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Saturday 25th AugustERIC BENTCLIFFE: When I awoke Saturday, a monsoon was hovering over Brighton, and even wearing a cagoule over a raincoat I was saturated by the time I reached the Metropole, and beginning to wish I hadn't left the car at home. After drying my feet using a hand-drying machine in the Metropole toilet, not a very easy manoeuvre after a fan party or two and little sleep; I headed once more for the fan room. Not directly, of course, I never went anywhere directly at Seacon; each sortie was a pleasurable zig-zag from group to group, conversation to conversation, being handed fanzines here, hearing of Wild American Fan Adventures Abroad there. I got to the fan room in time for the latter half of the Fan Artist Panel featuring Alexis Gilliland, Harry Bell, Jim Barker, and that old Walnut Tree Rancher, Bill Rotsler - and frustration followed. I hadn't known Bill was at the con...we'd responded by tape and letter in the past, and he'd gifted me with many fine illos, and I wanted to talk with him. But, I was on the next programme item and we had only time for a few brief words (and for Bill to present me with a hand-crafted Rotsler con-badge), and never managed to find one another again. Seacon was sometimes too big.
KEV WILLIAMS: [There was] a deputation to the hotel manager (myself, Pete Weston, our lawyer Tim Stannard, John Steward, and to lend weight - physical, not intellectual - Jerry Pournelle). The manager was suitably impressed and readily agreed that perhaps Kurtz's actions of the previous night had been a little hasty, and that we should rest assured that everything would be alright for the rest of the convention. Indeed after this first incident the hotel staff were great. It became a routine scene to see dozens of crashed-out forms on expensive velour seats in the wine bar and Sussex Lounge every morning. Sleeping rough was everywhere blatant - nobody was disturbed. TERRY CARR: Saturday effectively began with lunch with Vicki Schochet, Berkley/Putnam's main editor, who would be a good person even if she weren’t important. She told me much about the current recession in U.S. publishing, sales being down 12% or whatever, but since we’d agreed this was to be a social conversation rather than a business one we quickly segued to being Silly. I excused myself rather early on the grounds that I had to go off and be a fan for a while: I was scheduled on a panel on British fandom in the fifties for which I'd join Bob Shaw and Eric Bentcliffe as the token foreigner. PETER ROBERTS: I chaired the fan writing panel (Terry Hughes, Kevin Smith, & Dave Langford) and took a break listening to the fan artists before chairing the second British chat show (Eric Bentcliffe, Bob Shaw, and Terry Carr) – more good anecdotes and odd items. The discussion on producing fanzines seems a bit futile amidst the fan room bustle (there'll have to be a separate room for the fan programme – next time, and that's a phrase I kept hearing), but a couple of newcomers are asking around and so a small discussion actually starts. TERRY CARR: It was my first visit to the Fan Room, which was surprisingly crowded, though I shortly discovered this was partly because the Committee had at the last minute been forced to switch venues for this so that in one (large) room we had a speakers' table, audience chairs, a bar, a few fan-hucksters' tables and a number of computer games. The atmosphere was a little like trying to discuss Seventh Fandom in a Las Vegas casino. Not that the audience was unreceptive; there were maybe thirty or forty people listening with varying degrees of fascination, from comparatively new fans like Dave Langford and Dave Piper to the more blasé older fans like Boyd Raeburn and Ken Bulmer. One young fan even came up to Bob Shaw before our panel and asked him to autograph a copy of The Enchanted Duplicator. "I understand this is famous," he said. "Walter Willis wrote most of it," Bob said as he signed; "the idea was mine."
Then, expertly guided by moderator Peter Roberts, Bob and Eric and I proceeded to do the obligatory reminiscence number about HYPHEN and TRIODE, SuperManCons, OPERATION FANTAST, FANAC and Brian Burgess. I always wonder why audiences sit still for this stuff, especially since it's always punctuated by "Uh, I think that was in 1952, or was it in Leeds?" and "Then the funniest thing happened, but I can’t tell you about that!" But Terry Hughes beamed happily throughout, and even Boyd, whose A BAS we forgot to mention, didn't shuffle his feet much. Afterward I signed autographs - how nice to have INNUENDOs thrust before me instead of copies of 'Warlord of Kor', especially since the fellow with the INNUENDOs mentioned that he’d paid eight pounds a copy at the auction for them. (Wish I’d saved the stencils.) As I was leaving I ran across James White, who inducted me into Average Height Fandom, i.e., people six-feet-two or over. He mentioned that there was also an Average Girth Fandom, and though I’m not yet eligible he added helpfully that one can belong to both organizations simultaneously. PETER ROBERTS: Enter the BBC (and Arthur C Clarke – coincidence?) to film the discussion. Sudden crush of potential TV stars. Neos frightened off. Some fantasy fan hogs the camera; I try to stutter something incoherent as a tv camera strokes my face, lights burn out my eyes, microphone booms tangle in my hair, and something is shoved between my legs (is that the BBC or someone seizing an obscure opportunity?).
