Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 18:27:13 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Jack L. Chalker" <jchalker at miragepress.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Minutes of the November 5th meeting are online
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

Ted is quite correct on this. In fact, the original intent of Balticons was
to be small, with a relaxed, party atmosphere, and with a single guest or
set of guests invited (others were welcome, of course) with the idea of
being able to just socialize with both new and old SF personalities without
having to battle through the hordes. The first Balticon, however, at the
Emerson Hotel, had no program or guests but did take the entire top
penthouse. It was what I'd hoped for but nobody could ever duplicate (they
tore the place down the next year for a parking lot). Good selection of
pros with no programming, by the way, including Randall Garrett, the
Carters, and of course our own Roger Zelazny.
     The ones at the Lord Baltimore were a bit larger and had at least a
day of programming but still managed to keep the atmosphere as much as
possible. However, when BSFS nearly collapsed in infighting having nothint
to do with the con, the folks who wound up running it had actually been
brought into fandom by the Balticons but had since gone to Philcons,
Lunacons, Disclaves, etc. and decided that THAT was more what they wanted.
They assigned Charlie Ellis to remake it as a major con, and he did.
Today's Balticon is almost exactly what Charlie came up with. jlc

At 08:52 PM 11/15/2004, you wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Robert MacIntosh" <macbuccfo at msn.com>
>To: <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
>Sent: Monday, November 15, 2004 8:45 PM
>Subject: [WSFA] Re: Minutes of the November 5th meeting are online
>
> > Your statement that Disclaves and Balticons were the same size is
>incorrect.
> > When Disclaves were about 1,000 attendees, Balticons were pushing 2,000.
> > They have also always tried for that atmosphere of being a major regional
> > convention. Disclaves never really made that attempt.
>
>All of this is relatively recent history.  I remember the original
>Balticons (especially those held at the Lord Baltimore) with more
>affection.  It was not until *after* the Hunt Valley Balticons that they
>started making a big push to attract the media-fen hordes -- and eventually
>drove me off.
>
>--Ted White
>