London Launches Bid For 2014 World SF Convention

A UK committee last night launched a bid to hold the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention (aka, Worldcon) in London in August 2014. The bid was launched with a party at the 2010 UK National Science Fiction Convention, Odyssey 2010, where the choice of London as the host city for the bid was announced by British science fiction author Christopher Priest (who was a Guest Of Honour at Interaction, the previous UK Worldcon in Glasgow in 2005).

The Worldcon is the premier international science fiction event, and awards the prestigious Hugo Awards for achievement in the field of science fiction. 2014 will be the 75th anniversary of the first Worldcon, in New York in 1939, since when the event has been held every year apart from a break during the Second World War.

More often than not the Worldcon is held in North America, but it has visited the UK on six previous occasions, and there have also been Worldcons in Germany, Australia, the Netherlands and Japan. It was last hosted by London in 1965, nearly 50 years ago.

The site for each Worldcon is selected by vote of the members of the event held two years previously, so the 2014 site will be selected by the members of the 2012 Worldcon, which is likely to be held in Chicago. Between now and 2012, the bid committee will be publicising and promoting the bid to science fiction fans all around the world.

Read the entire article at SFX