Chris Priest interviewed Douglas Adams at 5pm for an item titled 'Across the Galaxy by TARDIS and Thumb':
TERRY CARR: I spent the rest of the afternoon alternating between the bar and the County Suite, where first Bob Silverberg then Lisa Tuttle (who kept being called "Liza") were giving readings from their works. I listened to their Introductory remarks (Bob, having been twitted by Susan Wood when she introduced him, for his well-publicized retirement from writing, promised never again to announce that he was quitting) then left when they began reading, because I don't believe being read-to allows me to judge anyone’s work properly. KEV WILLIAMS: Kurtz turned up in the Opsroom one afternoon and announced dramatically -
"We're going to call the bomb squad, Somebody has padlocked a metal box to the
leg of the piano in the Sussex Lounge". Kurtz remained unconvinced of the existence of any such person. Filthy Pierre was tannoyed, came, and unlocked his box and went. Under the steely eyes of Kurtz. (And we all know what was in the box don't we?).
We had this problem with the guy who caused the chaos at the opening ceremony, by deciding that he didn’t think that the music played was apt for an opening ceremony of a science fiction convention and so he decided to do something about it. We became rather attached to [him], but kinda wished that he were attached to something sharp with barbs. He accused the committee of not obeying fire regulations and threatened to call the fire brigade and police one evening when he thought that the main doors at the rear of the con hall, which opened onto the street, were locked. But they weren't. R.Lee's lads had wrapped chains round the handles to stop gatecrashers from thinking that they could come *in*. We set R.Lee Smith on him. He was bristling. "It's my responsibility, not his. If he thinks that there are any problems just point him out to me. I'll give him one he can really worry about." In fact, there were very few security problems at Seacon. Both R.Lee and Kurtz were surprised that this was so in a convention of such a size. "We get more trouble with the Conservatives Conference", R.Lee announced to me one day. TERRY CARR: That evening was the occasion for the Gollancz champagne reception at the Royal Pavilion, for which one had to have an engraved invitation to get in. I walked over with Vonda McIntyre, and when we entered we were formally announced: "Miss! Vonda! McIntyre!" "Mister! Terry! Carr!" Then we went down the reception line of Gollancz people: "How nice to see you." "What a lovely occasion." I believe everyone should have at least one chance during life to be announced at the door; even if you're one of two hundred attendees, it's really a trip. ...During the reception, servers kept coming by with plates of caviar and those-little-sandwiches-with-the-crusts-cut- off; also, our glasses of champagne kept being unobtrusively refilled - so unobtrusively that some of us didn't always notice, with the result that some of us kept thinking we were still working on our first glasses and thus got bombed out of our gourds - it was, after all, before dinner. The reception lasted quite a while longer than scheduled and I talked with lots and lots of real famous people let me tell you. The most delightful meeting I had was with a young man who wore a name-tag that said, 'One of the McCaffrey entourage. (Lover of Anne McCaffrey’s daughter)',- which I thought was pretty up-front; he said it saved him a lot of time in explanations.
Back at the Metropole, we milled around in the bar for a while. Joyce Scrivner came by and asked me if I wanted to be a supporter or the Minneapolis in '73 bid and I said I hadn't yet decided on how I was going to vote that far in the future. The said, "No no, not nineteen eighty-three - this is for our bid for seventy-three, which we lost." "Then why should I nay you for a supporting membership?" "You don't pay me: I pay you one cent." I took the null-A pause, then muttered, "Best business deal I've made all day." She gave me a "post-supporting membership" card, and a penny, and I wandered off wondering how to declare this on my income tax return. ERIC BENTCLIFFE: A more pleasant interlude after lunch was spent in the downstairs bar with the Coulsons, John Owen, Jim Cawthorn, and Dave Piper - amongst others - the personnel of the group kept changing as one or another fan joined in the conversation or drifted away. Dave Piper, at his first convention but acting like a tried and true veteran, was a pleasant find and I hope this won't be his last convention. Of the American fans I met at Seacon who I'd met previously, I'd essay that Buck and Juanita have changed the least. The fact that they have a long, prolific, and continuous involvement in fandom (despite both now being pro-authors, as well) probably has something to do with this, as does the fact that they are one of the few married fannish couples to remain so. A sort of American Ina & Norman Shorrock, and that's praise....
