Dear Prospective Noreascon 4 Dealer:

The 2004 World Science Fiction Convention is being held in Boston, Massachusetts, USA from second through sixth, September.  Accompanying this letter is a blank Noreascon 4 Dealers' Table Application Form.  If you are interested in being considered as a dealer at Noreascon 4, please complete the form and return it to us as soon as possible, along with your check in payment of your deposit fees.  Do not return this letter; keep it in your Noreascon 4 file. 

Please Note:  The Dealers' Room at Noreascon 4 will be a juried room, as were those at all recent WorldCons.  This means that a jury will make the final decision about which Dealers are allowed into the room and where they will be located.  Those decisions are final and are binding on all Dealers who apply to the room.  If you cannot abide by this rule, please do not apply.  We will have input to the jury, but we will not have the final say.  Filing your application in a timely manner is important, as always, but it does not guarantee you a place in the room.  All applications received by 2003 November 30 will be placed into a pool and treated as having the same receipt date.  Notification of  initial acceptances or placement on the waiting list and request for confirmation and final payment should be sent out around 2004 April 30^th.

Also Note:  We do not yet know all of the restrictions that may be placed on certain classes of  merchandise and ways of selling them.  However, the following will not be permitted: any type of food sales, live flames, anything generating loud noises or causing crowds to gather in the aisles (audible audio or video presentations) and displays which are too tall (eight feet above the floor is the maximum allowed on the perimeter of the room, and seven feet is the maximum for island locations) or which block access by any other dealer to his or her space, the common backspace, or the aisles. The provision of "personal services" (anything involving direct person-to-person contact such as massage, tattooing, face-painting, the fitting of false fangs and the like) will be prohibited.  Other restrictions will be noted in a future letter, but will include limitations on the sale of weapons, materials capable of emitting odors and so on.  We reserve the right to ask any dealer to remove any materials from sale in the Noreascon 4 Dealers' Room if we have any reason to suspect that those materials are in violation of copyright laws.

We suggest that you assume that most of the usual WorldCon rules will apply to Noreascon 4; we'll keep you informed about all of these.  In addition, dealers may have to have a valid, current Massachusetts Sales Tax License on file with us before opening for business on Thursday 02 September; the necessary application information will be posted on the Noreascon 4 web site. 

Room Location:  The Dealers' Room as well as the Art Show and  other functions will be in the Hynes Convention Center  (HCC).  The Dealers' Room will be in Hall D (where we were in 1989),  located on the second floor of the Hynes.

Table Size:  Standard eight feet by two and one-half feet (96 by 30 inches).  We will provide two chairs per table; for now, assume that you will have to bring your own table covers, drapes and carpeting.

Table Price:  A deposit of USD 100.00 per table requested is required to hold space.  The final table price will be USD 225.00.  The final price includes your deposit, of course.

Sales Hours:  All common exhibit areas of Noreascon 4 will be open from 12 noon to 6 PM on Thursday; from 10 AM to 6 PM Friday, Saturday and Sunday; and from 10 AM to 3 PM on Monday.  Opening is an hour earlier than it has been at recent WorldCons.

Other:  Consumption of food and drink in the room is restricted to dealers only.  The Dealers' Room is non-smoking (as is the entire Hynes).  Autograph sessions should take place somewhere in the Hynes.

We Do Not Yet Know  the answers to the following:

• Rules on moving stock and on unloading and loading vehicles.
• Hours of access to the Hall beyond normal sales hours.
• Licensing rules, if any, including the necessity for a Massachusetts Sales Tax License and the collection of sales tax.
• Whether boxes and/or reserve stock can be located in your space.
• What sort of additional lighting will be permitted and the cost and availability of electric power access.
• If there will be special restrictions imposed by the Boston Fire Department.

Attending Memberships will absolutely be required for all dealers and their staff members. You need to get membership data directly from Noreascon 4 (we do not handle memberships here, but memberships are available on-line) and keep us informed of the membership numbers assigned to you and your people. Dealers without confirmed memberships will not be permitted to unload stock or to occupy their space at Noreascon 4.  We will, however, accept memberships in the name of your business, for use by your staff on a rotating locum tenens basis, so long as the total number of warm bodies on site does not exceed the number of paid memberships for a given dealer.

As is stated on the application, we will eventually acknowledge receipt of e-mail and even try to answer simple questions there.  However, an e-mail is not a formal writing.  Anything which we designate as "must be mailed" means just that -- sent to us via the postal system to the address given below. If you want us to acknowledge receipt of your Application, enclose an SASE or a prepaid postcard (with the correct US postage applied) with it.  E-mail may best be sent to dealers@noreascon.org this e-address will reach all of the senior Dealers' Room staff at the same time.  Note that the physical mailing address has changed (for this year only):  it is Larry Smith/Sally Kobee, Noreascon Dealers' Room Managers, PO Box 1010, Framingham MA 01701-1010.  Since we will not see your mail immediately, please allow at least an extra two weeks before you contact us about anything you mailed in.  We will not know about what you sent until it is forwarded to us by Noreascon 4.

Keep a copy of everything you send us.  We make  photocopies of all applications and attachments for our files when we actually receive them, but these do you no good.  If you move, YOU must tell us about it.  We expect to have more than 100 dealers to keep track of and we assume you got your mail unless it is returned to us by the postal system.

A final note about your deposit, final payment, refund requests and anything else financial.  All dealer paperwork will go directly to the Noreascon 4 office in Framingham MA.  Processing will be done by the Noreascon 4 Treasury.  Please note that Noreascon 4 is accepting credit card payment for Dealers' tables; if you wish to use this facility, please fill in the appropriate blanks on the application form.

Sincerely,

Laurence C. Smith
Sally A. Kobee
Noreascon 4 Dealers' Room Managers

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