Baycon (Worldcons)

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You may be looking for BayCon (series of California cons), which began in 1982 and have run every year since.

Science Fiction Convention
Name: Baycon
Dates: 1968
Frequency: annually as Worldcon
Location: California
Type: Worldcon
Focus: science fiction
Organization: WSFS
Founder: World Science Fiction Society
Founding Date: 1939
URL:
Baycon Program.jpeg
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Baycon was the Worldcon for 1968. The 26th World Science Fiction Convention (aka Baycon) was held on 29 August–2 September 1968 at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, California. It had combined with the West Coast Science Fantasy Conference, Westercon and shared guests of honor and chairs. The chairs were Bill Donaho, Alva Rogers, and J. Ben Stark.

The Guests of Honor were:

An estimated 1.430 people attended the convention, including Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Jack Williamson, Edmond Hamilton, Forrest J Ackerman, Anne Mccaffrey, Leigh Brackett and Lin Carter. The convention coincided with various protests at the nearby Berkeley University; in the words of an attendee: "It is interesting that Baycon attendees were watching simulated armed combat in the Medieval Tourneys here while actual violence was happening a few miles away near the Berkeley campus. Attendees who stayed at two downtown Berkeley hotels were exposed to tear gas dispersed by police to quell protesters."[1]

Activities

Panels[1]

Among the panels held were:

Other Activities[2]

SCA Demonstrations: Several events were organised by the local Society for Creative Anachronism, including a demonstration of combat with Randy Garrett and Poul Anderson versus John W. Campbell and Paul Zimmer (brother of Marion Zimmer Bradley) and a compatriot. They also staged a Medieval Fashion Show of all types of garb and a revel including medieval food, music, and dance.

The Most Noble and Illustrious Order of St. Fantony, an order of fannish knighthood, initiated Forrest Ackerman into their order as an indication of their appreciation for his contribution to fandom.

Music: The con committee had claimed in a progress report that they were going to try to book Joan Baez, to perform, but when the time came to ask her, they had second thoughts. Instead, there were three otherwise obscure rock music groups booked, one going by a name appropriate for the occasion: "H. P. Lovecraft".

Con Skit and Readings: There was a fan production at the convention: a performance of "H.M.S. Trek-a-Star", what a STAR TREK episode might have been if it had been scripted by Gilbert & Sullivan. There was also a light show to accompany readings by Harlan Ellison and Fritz Leiber.

Art Show: The art show awards were dominated by Tim Kirk, George Barr, Cathy Hill, and Gordon Monson, who between them won 15 of the 20 prizes.

Costume Contest: Included Lin Carter as Elric of Melnibone

Dealer's Tables

WSFS Business Meeting: This included a number of changes to the Worldcon rules[3]:

  • Addition of novella, fan writer and fan artist to the Hugo categories.
  • Selection of Consites would be two years in advance.
  • A $2.00 fee would be charged for Consite voting rights.
  • The Rules would be published in a format all members could access.
  • The Society would adopt a five-year plan, rather than the previous four for international bids.

Awards

Hugo Awards

Other Awards[2]

1968 Con Reports

[from a Star Trek fan]:

The 1968 World Science Fiction Convention was held Aug. 29 - Sept. 2 at the Claremont Hotel in beautiful downtown Oakland/Berkeley, California.

ST people attending were Gene Roddenberry, Rick Carter, Sheri Greenawalt (Carter now), Majel Barrett, Mark Lenard, and costume designer Bill Theiss. Also attending was Mike Minor, an artist whose paintings are being used on the show. (Lovely things—some of his drawings were for sale in the art room, and I was among the people snapping them up.)

ST episodes "Where No Man Has Gone Before", "Balance of Terror", and "The City On the Edge of Forever" were shown, as were the hilarious "blooper" films. The episodes had apparently been borrowed from a TV station, for they had cuts and commercials. Seeing these first-season episodes again was most interesting. "Where No Man...", the pilot that sold, is "not ST as we know it" because of all the changes that were made later. "City" was way better than remembered, and deserved the Hugo it received as best dramatic presentation of the year. "Balance of Terror" had a fascinating side effect from Mark Lenard's later appearance in "Journey to Babel". Remember the scene where the Enterprise crew got their first sight of the Romulans? The Romulan Commander played by Mark Lenard is seen on the screen, followed by a camera close-up of Spock, But now instead of "'Romulans look like Vulcans!" his shocked look seems to say, "Sarek has defected to the Romulans!"

