Hugo.

I'm going to the Hugos!

Well, technically speaking I'm attending Worldcon, the annual World Science Fiction Convention, which is taking place in Seattle from August 13th to 17th of 2025 - but in my mind, I'm going to the Hugo Awards.  

In the process of researching a previous posting on the trials and tribulations being suffered by the Hugo Awards, I happened to notice that the 2025 Worldcon host city was Seattle, which is just a hop, step and a jump away from Vancouver.  As such, I decided to do a bit of a feasibility study on attending - given that plane tickets wouldn't be a factor in expenses.  

As it turned out, there's a reduced membership price for new attendees, which brought the price down to something somewhat reasonable, and I decided to go for it.  In addition, Seattle last hosted Worldcon in 1961, the year I was born, so there's a certain symmetry in attending its return to the Emerald City. 

I'm actually a bit giddy about it - it's like being a lifelong fan of the cinema who is not only going to the Oscars, but gets to vote on the winners as well. 

I've talked about the Hugo Awards - and the eponymous Hugo himself, Hugo Gernsback - in previous postings, but I haven't gone into a lot of detail about the process.

Worldcon is the original science fiction convention - the mother of all conventions, if you will.*  The first Worldcon took place in July of 1939, but the Hugos weren't part of the event until 1953, becoming an annual awards event in 1955.  I was surprised to learn that the official title of the awards is the Science Fiction Achievement Awards, I never knew them as anything other than the Hugos** - presumably I wasn't alone in this, as the awards were officially renamed as the Hugos in 1993. 

The Hugo voting process is a little odd. In order to vote, you need to be a member of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS). But the WSFS doesn't really exist, it's just a mechanism for hosting Worldcons, and you become a member of the WSFS by buying a ticket to a Worldcon.

However, you don't have to attend to vote, and you can buy a cheaper non-attending membership which just lets you vote for the Hugo winners and choice of the hosting city two years hence. There's also a reduced price attending membership for new attendees, staff, and "individuals who would otherwise feel cost-constrained to attend the convention." In addition, if you buy your membership before January 31st, you also have the ability to make nominations for the awards. For anyone desiring to see a detailed breakdown of the process, I direct you to the Seattle Worldcon membership page for more information.

Suffice it to say that as a first time attendee who is very aware of the current exchange rate between USD and CAD, I opted for the reduced rate adult membership, which didn't seem to raise any red flags.

As a sign that the gods were smiling upon my trip, I also managed to find a downtown Seattle rental on VRBO that came in under a thousand dollars CAD for my six night stay - provided it's not a scam (it has ZERO reviews, never a good sign, but it's also a new listing) it's a great deal, not right in the back yard of the Seattle Convention Center but close enough to the Space Needle (and monorail) to make for a reasonable commute.

Note to self - pencil in a visit to the Infinite Worlds of Science Fiction at the MOPOP!

But wait - how does the Hugo awards ceremony work?  Is there a dinner?  If so, is it extra?  Do I need to wear a tux? Make a reservation?  Is it a cash bar? Fingers crossed for a robust FAQ...

But, for now, none of that matters - I'm going to the Hugos!

- Sid

* At this point, the shade of Sir Arthur C. Clarke appears to defend the first UK fan meeting, held in Leeds in 1937, in response to which American fans point to the 1936 Philadelphia fan meet-up with members of a New York group.  Regardless, Worldcon undeniably has the title of longest ongoing event, although there was a hiatus during World War II.  (And the 2020 event was done solely online due to COVID.)

**  Hey, trivia fans - apparently a fan named Bob Madle was the genius who suggested calling the new awards the Hugos.  Madle was also a founding member of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, which hosted the 1939 Worldcon after the dissolution of the International Scientific Association by Donald A. Wollheim in 1937 following the collapse of the Science Fiction League, Hugo Gernsback's Wonder Stories-based group.  (When you start digging around on the Internet, you can end up doing some very deep dives...)