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Worldcon/1952
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1939 · 1940 · 1941 · 1946 · 1947 · 1949 · 1950 · 1951 · 1952 · 1953 · 1954 · 1955 · 1960 · 1963 · 1964 · 1967 · 2013 · Index of Locations
| Science Fiction Convention | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Worldcon (Chicon II) |
| Dates: | August 30-September 1, 1952 |
| Frequency: | annually |
| Location: | Chicago, IL |
| Type: | fan-run |
| Focus: | science fiction |
| Organization: | World Science Fiction Society |
| Founder: | World Science Fiction Society |
| Founding Date: | 1939 |
| URL: | Worldcon.org Fanac.org |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
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Chicago, 1952: Now we come to the prize winner of confusion. Chicon II was widely advertised in advance as the best and the biggest worldcon ever, the con that would set fandom on its collective ear. One of the male officials behind chairwoman Judy May (and I prefer not to name him) boasted to me in advance of the event that "his con" would reach or exceed one thousand paid admissions. Wand what do you know? For a little while it appeared that his boast had come true: it was announced from the stage that 1,050 people were in attendance, and that announcement brought both gasps and ap plause from the astonished multitude. The history tables in current program books still show an official attendance of 1000, despite the fact that the kited figure was later shown to be false. Several weeks after the worldcon closed, cooler (and perhaps suspicious) heads on the committee made a careful count and discovered that only 867 people had checked in. This corrected figure was published in the news zines of that day, but alas, the correction never caught up with the error. Despite all that has been said and written, no convention cracked the 1000-mark until Ted White and Dave Van Arnam staged Nycon 3 in 1967.
References
- ^ "The Clean Capitalist Revisionist" by Bob Tucker in Granfalloon Issue #20 (1976)