Disclave 24

Disclave 24 was a convention held May 23–25, 1980, at the Hospitality House in Crystal City, VA.

After the Sheraton Park was demolished, Disclave had to go somewhere, but that turned out to be the ironically named Hospitality House in Crystal City, VA. (Fans called the hotel "Hostility House".) The hotel was so rude and uncooperative that it almost undermined Chairman Tom Schaad excellent management of the con. He got stuck with the hotel, but by ingenious planning made it work a lot better than it should have.

Guests of Honor were Spider and Jeanne Robinson. Jack Chalker and Somtow Sucharitkul were Featured Writers and Robin Wood was Featured Artist. It was chaired by Tom Schaad.

Joe Mayhew's play "Gossip" was put on as part of Friday night programming.

SWAT Team Affair

Joe Mayhew described this: "For me the highlight of the con happened while I was auctioning. The room was a ground level exhibition area with two vast doors in its back. While Jack Chalker had his back turned, sipping coffee, the doors opened and a SWAT team with loaded machine guns barged in. Someone had been seen on a balcony of the hotel with what looked like a gun. It was a very security minded area. We don't know how many attended with or without the G-Men."

Nothing bad happened that day, but responsible conrunners shuddered collectively and wondered what might have happened if some jerk with a toy gun had pulled it suddenly on one of the members of the SWAT team. This provided part of the impetus towards tightening convention weapons policies.

Hostility House

The Hospitality House hotel, in Crystal City, VA, earned the nickname of Hostility House from attendees.

Among other things, con supplies were stored in a locked hotel closet. The only employee with a key left for the weekend and the hotel refused to call him back to open it.

A number of fans who had guaranteed their room reservations with American Express cards and were refused accommodations. They complained to Amex, which found them rooms elsewhere. On Tuesday, Amex representatives came and scraped all their stickers off the hotel.

• Disclave 24 publications and photos on fanac.org
• Conreport by Tim Marion in File 770 21, p. 11.

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Disclave 23	Disclave	Disclave 25
	1980

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