Site Selection

Anaheim Selected to Host 2026 Worldcon

~ Kevin Standlee

The bid from Anaheim, California, USA won the election to to host the 2026 Worldcon held at the 2024 Worldcon in Glasgow, Scotland. Anaheim was the only candidate on the ballot. A full breakdown of the voting will be published in the minutes of the 2024 WSFS Business Meeting.

The 2026 Worldcon will be called LAcon V. The convention’s announced Guests of Honor are Barbara Hambly, Ronald D. Moore, Colleen Doran, Dr. Anita Sengupta, Tim Kirk, Geri Sullivan, plus Special Guest Stan Sakai and Toastmaster Ursula Vernon. The convention will be held August 27-31, 2026 at the LAcon V will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center and the Hilton Anaheim & Anaheim Marriott Hotels.

LA in 2026 is Only Bid Filed to Host 2026 Worldcon

~ Kevin Standlee

Glasgow 2024 – A Worldcon for our Futures, announced on February 27, 2024 that the only bid filed to host the 2026 Worldcon is Los Angeles in 2026. Therefore, this is the only bid that will be on the ballot for the site selection election. Per WSFS rules, other bids can file until the close of voting and can be selected as write-in bids. As required by the WSFS Constitution, “None of the Above” will also be on the ballot, and if it wins, the 2026 Worldcon site would be selected by the 2024 WSFS Business Meeting in Glasgow.

Each Worldcon operates independently of all other Worldcons. The election to select the site of the 2026 Worldcon will be conducted by Glasgow 2024, not by the WSFS website.

Further details are included in Glasgow 2024’s Media Release 18, published on their website.

Seattle Selected to Host 2025 Worldcon

~ Kevin Standlee

The bid from Seattle, Washington, USA, won the election to host the 2025 Worldcon held at the 2023 Worldcon in Chengdu, China. The official results announced at the WSFS Business Meeting were as follows:

Seattle: 163
Peggy Rae’s House (write in): 1
Xerps in 2010 (write in): 2

Total With Preference: 166
Needed to Elect (majority): 84

No Preference: 2
Total Ballots Cast: 168

Although the WSFS Constitution requires that ballots cast in advance be reported separately from those cast at the convention, but the election administrator failed to do so. According the 2023 WSFS Business Meeting Chair Donald Eastlake III, “It is believed the 168 ballots consisted of 149 or 150 by mail and 18 or 19 on site.”

You can watch the announcement of the votes and the initial presentation from the newly-seated 2025 Worldcon committee on the Worldcon Events YouTube channel.

The 2025 Worldcon will be called Seattle Worldcon 2025: Building Yesterday’s Future — for Everyone. The convention’s announced Guests of Honor are Martha Wells, Donato Giancola, Bridget Landry, and Alexander James Adams, with hosts K. Tempest Bradford and Nisi Shawl. The convention will be held August 13-17, 2025 at the Seattle Convention Center Summit expansion, Sheraton Grand Seattle, and neighboring hotels.

Glasgow Wins 2024 Site Selection

~ JoPhan

Glasgow has won the vote to host the 2024 Worldcon, the 82nd World Science Fiction Convention. The site in Scotland has previously hosted Worldcons in 1995 and 2005. Chicon 8 reports that 809 ballots were cast in the election, with 776 in favour of Glasgow. There were no other official bids. For the detailed results, see the Worldcon 2024 Site Selection Report from the Site Selection administrator.

Glasgow’s Guests of Honor will be artist Chris Baker (Fangorn), fans Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer, authors Ken MacLeod and Nnedi Okorafor, and editor, author, and artist Terri Windling. The convention will be chaired by Professor Esther MacCallum-Stewart.

The Glasgow website is here.

Memphis Withdraws from 2023 Worldcon Race

~ Kevin Standlee

On October 17, 2021, the leaders of the Memphis in 2023 Worldcon Bid, Kate Secor and Cliff Dunn, issued an announcement to its supporters that they were folding the bid to host Worldcon 81:

It is with great sadness that we let you know that the Memphis in 2023 bid has folded. The challenges and uncertainties surrounding the pandemic have severely hampered our ability to run the campaign we had been hoping to so it has led us to fold this bid. We thank you so much for all of your support and appreciate that you believed in us. Those of you who are still due t-shirts, we will be mailing those out to you soon.

When the site selection ballot is released by DisCon III, you will see a WITHDRAWN watermark over our listing on the ballot – that is what DC III has told us they will be doing. We are going to throw a thank you party at DisCon III and invite you to come by and let us toast you and your support. We look forward to seeing so many of you that we sadly haven’t seen in so long.

Our very best,

Kate and Cliff

The remaining bids are for Chengdu, China, and Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The election to select the 2023 Worldcon will take place at DisCon III, the 2021 Worldcon, which will be in Washington DC the weekend of December 15-19, 2021. Members of DisCon III will vote on the site of the convention. Members will be able to vote in advance by mail or in person at the convention, with the voting scheduled to open the first day of the convention and to continue through the evening of December 17. The results will be announced at the World Science Fiction Society business meeting on December 18. See the DisCon III 2023 Worldcon Site Selection page for more information.

2023 Worldcon Bid Filings Online

~ Kevin Standlee

Two bids filed the required documents by the filing deadline to host the 2023 Worldcon: Chengdu, China, and Memphis, Tennessee. The election to select the site of the 2023 Worldcon will be administered by DisCon III, the 2021 Worldcon. DisCon III has updated their 2023 Worldcon Site Selection page with links to the bids’ filing documents.

Any group that meets the technical requirements in the WSFS Constitution and files the necessary documents with the Worldcon administering the election is eligible to bid for the right to host a Worldcon. Worldcon sites are selected by the members of Worldcon as a whole, not by a board of directors, chair, president, or site-selection committee.

Members of the 2021 Worldcon, DisCon III, will vote on the site of the 2023 Worldcon. Details on how to vote on site selection will be announced later by DisCon III.

Chicago to Host 2022 Worldcon

~ Kevin Standlee

Chicago, Illinois, USA was selected as the site of the 2022 Worldcon by the members of the 2020 Worldcon, CoNZealand, in Wellington, New Zealand and online around the world. The results were announced online on August 1, 2020 (New Zealand Time). Chicago’s bid received 517 (89.8%) of the 576 votes cast with a preference. The other bid on the ballot, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, received 33 votes. None of the Above received 6 votes. The remaining votes were spread among various write-in bids A full breakdown of the voting, including the write-in votes and the votes cast by paper mail and electronically, is available in this document.

Worldcon 80 will be called Chicon 8. The convention dates are September 1-5, 2022. Further information is available from the convention’s website.