There was a display of ST props in the pro art room, including Nomad. The Leonard Nimoy National Association of Fans had a display of pictures and chapter publications, etc., and played Nimoy records. Spock ears, scripts and other ST items were sold at the auctions. (I missed the auctions—anybody willing to sell or trade me an ear?) A few Enterprise costumes, not many, were seen at the Costume Parade (which took place in a roomful of pillars along with a light show [4] and rock bands).

Gene Roddenberry gave a talk titled "...To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before". He also attended the banquet and accepted a special award for producing ST. The Hugo for "The City on the Edge of Forever" was presented to Harlan Ellison.

And there was the GRAS party. That's Gene Roddenberry Apreciation Society, a "conspiracy" started by the "Cartel" (also known as the editors of KEVAS AND TRILLIUM and the founders of the Mark Lenard International Fan Club). One poor fan missed the party because when asked "Are you with GRAS?" he thought he was being asked if he smoked grass, and said no.... But those attending had a most enjoyable time. Roddenberry was presented with a portfolio of letters, poems, stories and other tokens of appreciation from fans. He and the others spent some time talking with and signing autographs for fans (some of whom were wearing Gene Roddenberry sweatshirts).

Besides Mike Minor's star bases and other art, some fan drawings and paintings of ST people were entered in the art show. One prize-winner was titled "The Enterprise Blows Up" (by Gordon Monson). There would have been more ST art in the show, but a suitcase of Bush pictures was lost and not located until after the con. Bush also had the most successful ST costume in the costume ball—as the green Orion slave girl, she was one of the finalists.

For this fanatic, the last week of August and the first week of September was one big Star Trek "party"— spent much of the time before, during and after Baycon meeting" and visiting with other ST fans. Next Labor Day weekend, the Worldcon will be in St. Louis—hope to see you all there! [5]

The hurricane hit us as soon as we entered the lobby. Odors, some sweetly illegal. Chill air. Food somewhere. Sounds. Clinking and clattering of bells and beads, rattleclang of chainmail and swords. Raucous. Cacophony. Ear shattering, mind-blasting music, music, MUSIC! And much later, hushed, silent halls, with secret sounds of secret parties from behind closed doors. Sights. Faces, bizzare, familiar or both. Silverberg, Bradbury, Bloch, Harrison, Carr, Panshin, White, Anderson, Zelazny, Farmer, Pohl - even Campbell. The Fishers, Couches, Woods and Trimbles. Fanatics. Olentangy. Lunarians. Fanoclasts. GRAS - even the SCA east and west. A rioting, tinkling, flashing montage of mad events that whirled us from day to day, to where some of us had never been before -

We moved with it, sometimes slowly, sometimes in a frenzy. Sometimes together, more often separated. One day Dale and Jeannie spoke of the coffee shop. They disappeared, and were gone for a long time. Later, they returned to us having been thrown out of the coffee shop for causing a disturbance by asking to be waited on. They were no worse for wear. But now Jeannie snarled whenever food was mentioned. Baycon had left her that.

It was a long weekend. The others kept talking and dreaming of smorgasbords and blog, and wine-tasting, but I tried not to think about it. Meanwhile, a voice from deep inside whined "Why are you doing this to me?" My stomach. Talking back.

And we passed through the panel discussions.

And we passed through the D.O.M.'s.

Amd we passed through the auctions.

And we passed through the business meeting.

And we passed through the open parties.

And we finally came to the Hugo Awards Banquet. The ballroom. Hundreds of tables, packed together, a patchwork scene of white cloth from one end of the room to the other. Hundreds. But not enough. We pushed and shoved and fought for seats.

 [6]

This is a convention report by BOB VARDEMAN which purports to relate a few of the incidents, sights and happenings at the 26th World Science Fiction Convention, otherwise known as the Baycon. This following report is in no way complete and I'm sure I've omitted all sorts of important things. So be it. You've gotten this because you're mentioned, I met you at the convention, you're on my mailing list or I just felt nasty and sent it to you.

...

Physically, from the outside at least, the Claremont is a beautiful place. The grounds are well landscaped and it has vegetation in profusion. I managed to find the first floor (2 flights up from where I entered) and there was fandom! I promptly registered and the first fans I met that I had been corresponding with were the beautiful OE of APA45, Lesleigh Couch, the notorious Hank Luttrell, and Chris Couch (known to the APA45 members as Fletch's model for the Whistling Rapist).

I evinced a desire for a St. Louis in '69 button and Chris offerred [sic] me a choice from a box of a couple hundred. Then feeling quite secure in my action, I paid Lesleigh the $3 for registration at St. Louiscon even though the actual bidding wouldn't be held for nearly 48 hours.

