Fan Tables Updated [June-19-2004]

Fan Tables are an opportunity for your fannish group, bid, club, or convention to have a table and space in Exhibits to display information, talk with fans, and otherwise strut your stuff.

LAcon IV Table at Torcon, 2003

Lots of groups have already signed up for fan tables:

You can also participate in the First Night parade or sponsor a booth, a game, or another attraction during First Night.

We have the details you need; you can give us the details we need!

Fifty Years of the Hugo Awards Exhibit

The first Hugo Awards were presented in 1953 at the 11th World Science Fiction Convention (popularly known as Philcon II) in Philadelphia. Last year's Worldcon, Torcon 3, hosted the 50th Hugo Awards Ceremony since no Hugo Awards were given out at the 1954 Worldcon.

What were those Worldcon members thinking as they sat in their caves and pecked on their primitive typewriting devices to send postal mail to each other? What was the inspiration for the Hugo Awards? We know that Hugo Gernsback had just been the Guest of Honor at the 10th anniversary Worldcon in Chicago. The 25th Academy Awards Ceremony in 1953 had been the first live television broadcast of the Academy Awards. Perhaps our fannish ancestors were just bored because Star Trek wouldn't be on the air until 1966?

Noreascon Four will be honoring fifty years of the Hugo Awards by putting together an exhibit. We plan to display as many of those fifty Hugo Awards as we can beg, borrow, or…well, beg and borrow. We'll present some of the history behind the Hugo Awards, like how Jack McKnight missed most of Philcon II because he was stuck in his basement learning how to weld aluminum to attach the fins on the first Hugo rockets. (Yes, the first Hugo rocket design was based on an automobile hood ornament.)

The Noreascon 4 Exhibits Division will be contacting past Hugo Award winners and other people during the coming year. If you are willing to loan us Hugo Awards or memorabilia from past Hugo Award ceremonies, please contact Ruth Leibig at hugo-exhibit@noreascon.org.

Space and NASA Exhibits

Did you know that Robert Goddard launched the first liquid-fueled rocket from Aunt Effie's farm in Auburn, Massachusetts? Read his diary notes about the experience … Or check out the Astronomy Picture of the Day for March 21, 2001, which shows Goddard with that original rocket.

Or that Chandra, the world's most powerful X-ray telescope, is operated from nearby Cambridge?

Or that several important experiments onboard the International Space Station were created by Boston-area universities?

When most people think of NASA, they think of launches from Florida, Mission Control in Texas, or perhaps Deep Space missions operated from California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But Massachusetts and New England have made many important contributions to our nation's space program. We will attempt to highlight that aspect in our Space and NASA exhibits.

Ankh-Morpork

Y'never know who (or what) may show up around a corner in Ankh-Morpork…is that…Death? Or is it just Mort?

With Terry Pratchett as one of our Guests of Honor, we're looking for as many Discworld characters as we can find to populate the city (otherwise known as our ConCourse), particularly on Thursday evening during First Night Noreascon. If you enjoy the Discworld books and would like to take on a particular persona, let us know by dropping a note to ThursdayPerformers@noreascon.org. It just wouldn't do to have too many Night Watch Captains…

One of the main gathering places in Ankh-Morpork will be the Mended Drum Pub (we have to start with the "Mended Drum" since the Hynes takes a very dim view of explosives in the Exhibit Halls). John Syms, a well-known beer geek, has agreed to be the Mended Drum host. We'll have areas for conversation and traditional pub games, with various beers and food for sale. With a little luck, the Hynes may even be able to provide a cask-conditioned ale and a cider for sale; no promises, but we are trying!

Help make Ankh-Morpork in Boston a reality!

Fan Exhibits

In addition to fans on display at the fan tables, we already know that we'll have a significantly expanded look at fans in other ways, including the International Fandom exhibit. We are working to collect new items, catalog them, and present them. We have new material coming in from Australia and South Africa in particular.

Fan History

The fanzines and photos of our past tell stories about who we are and where we've been. And maybe even where we're going …

So we're extracting some of those stories out of the large jumble of material available (have you seen many fannish attics?). It'll be a new way of looking at the exhibits, which we hope will be interesting to everyone. Randy Smith is coordinating that effort.

Laurie Mann is taking the lead for presenting some of our traditional Fan History material, which we're hoping will also help us tell some of the stories of how we've gotten to where we are in fandom. To help tell those stories, we're looking for some very specific types of materials:

If you have items that you believe might contribute to this exhibit, please send email to fanhistory-exhibit@noreascon.org describing what you have.