More than a new userpic...

[gerisullivan]

Yes, it's true. For the first time, I'm a member of a bid committee for a real Worldcon: Reno in 2011.

We launched the bid tonight with announcements near and far, and a presence at five conventions: Balticon, BayCon, ConQuesT, Marcon, and WisCon. I've posted a bit of 4-part harmony about that on our brand new LiveJournal community.

Here's the bid announcement on ConCentral. It's popping up here and there around LiveJournal and elsewhere in the ether, too. Fun!

My own financial situation means I'm home this weekend rather than helping with any of our launch parties in person. It's times like this that I appreciate my friends all the more. Marcon Toastmaster skzb announced the bid during Opening Ceremonies there. netmouse is running a bid table for us there, and lsanderson has been keeping me entertained all week with his posts, email messages, and phone calls about preparations for the bid party he's hosting at WisCon tomorrow night. In the meanwhile, friends such as elaine_brennan, debgeisler, and other are keeping me updated with reports about the bid launch. I love living in the future. I love helping make stuff like this happen in real time.

I hope you'll take a look at our website and consider supporting Reno in 2011 at whatever level fits your budget and sensibilities. You can also download our bid flyer as a pdf in high-res print form or a low-res version for on-screen viewing only.

Comments

[snippy]

I pre-supported when I saw Patty's message (through Ruth) on the Orycon list earlier this evening.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you. Much appreciated.

You poor fool!

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Good luck!

Re: You poor fool!

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Big laugh! So true, so true.

Many thanks. It'll be an adventure, that's for sure.

Baycon in 2008 and Reno in 2011

[rangercraig.livejournal.com]

Hi Geri, it's Ranger Craig at Baycon - I was there tonight when the banner was unveiled for Reno in 2011 - will send pics when I can. Making grog (Baycon has a pirate theme this year) in the fanzine lounge tomorrow night -ARRRRRRRR.

Ranger Craig, The Rock

Re: Baycon in 2008 and Reno in 2011

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'd love to see the pictures, and to share them with Rennie artist Brad Foster, too.

I just have one question...

[buttonlass.livejournal.com]

Does this mean Minneapolis in '73 is off the table?;)

Best of luck to all of you!

[maruad.livejournal.com]

Running the bid isn't too bad... just make certain you don't win ;-) j/k... best of luck to you.

I don't see why you couldn't run both bids at once.

[casacorona.livejournal.com]

Excellent! pre-supporting this morning.

You do know you're nuts, right?

Re: I just have one question...

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Of course not!

We'll always have P/a/r/i/s/ Minneapolis in '73!

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Durn right. Minneapolis in '73, the Time Travel Worldcon, and Reno in 2011!

Many thanks to you, buttonlass, and others for the good wishes.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you for your support!

Right, I know. I really couldn't possibly claim anything else even before this latest evidence emerged. I only hope I'm a filbert, or any of the other nuts of the flavorful sort.

[jamesb.livejournal.com]

woot

j

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I stumbled across the party here at Wiscon. At first I wondered what Reno was bidding for. Then I read the fine print and wondered if it was for real. Then I read the finer print with the committee's names and realized, "This is either for real or it's an elaborate hoax." Larry Sanderson assured me it was for real. Chip Hitchcock backed him up on plausibility. OK - a Worldcon I could drive to. Interesting.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Grin.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Oh, my, the hoax this group could pull off....

Larry and Chip are right. The Reno in 2011 bid is for real, amusing as the hoax notion is to consider.

Don Glover started the Reno in 2011 LJ community</> last night right after the bid was announced. I'm having fun posting there and will continuing also mentioning at least some of what we're up to here, most likely.

I do hope you'll decide to support us, either by signing up with Larry or through the support page on our website. And please let me know if you have any questions I might be able to answer. Thanks!

[nkcmike.livejournal.com]

I talked to Ben briefly on Thursday, and he said he was in town to promote the Reno bid in 2011. I thought, "WHAT Reno bid?!?" I didn't learn until Friday night that this weekend was the launch.

Best of luck (and, I agree with those questioning your sanity).