In rapid succession; Rick Brooks handed me his fanzine Nargothrond #2, I met Bob Roehm (who surprisingly enough does not look like Michael Valentine Smith) and the crew from Pittsburgh (Linda Eyster, Suzanne Tompkins, Dale Stemska, Nancy Lambert, Linda's sister (Sunday?), and Ginjer Buchanan) and picked up assorted pieces of Literature of Great Import.

...

Randall Garrett in a booming voice (a booming voice, by the way Koontz, is a tunic made from strips of kangaroo hide and coarse down from the giant 7 foot killer penguins of Borneo) then announced that a Gilbert and Sullivan adaptation would be presented. Jerry Jacks had butchered * Pinafore into "TrekaStar". Cast included Jerry Jacks as Chekov, David Gerrold as Kirk, Karen Anderson as Spock, Astrid Anderson as Uhura, Dorothy Jones as Yeoman Rand, Kathy Bushman as a sundry crewman and someone whose name I never did catch as The Sack and Straws. Felice Rolfe furnished the music and despite some random annoyances (such as no chairs and the poor physical set up of the room) the play was enjoyable. It was well adapted and funny Gerrold made a better Kirk than Shatner and Dorothy Jones has quite a voice (and is otherwise GOSHWOW).

...

Jim Young and I then proceeded back to the Gaslight Room to catch the verbal daggering of Harry Harrison by Harlan. As Robert Silverberg was later to say, "and here is Harlan mercilessly thrusting his charisma at us". Harlan's main point was that there was no such thing as the New Wave and that there never had been. Just a lot of authors doing their thing. While I think this might be true to a certain extent (wrt subject matter, for instance), I don't believe that the New Wave's treatment of the plot varies a whole lot from one writer to the next. And in this respect, I think it is quite possible to define a New Wave. The New Wave obviously knows very little about science and makes use of symbolism and psychological quirks to circumvent this lack.When Harlan admitted that he knew little of science, Harry Harrison promptly jumped on this with, "What's the name of the game if it isn't science?" While Harry managed to get off a few good ones at Harlan, it was Harlan who came out on top in this battle of wits. That man is simply too much energy, drive and wit to put down.

...

I made it to the art show for the first time and found that 5 artists were so overwhelmingly good that everything else just paled into the background. George Barr had a series of pen and ink drawings which were indescribably detailed and beautiful. Dave Ludwig had two oils which were outstanding and Bernie Zuber had two which were fantasy scenes (one from LOTR which won a first place if I remember rightly). In the second rank was Alex Eisentstein (his cover illo from Heinlein in Dimension was displayed) and Kathy Bushman had one portrait that was ostensibly just a picture of a woman - until you noticed that the canine teeth were just a trifle too long. Count Dracula would have been proud to hang that in his tomb. Much of the rest was well done but nothing outstanding and then there was quite a bit of the run of the mill. Taken as a whole, the quality of the material displayed was surprisingly good.

...

At the auction, Walt Daugherty was given some hot material to auction off. He sold Harlan for a record breaking $72. I contributed $1 to the fund and in return I'm supposed to get a pithy one liner which I can use an an interlino in Sandworm. When I left Monday afternoon, Ginjer Buchanan still hadn't gotten the hour of Harlan's time so I don’t know how effectively (or to what use) that hour was put.

Also being sold was a manuscript and a 1/2 hour of Bradbury's time - both going for $35. (l later heard that it was Fred Hypes who was the proud recipient and he ended up with closer to 4 hours time). David Gerrold (writer of Trouble with Tribbles, you fakefan) went for a mere $22 and to add insult to injury he was followed by a fluff of a Tribble which went for $22.50!

In addition to people, some really great Freas artwork was sold. The cover for Horse Barbarians, I think, went for $75 and the prelim artwork sketches went for around $30. The ST scripts sold fairly consistently for $10-15 the Dollens artwork soared to $30 a painting.

...

The costume show was very poorly run with the contestants being trotted across a too short stage before the impact of their costuming could penetrate. Also, no names were announced on the first go around and it was impossible to tell what all the costumes were supposed to represent. While the judges (Hal Clement, Evelyn del Rey, and Bernie Zuber) got a good look at each and every contestant, the fans in the back and the ones stuck behind the multitude of pillars simply didn't have much chance.

