Worldcon in Helsinki 2017!

Yeah, it's been a while without any updates. Not even in Finnish.

We do have our programme recap stuff and my Noff report underway but we had to do a quick update because Helsinki won today the bid to host the Worldcon in 2017!

Worldcon is the oldest, most prestigious science fiction happening on the planet with over 70 years worth of history. It also gives out the Hugo awards which are kinda the Oscars of genre-literature.

We might have been slightly excited by the news...

And by reaction of the news spreading in social media so was apparently the rest of the Finnish fandom. This is A Really Big Deal.

After losing the 2015 bid by a really small margin I think the fandom at large really got behind the bid with even bigger now or never attitude. And with the help of a huge amount of people managed to make it happen. For realsies. Which is still amazing!

Also I might have used great art done by Petri and Ninni for the bid in addition to my photoshop skillz to create Polar the Barbearian

Of course even we've done few things for the bid. I've been mostly sitting behind the bid table at various conventions and gushing about the bid to anyone who would listen. Korppisusi has done more by updating the bid twitter account with Helsinki related stuff from time to time.

Even dapperness doesn't stop Polar the Barbearian from crushing his enemies.

Maybe it was because of the small helping hand we gave to the bid but the absolutely crushing victory Helsinki won was that much sweeter. The other bids were good and did a good job but I really feel that all the hard work and labour that the bid committee and everyone in fandom put into this project makes it so that we earned it.

If the con committee does the Worldcon the more in the Finnish way of conrunning it will be one of the best (if not the best) Worldcons ever. An event for fans of all creed; be it scifi-romance or military science fiction or comics or movies or literature. It will be great!

And I hope we can be actually part of the Worldcon 75 organization as we might have some ideas on programme and that kind of stuff...

Again: THANK YOU CROM!

Info about the upcoming Worldcon 75 can be found here: www.worldcon.fi