August 14, 2025

141: A Whole Episode Without Business Meeting Content

1 hour 2 minutes

John is worried, Alison volunteers, and Liz is warm.

An uncorrected transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to [email protected], join our Facebook group, and tag @OctothorpeCast (on Bluesky or on Mastodon) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: None

Letters of comment

Chris Hurley (email)

Dave O’Neill (Bluesky, DM)

Ivan Sinha (Facebook)

Jesi Lipp (email, Facebook)

John Hertz (typewritten letter with pasted image from File 770 scanned by Fedex and sent by email)

Mike Glyer (email)

Neil Ottenstein (Facebook)

Nicholas Whyte (email)

Nuala (Bluesky)

Paul Weimer (Bluesky)

Rory Hennell James (Bluesky)

Tammy Coxen and Jesi Lipp (Bluesky)

We also heard from Doug Faunt and Farah Mendlesohn

Worldcon 2025: Seattle

Business Meeting

Jesi Lipp posted some excellent infographics on JOF

Jesi also posted a small table on our Facebook of attendances back to 2014 and John made them into a graph

NASFiC is gone

The USA has a national con now and it’s Dragon Con, so why compete? We will return to this question…

The end of fan-run conventions in the USA

NASFiC is gone, leaving Dragon Con as the de facto national convention

The Westercon by-laws have been repealed

Wiscon has not got enough volunteers to run an in-person convention

Gallifrey One is coming to an end, Showmasters Events are running a commercial replacement

GeekGirlCon and Penguicon are struggling

Arisia, Baycon, Boskone, Loscon have all shrunk (anecdotally)

The end of fan-run conventions more widely?

New Zealand: Fan-run conventions have been struggling since CoNZealand

Finland: SMOF News recently reported that Finncon is not running due to lack of volunteers

More widely to do with volunteering?

Maybe more true in the UK?

Picks

John: The Tyrant Philosophers by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Alison: Control Room B at Battersea Power Station (and Battersea Power Station Station)

Liz: Woodworking by Emily St. James

Credits

Cover art: “Mildly Wes” by Alison Scott

Alt text: A photograph of a cocktail bar at Battersea Power Station. The words “Control Room B” are above the cocktail bar, and the words “Octothorpe 141” overlaid in similar style.

Theme music: “Surf Shimmy” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

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By John Coxon, Alison Scott, Liz Batty

66 ratings