The latest SMOF News (Volume 3, issue 30) discusses the post-pandemic decline of in-person fan-run science fiction conventions, with Outlantacon being the latest casualty. It’s a situation I’m familiar with, since I’ve negotiated hotel contracts for several filk conventions and more recently couldn’t find a suitable hotel at a reasonable cost for NEFilk. Two factors make up the problem: rising hotel costs and decreased attendance.

Fan-run cons have always worked on the periphery of more lucrative events, such as weddings and gatherings of large organizations. To get space, we have to find a weekend that the other customers don’t want or fill up the space that they aren’t using. COVID killed a lot of hotels, and the ones that are still around want to make up for a couple of years of lost revenue. This means fewer discount deals. If we paid rates comparable to the big customers, we’d have to charge a membership rate of a couple of hundred dollars for a weekend con.
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