The FANCY DRESS that evening was....fantastic....GREAT! To one used to the most outre convention costume being a bare Brian Burgess, this was fabulous...even though we did still get the bare Brian. Many of the costumes were quite beautiful; almost all were of a very high standard and the presentations were well executed. Bob Tucker made an excellent compere (almost beyond compere, even) and the two STAR WARS Stormtroopers helped him enliven those occasional lapses when a hitch or an itch caused problems backstage.
I'd watched the Fancy Dress from the hall balcony, together with a crowd of frustrated photographers - frustrated because they weren't allowed to use their flash-units. Whilst having some sympathy with them I think the committee had made the right decision here, for there is little that is more off-putting for an audience, or contestant encased in an ornate but visibility restricting costume, than the constant explosion (megablitz power) of Japanese terror weapons. I'd been a little late getting to the Fancy Dress, and perforce not had time to locate the Portable Shorrock Bar before the parade took place, but I was able to locate it whilst the judging took place and, since it was well sited at the rear of the hall, get a second look at several of the contestants as they posed for photographers. S-F surely is a wonderful thing.
As well as extending the stage for the Fancy Dress a runway was added (photo mm). The inevitable Doctor Who and Leela pairing included a somewhat uncooperative dog in a cardboard K-9 costume. Note Fritz Leiber on judge's table at left. PETER ROBERTS: There's the fancy dress in the evening – I missed the beginning by chatting to Dave Piper (his first convention and he claims he's not been out of the fan room yet), but took a look later on. Drew & Kathy Sanders as the Tarot King & Queen are excellent and there's some other items of note – certainly better than your average Eastercon costumes. Mind you, there's always Brian Burgess prancing around.
LISANNE SUTHERLAND: I was one of the Fancy Dress competitors. We gathered in Hall 2 at 7.30pm for the pre-judging and photographic session. After being allocated numbers, we were herded behind a curtain into a tiny triangular area. There were 60-70 people at least, in costumes ranging from scantily fragile to bulkily fragile, all trying to squeeze into the tiny space until their name was called. In fact we had to overflow into Hall 1-- there was no way Katie and her 20ft wings could have fitted in there. On hearing your number, you emerged to walk past the battery of cameras, stopping briefly on each of the 3 marked areas. We had to do this twice. Then it was 9pm and we were lined up behind curtained screens in Hall 1 waiting for the real competition... at this point a friend had to be taken out of her robot maid costume suffering from heat prostration. None of us had expected to be on our feet so long, nor had we anticipated the cramped, overheated conditions. After that incident, kind souls came round with glasses of iced water and saved several lives! (Thank you from all of us, whoever you are.) The only really cool ones amongst us were those in body paint or (like our Katie) in wings!
The worst part was, as usual, waiting to go on. Once on the stage, it was too late to worry. Then there was the wait for the results. I don’t know how long that took, since it isn't ethnic for Darkovans to wear wrist watches; it seemed to take hours. Only afterwards were we free to find liquid sustenance and to change. We had been in costume for at least 5 hours: a long time for those in robot, android, dragon, star-trooper, Darth Vader and green Wookie costumes. It was an experience. I thought the couple of hours at Yorcon Fancy Dress were bad... those for whom this was their first Worldcon fancy-dress learned something-- to wear as little as possible! DAVE LANGFORD: Note to future organizers: it was a minor mistake not to have roped off the part of the hall reserved for competitors after they'd paraded. Instead there was an irascible security guard who ordered people around more or less at random and irrespective of whether they were standing in the way of anything. Though my memory may be playing tricks, I seem to recall this chap walking round me to evict D.West, who was standing further away from the reserved area than I... By the way, Lisanne won something or other with her group, as she fails to mention partly through modesty and partly because she revealed all in a piece for Ken Slater's catalogue. Rumour had it that Katie S wanted to reveal all also, but settled for a G-string and wings which coyly hid her shoulder-blades.
While not the first female fan to go topless in the Masquerade/Fancy Dress (see MASQUERADE) she was the first to do so in the UK, going as Avluela from Robert Silverberg's 'Nightwings' as depicted on the cover of the 1970s Sphere Books paperback. (Not a cover that would appear on a book today.) Note that two assistants were needed to support the wings. MERV BINNS: Just about fainting in the hot and constrictive costumes designed by John Breden, and worn by John Foyster, George Turner and I, we suffered through nearly four hours of pre-judging, photography, the parade, and then waiting for the announcement of the winners. This was a bit much to take.
