37).
- Peter Vorzimer in Abstract 8 (p. 40).
- Stan Woolston in The Outlander 11 (1954, p. 21).
Philip K. Dick wrote a story, Waterspider, where two time travelers visit SFCon and speak to a number of the writers there, to discover if they knew they were pre-cogs and not making it up.
{Note: The Westercon website lists J. Ben Stark as chairman with Lester Cole and Gary J. Nelson as "Worldcon executive committee". Worldcon records show Cole and Nelson as co-chairmen of both conventions.}
| From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959 |
| from Convention SFCon out in San Francisco saw the 7th Fandom fuggheads in full cry, was embellished by Vorzimer's haircream caper and the activity of some nameless goons who threw full beercans out the hotel windows, and somehow found the management unsocially inclined; intrusions into private rooms by the house detective were reported on several occasions. |
| Philcon II | Worldcon - Bidding - Hugos | Clevention |
| Westercon 6 | Westercon - Bidding | Westercon 8 |
| 1954 |
| This is a convention page. Please extend it by adding information about the convention, including dates, GoHs, convention chairman, locale, sponsoring organization, external links to convention pages, awards given, the program, notable events, anecdotes, pictures, scans of publications, pictures of T-shirts, con reports, etc. |
