Site Selection Voting for the 2020 Worldcon is now Open!

Voting forms for site selection of the 78th World Science Fiction Convention, to be held in 2020, are now available from the Worldcon 76 site.

Site Selection Ballots

Voting is open to all members of Worldcon 76 (whether full or supporting), and costs an additional USD$50 to cast a vote. This money is given to the winning bidder, regardless of who you voted for. Voters automatically become a supporting member of the winning bid.

This year, “New Zealand in 2020” is running unopposed in bidding to host the 2020 Worldcon.

You can vote either at the convention in San Jose, or via post or email beforehand. You can also delegate someone to take your form for you, if you’re a supporting member and you have paid your Advanced Supporting Membership (Voting) Fee.  Site Selection voting forms have to reach Worldcon 76 Site Selection by no later than 6PM on Saturday, 18th August 2018.

Benefits for voting in Site Selection vary depending on the bid and your pre-supporting status. For New Zealand in 2020, here are some benefits of voting in Site Selection:

  • You will be a Supporting Member of the winning bid. If New Zealand in 2020 wins the vote, that means us!
  • If you are a Silver Fern pre-support member of the NZ in 2020 bid, AND you vote in Site Selection, then your Silver Fern membership will be automatically converted to a Full Membership of the convention.

We encourage you to join Worldcon 76: San Jose as a member regardless. Don’t forget that with membership in Worldcon 76 you can also vote in the Hugo Awards! But be quick. Voting for the Hugos will close July 31, 2018.

To join Worldcon 76, please go to their website and choose the Membership section.

Frequent Questions

What can I do to help win the bid?

Joining Worldcon 76 and voting in Site Selection is the most direct way to help our bid. But even just joining our bid by taking a Pre-supporting Membership is always helpful.

Since NZ in 2020 is unopposed, then surely that means you will win by default?

No unopposed bid should assume that they have it in the bag. And neither do we.  It is possible that a write-in bid could sweep in to win. But we sincerely hope that we will not drop the ball so massively that we lose the trust of the fans. 🙂

But it’s less important that I vote for Site Selection then isn’t it?

It’s true that in an unopposed race the only bidder has always won. But there are other important reasons to vote. By getting in quickly, you are showing support for the bid and the convention. It may also be convenient to you to be a Silver Fern Pre-supporting member, who then becomes a Full Member when voting in Site Selection. Your Attending membership is done and dusted. But just by voting you become a Supporting Member and this can be upgraded later on.

 

If I have a Silver Fern pre-support membership, and I vote in Site Selection, will that be cheaper than buying a Full Membership later on?

It will be cheaper than buying a Full Membership closer to 2020. But not necessarily cheaper than just buying a Full Membership at Worldcon 76. Part of the money from a Silver Fern pre-support goes to paying for the bid. Even though we are in the run up to Worldcon 76 where our vote takes place, there are still expenses in this final push. So in fact if you take ANY of our pre-support memberships, that will be very helpful to us.

If you have a Silver Fern pre-support membership and don’t vote in site selection, then your upgrade to full membership will be roughly equivalent to a supporting membership cost.

If you are not already a member of Worldcon 76 (San Jose) then it will be cheaper to upgrade your NZ in 2020 Silver Fern or Kiwi memberships later than to become a Worldcon 76 member and vote in site selection.