Medieval costumes seemed to prevail and the numbers of peaceful type people stalking around with cold steel strapped to their side was appalling (and bruising also since they managed to thwack practically everyone on the shins when pushing their way thru a crowd - it could have been worse tho; they could have unsheathed and charged thru). Costumes that appealed to me were Dick Eney as the Red Baron, Bruce Pelz as a Heavytrooper from The Dragon Masters, Lin Carter in chain LinC armor as Elric (minus whiteface - and his Stormbringer was not as impressive as Pelz's 40 lb. broadsword), Jerry Lapidus as #2 (which he pulled off quite well since he looks like he might be a #2) and Cory Seidman as a bottle of Speed-o-Print Corflu. Quite a few other people's costumes were interesting (varry interesting, in fact) but I never did find out their names (with perhaps one exception - I think the cute blond in the solid black outfit trimmed in silver and with her sword slung on the right side was Lois McMaster). I wonder at so few ST costumes - all told, there probably weren't a full dozen. I didn't notice any Dune oriented ones but that isn't too odd. If anyone had worn a stillsuit they would have been enjoying all that water...)

...

Aften meeting Kay Anderson (a displaced Albuquerque fanne) and Shirley Keech in the balcony, the three of us went down to congratulate any of the winners we could find coming out of the Garden Room (they to congratulate Roddenberry, which they did, and I to congratulate Zelazny which I didn't - must be some sort of moral message there). I saw Majel Barrett for the first time off the boob tube and I don't know what the make-up men do to her but it ruins her looks. She is far prettier in person than she ever appeared on the screen. Roddenberry was quite jovial wonder why seeing ST win another Hugo and a special award - tho I suspect he was rooting for some other episode to win).

Kay, Shirley and I drifted (wandered?) over to the bar I pumping them about the forthcoming episodes (how does the "Gunfight at the OK Corral" grab you? - It is forthcoming as "Spectre of the Gun"). We later went up to the Cartel's suite where I met Mike Minor, the set designer for ST (who had done some lovely landscapes of extraterrestrial planets which were displayed in the Horizon Room - I only wish they had been for sale or auction). I also met Alicia Austin who has done some extremely good work in ST illustrating in Plak-tow and Kevas&Trillum among other places. Sneaking a couple slices of pizza and a glimpse at a fanzine called Triskelion (which was just about as substancial [sic] as the episode it was named after ), I left with Shirley and Kay a bit later.

...

I scouted around for Kay and Shirley but didn't see them so listened a while in the business meeting. The most verbal of the discussions concerned the addition of the novella category (I'm for it if they mean "short novel" by novella) and the additon [sic] of the words "United States to the con's legal title making it "World-United States SF Convention". This sounds so totally absurd and is so apparently aimed at alienating the overseas fans that I wonder what meathead suggested it. Whoever it was should face reality and try to understand that fans in the rest of the world (whether it be Heidleberg, Tokyo, Melbourne, Rome, Madrid or Buenas Aires) have as much right to bid for and win a Worldcon as anyone in this country.

Perhaps it might shake up US fandom if the Worldcon was held for two or three consecutive years outside the US. Might make us realize that there are other fish in the pond. But I imagine that some type of Rational Convention would be organized and would be a Worldcon in everything but name only. (l don't subscribe to the theory that to have a successful convention that you have to carry the prestige of the name "Worldcon" with it - it seems like it would be very easy to hold a "national" convention and pull fans and pros from all over the world. This would be especially true if the Worldcon was being held in Melbourne or Buenas Aires).

...

Some thoughts after the fact included: disappointment that Heinlein, Herbert and Delany weren't at the con; disapproval of the way the costume ball was run; gladness that St. Louis won; pleasure of meeting so many friends via correspondence; sorrow at not meeting some I had hoped to (like Ann Chamberlain); and a strong desire to attend many more conventions.

I had lots of fun and learned a couple things. Like I should take along an empty suitcase to future conventions, and that the majority of fans are People. Real People and not the slipshod imitation that so often passes for humanity in this tired world.

Perhaps the world would be better off if fandom did take over. Fanocracy, anyone?

 [7]

External Links

References

  1. ^ a b "Berkeley Sci-fi convention in 1968, comics & pulps", by jpepx78 @CGC Chat Boards (May 18/20) (via Wayback May 26/24)
  2. ^ a b "Chapter Eight - worldcons of the 1960s [working title]" by Richard Lynch (via Wayback Feb 6/23)
  3. ^ The Legal Rules #1, fanzine by Jeffrey William Lapidus, via Fanac.org
  4. ^ Perhaps this light show was Andromeda Light Show?
  5. ^ from Plak-Tow #10
  6. ^ "I've Had No Sleep And I Must Giggle" by Ginjer Buchanan, Granfalloon Issue #5 (1968) via Fanac.org
  7. ^ "Baycon 1968" zine by Bob Vardeman, Fanac.org
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