Please read So You Want to Bid for a Worldcon before coming back to this page for the technical details below.

The bare-bones rules for qualifying to be on the ballot for the selection of a World Science Fiction convention are listed below. Remember that the actual rules are in the World Science Fiction Society Constitution, located on WSFS’ rules page, and in case of any discrepancies, the rules in the Constitution take precedence over what you see here.

In order to be included on the ballot, you must supply the following:

1. an announcement of intent to bid;
2. adequate evidence of an agreement with the proposed site’s facilities, such as a conditional contract or a letter of agreement;
3. the rules under which the Worldcon Committee will operate, including a specification of the term of office of their chief executive officer or officers, and the conditions and procedures for the selection and replacement of such officer or officers.

These items must be delivered to the Worldcon administering your site selection vote no later than 180 days prior to the official opening of that Worldcon.

If you miss that deadline, you can ask your supporters to vote for you as a write-in candidate, provided that you deliver the documents prior to the end of voting. However, write-in candidates generally don’t have much chance of winning.

The WSFS Constitution also requires you to make copies of those documents available to any member who asks for them. However, if you deliver the documents in electronic form to the administering Worldcon then they can make them available for download from their website, which is sufficient to satisfy that requirement in the vast majority of cases.