[maruad.livejournal.com]

There is nothing crazy about running bid parties... only about agreeing to run the Worldcon.

Reno

[hazelchaz]

The Las Vegas Westercon bid did a bait-and-switch on the voters -- playing up the Las Vegas Strip, for a site that's 10 or 15 miles from the action. Certainly not walking distance to all of the wonders and delights of the town.

Can you suggest to the rest of the Reno team that they show us maps and distances comparing the proposed venue to whatever Reno's equivalent of the Strip is?

Re: Reno

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

FYI, I made such a map myself, and I seem to recall seeing a similar map on the paper material at Reno's table at MARCon as well. The Convention Center-Atlantis complex is approximately three miles south of downtown Reno's Casino Row.

Re: Reno

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Chaz; will do. Probably even with Kevin's handy map. :-) Everything we can all do to get more familiar with Reno will help in terms of making informed decisions when voting.

I didn't know where Reno's equivalent of the Vegas strip is when Larry called with your distance question last Saturday. When he asked me for the distance to downtown, I checked distances from the Atlantis to the downtown public library and the downtown Wells Fargo bank location. Those distances were 2.56-2.58 miles from the site we're bidding. Everything in Reno is close to everything else, and we're not bidding a resort location well out past the edge of town.

Re: Reno

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Sweet! Thank you, Kevin. Is it okay for me to share your map with the rest of the committee? Your downtown location is better than the library and bank markers I used when measuring the distance Saturday.

Re: Reno

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're certainly welcome to use that map. I visit Reno every now and then and know it decently well. The Union Pacific railroad mainline cuts right through the middle of downtown (it was placed into a trench a few years ago), and the place where it crosses Virginia Street is as near enough the center of downtown as makes no difference.

If you zoom in tighter on that downtown pushpin, you will see a river to the south (that's the Truckee River), a silver ball to the north (the Silver Legacy Hotel-Casino), and a red-and-white striped oval (the big top of Circus Circus).

Re: Reno

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, Reno's Virginia Street is roughly the equivalent of Vegas' Fremont Street -- the downtown core where you'll find the largest concentration of casinos. It's also where you'll find the famous Reno Arch.

Reno never developed an equivalent to "the Strip" in the sense of an outlying street with a bunch of casinos on it. Instead, Reno and the adjacent city of Sparks developed a bunch of individual casinos, such as the Atlantis and Peppermill down by the convention center, the High Sierra (former MGM Grand) over by the airport, and John Ascuaga's Nugget in Sparks.

(Personally, I like the Nugget the best, but that's because it has one of my favorite restaurants, John's Oyster Bar, where they serve shrimp pan roast, a stew so good that once when I had a 2 1/2 hour layover at RNO airport, I took a taxi over to the Nugget so I could have a bowl of pan roast.)

Re: Reno

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Kevin. Much appreciated.

I'd love to hear more about Reno, myself. I hope you'll post about your experiences there on the Reno in 2011 LJ community.

Re: Reno

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Okay. I'm intr....

I was going to type "intrigued" but I only got that far before jumping over to Google. Ah...the second link is to Oyster Bar Pan Roast Recipe with text that mentions having lived in Sparks.

The introduction to the recipe starts, "This is the most delicious, decadent and wonderful stew/soup on the planet."

And the recipe looks dead easy. I hope to have the opportunity to try the real thing in the months and years to come, but I'll quite likely see what my home efforts yield in the meanwhile.

Re: Reno

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Lisa has that recipe and makes it regularly when I'm in Oregon. You're right that it's not that difficult to make. Lisa says that she sometimes gets it close to the same as they make it. We suspect that the official public recipe isn't quite the same as how they make it in the restaurant.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Well, I might do that. Thanks.

But the people you really have to convince are the likes of the guy who walked into the Wiscon party, picked up the flyer, exclaimed "Those hotels aren't anywhere near big enough to hold a Worldcon!" (a proposition Chip was quietly refuting to me at that very moment) and stomped out of the room.

I don't mean to be dampening by telling this story; I just think it's good politics to know what barriers you're up against.