I may look back one day and realise I lived through the final years of LitFandom

[major_clanger]

"You are offering a room full of vintage first-edition hardbacks to a group of people who read books on their phones."

Madeline Ashby: 'Memento mori. (Or, how Worldcon’s youth problem will resolve.)'

If I had more time this would be a long post ranging over:

• how the people I see at conventions in my mid-40s are in large part those I went to cons with in my mid-20s
• the demographics and atmosphere at Nine Worlds as compared with Eastercon/Worldcon
• the lack of progress towards panel parity or meaningful anti-harassment policies at Worldcon

...and sundry related topics. But most of these are issues that are already being discussed, and I'll content myself for now with pointing to Ashby's very insightful post on how, unless these points are addressed, LitFandom's problems are going to end up being of purely historical interest.

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

O_o

That's ... very bad. Is it just half-assed, or do you think there's a deliberate policy of deterring older con-goers?

(Speculating that older con-goers -- especially with kids -- are less easily parted from disposable income than teens and twenty-somethings with no commitments like mortgages or childraising costs, and cons with permanent employees might prioritize providing revenue streams for large dealer operations or sponsors like games or film or comic companies who will help keep them in business ....)

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

See my comment. The article I link to suggests that Dragoncon stopped offering child care because it was underused, but of course if you make a convention unfriendly or awkward to people with young children then they won't come, so of course demand for child care will drop off.

I also wonder if there are legal issues. Running child care for 500 young children (my rough guess at the demand if it scaled from what I've seen at other cons) would be a daunting prospect. To all intents and purposes, you'd be setting up a summer camp in its own right.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Argh. Googling "DragonCon Children" brings up the whole Ed Kramer business....

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Yes, don't go there.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Wish I hadn't....

[autopope.livejournal.com]

I forgot the Ed Kramer thing. Of course that would deter parents with young children from going to DragonCon!

But he's disentangled, now. So it'll be interesting to see what they do in future years.