Australia in 1999

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A successful bid to bring the Worldcon to Melbourne in 1999. It won at L.A.Con III in 1996. The other bidder was Worldcon Zagreb in 1999. See 1999 Worldcon Site Selection for details.

Leah Zeldes Smith and Dick Smith were the principal U.S. agents.

Bid parties in North America served Australian bheer and wine; homemade ANZAC biscuits (Australasian-style cookies supplied by a cadre of volunteer fan bakers — and turning out differently from baker to baker due to variations in and outright unavailability of key ingredients such as golden syrup); Lamingtons (Australia’s answer to brownies); and “Platypus Punch.” The last was a beverage invented by the Smiths after Leah quizzed Australian fen about popular nonalcoholic Aussie drinks and received only blank stares for answer. The Blog-red punch, conceived somewhat desperately in the aisles of Costco before the launching party at ConFrancisco, consisted primarily of Hawaiian Punch and pineapple juice, mixed, Swill-like, in wastebaskets, with canned fruit cocktail added as the “platypus.”

Pre-supporters received wearable clip-on toy koalas as premiums, and a key bid fundraiser was a line of “Koalawear” vests for them. High-level donors received pewter platypus pins.


1999 Site Selection 1999
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.