Much to the disgust of the Scandinavian fans who are opposing our Australian bid for the Worldcon in 1983, our presentation of characters from Cordwainer Smith's 'NORSTRILIA' series with the three Lords mentioned above, Justin Ackroyd and Alex Wasiliew as Roman Soldier Robots, Sue Pagram as 'C'Mell', Chris Johnson as 'Rod McBann', Cherry Wilder as 'Mother Hitten' with David Grigg and Bruce Barnes as 'underpersons', got a great reception from the audience. After carrying George Turner on in a hastily rigged sort of 'sedan chair', we switched on his electronic gear. He rose and after nods of ascent from the other two Lords, a banner was unfurled by the robots saying, 'OLD NORTH AUSTRALIA IN '83'
George incidently, was more than once taken for a British author. This again indicates that we need to blow our trumpet a lot more in Australia to let SF people all around the world know we are here, and that we are a rapidly growing force in the SF field. Apparently, very little was known about our bid for 1983 before this convention, and although we have to do a great deal more before we have any chance of winning it, everybody knows after out presentation that WE ARE IN THE RACE FOR 1983. So the time, cost and effort put into the presentation was all worthwhile. (Anybody want to buy some slightly used fancy [dress] costumes.)
The Scandinavian contingent, in answer to our NORSTRILIA presentation, were the last on, with what seemed a rather hurriedly put together act.
In the event the 1983 Worldcon was held in Baltimore, with Australia hosting it in 1985. GEORGE PACZOLT: The award for the most obnoxious group at the worldcon has got to go to 'Scandinavia in '83's group, who put advertising stickers over everything, including the hotel's paint and woodwork (the mess really showed on Monday, when all the flyers were taken down - no doubt the con committee really heard about that from the hotel management), other committee's signs, bodies of anyone walking past, and even had a person at the masquerade attempting to stick stickers on the contestant's costumes! General undercurrent that wafted by me was that they blew more goodwill than they made. TERRY CARR: Several of us decided to go up to the SFWA Suite to see what was happening there; we found a large room filled with tables, chairs, liquor and not too many people. We co-opted a table and stayed for the night's partying, our table being, urn, chaired at various times by Sid, Ted White, Susan Wood and Elinor Busby; Frank Brunner, the artist, was there for a while, and Malcolm Edwards, etc. Mainly, this was the night we began hearing of Brighton's contribution to the tradition of closed-door pro parties: several publishers had thrown parties to which only their authors were admitted, or at best only people whose names were on a list held by a given public relations person who guarded the door(s) like Cerberus. Some truly startling tales reached our ears as one rejectee after another came to the SFWA Suite. Joan Vinge, a Hugo winner, had been turned away from the party of ore publisher who'd brought out two of her books: someone had forgotten to put her name on The List. Ian Watson, no slouch himself as a writer, had been refused admittance to the Omni party; he protested that Ben Bova himself had invited him, but the pr person muttered, "Who's Ben Bova?" as she shut the door. At another party, several respected writers were turned away at the door and the pr person was heard to grumble, "More American riffraff." This led to quite a few people wearing name-tags thereafter with the legend AMERICAN RIFF-RAFF. Some heroes emerged from these encounters: people who left such parties in protest (Jacqueline Lichtenberg was one of these), and another, Norman Spinrad, who controlled his temper while he tried to explain just who these people were who were being sent away. In Norman's case, there was a somewhat happy ending because the Cerberus involved apologized profusely the next day and insisted on giving him a free ticket to the Banquet. I don’t think any reparations were made to the rejected people, though. Naturally we made Jokes like "Arthur C. who?" and such.
LINDA BUSHYAGER: The rumour began with Karen Anderson not being admitted to the Omni closed party at SeaCon, and being turned away with the charming phrase "We don’t want you Yankee riff raff here." Rumours quickly multiplied to include other authors excluded by secret parties, particularly Vonda McIntyre. Freff than drew up a badge reading "Yankee Riff Raff", copies of which were being worn at Novacon, two months later. The rumours were false, however. Karen Anderson later said that she forgot her invitation, but that Ben Bova saw her at the door and had her admitted. Vonda McIntyre denied she was kept from parties either. British invitational parties being what they are, though, the fact remains that some authors probably were excluded from some parties. The phrase "Yankee Riff Raff", though, is unfortunately a mere invention. Along the same lines, a mundane woman was preventing fans from entering an Aussie fan party, apparently believing it was a part of the mundane party next door. TERRY CARR: I mock-proudly told everyone who’d listen that I hadn’t been thrown out of a single party at the convention, mainly because I hadn’t even heard of them. Some more strange rumours came down from the Gollancz room party. Reportedly Brian Aldiss had grown enraged at Charles Platt and chased him into another room, from which loud cries and thumpings emerged; when this blew over, Jerry Pournelle suddenly heard Platt’s name and he took off after Platt, crying, "You called me a fascist in print! - I’m going to sue!" This encounter too was quieted down, though Jerry was still threatening to sue. ("Fascist" is evidently an actionable word in the United States, even in literary criticism.) PETER ROBERTS: Parties later, but I'm easily befuddled and don't remember where. I did get paid 1¢ to attend the Minneapolis in 73 bidding party – that might have been Saturday.
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