Each convention's organizing entity is encouraged (but not required) to pass profits along to the next set of organizers, primarily to offset the cost of manufacturing the award statuettes.
Some, yes, but it is not a lot of money, per se, that is needed to manufacture the statuettes. The bulk of the profits go to the hosting organization and stay there, which is usually tens of thousands of dollars. In DC’s case it was eighty thousand dollars. In others it may be closer to forty thousand dollars, on average. It is a cash cow, and usually designed to put more money into local coffers. I know WSFA is still sitting on giant gobs of cash from the last time they hosted World Fantasy, back in 2003. The financials used to be public and online, but I think it was somewhere in the area of thirty thousand dollars, maybe forty? (Yes, the WSFA Journal confirms this, now that I have checked). In any case most of the money these days comes from two major sources: membership fees, and the souvenir book. Rina really brought home the bacon with the latter, in 2014. So much money . . . In any case the hosting organizations honestly work at the behest of the WFC board, or Hartwell originally, so assigning money to the awards should not be a major issue. It could be even a requirement, much like the harassment policies, as part of their proposals to the board, with this much money assigned . . .
The only conclusion I can draw from the evidence I have--with full acknowledgment that I may be missing something--is that it works the other way around from what I originally thought: WFC exists to make money for hosting organizations, and the WFAs exist to draw people to WFC. The centering of profit gives rise to the belief that anyone who can't afford to attend isn't worth having around, award-nominated or not. Once that belief is accepted, all the rest of the policies make perfect sense.
Sadly you are correct and I don't see it changing any time soon. Alas, it occurs to me what worked for Readercon, alas, would not work here, too. Crippling a WFC only hurts the hosting organization, and very little else. With WFC essentially unincorporated and not a legal entity whatsoever it is even harder to leverage pressure. :(
It's a rackett -- a rackett that everyone knows is a rackett yet goes right along with it because it gives in return -- well, that's the part that's unclear. Somebody gets an ugly statue, that s/he pays for?
Fairly typical of some conventions, I think. I remember when I was nominated for an Origins award (for tabletop gaming), no one bothered to contact me; when I won, no one bothered to let me know until a few months later; when I contacted them to confirm, they had misplaced the actual award.... They told me they could make me one from next year's stock - if I wanted to pay for it myself. No thanks...
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james_davis_nicoll) wrote2016-03-30 05:24 pm
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This was my assessment last year:
The only conclusion I can draw from the evidence I have--with full acknowledgment that I may be missing something--is that it works the other way around from what I originally thought: WFC exists to make money for hosting organizations, and the WFAs exist to draw people to WFC. The centering of profit gives rise to the belief that anyone who can't afford to attend isn't worth having around, award-nominated or not. Once that belief is accepted, all the rest of the policies make perfect sense.
I have seen no reason to change it since.
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(Anonymous) 2016-04-01 02:03 am (UTC)(link)