Denvention3 - The World Science Fiction Convention

If you read science fiction, you've probably heard of the Hugo Awards. They're given out by The World Science Fiction Convention, henceforth called WorldCon, and this year, my husband Jeff and I were 2/3rds of the subcommittee that administered the awards. We were part of the Hugo subcommittee this year with Mary Kay Kare being the head of the committee. Yes, this meant she had minions.

As Jeff is fond of saying, the Hugo Awards are one of the 3 officially required things done at a WorldCon. (The other two are holding the business meeting and the site selection balloting for the convention to be held in 2 years.) So there's a big ceremony on Saturday night for presenting the awards. And a practice run through for the volunteers doing the work on Saturday afternoon. And a large group of volunteers carrying the awards from Mary Kay's room through the convention center to the theatre somewhere in there. Basically, it took all of Saturday for us but the people attending the con got a nice show on Saturday night.

Here’s a picture of the artist who designed the base for this year, Lee Kuruganti, and Mary Kay (to her right facing the camera) in the Green Room at the reception before the ceremony. The other people in the picture are some of the nominees, socializing and sharing their nervousness.

I worked backstage with Mary Kay, handing out awards and escorting nominees on and off stage, so I missed the speeches mostly but got to see the workings of the process. This was interesting to me as the first time we administered the Hugos, for the Atlanta WorldCon in 1986, the process was less elaborate.

Here’s a link to a close-up photo of this year’s Hugo award along with the list of awards.

http://www.denvention3.org/hugos/08hugowinnerlist.php