The Pan-Pennsylvania Smofcon is delighted to "pass the Smofcon torch" to the Totally Toronto Smofcon in 2013! Congrats to Diane Lacey & crew.
Many thanks to CANSMOF for awarding two Smofcon scholarships to Danielle MacDonald (Ontario, Canada) and James Shields (County Meath, Ireland).
You'll find information at this site about Smofcon 30, which was held in Philadelphia from November 30-December 2, 2012. It was the second-largest Smofcon ever, attracting 196 members from across America, Canada, the UK and Australia. The weather was excellent which made wandering Philadelphia very pleasant.
- Smofcon 30 Convention Guide
- Fannish Inquisition Presentations & FAQs
- Philadelphia
- Our hotel, the Hyatt Regency at Penn's Landing.
- Restaurants - Restaurant Guide
- Getting to Smofcon
- The convention theme - evaluation and teambuilding
- Local beer tasting on 11/29, 4pm-6pm in the Con Suite
- How to register.
- Membership list as of 12/2
- Get to Know Philadelphia on Friday night - have a long dinner, visit the shops, hit a museum (a few are open Friday evening) or stop by the Philadelphia Fantastic Authors and Editors Series where Lawrence Schoen will be reading.
- For the Star Trek fans out there, there's a TNG event on Thursday, November 29 - the Riverview Plaza Stadium 17 is only a mile down South Columbus from the hotel.
- Presentation for the Smofcon 30 bid, given at the Smofcon 29 Fannish Inquisition in Amsterdam. History of the Philadelphia bid.
- Official Smofcon Site
Committee
Joni Brill Dashoff: Pre-con Registration, Treasury
Laurie Mann: Program, Web, Badges, Publicity
Todd Dashoff & Ann Marie Rudolph: Hotel
Jim Mann: Beer
Ben Yalow: Advisor
Friday Program Workshop: Priscilla Olson, assisted by Jim Mann, Janice Gelb, Ian Stockdale and Steven Silver
Friday Budget Workshop: Joni Dashoff & Bob Macintosh
Saturday Night Fannish Inquisition (Smofcon & Worldcon): Helen Montgomery, assisted by Deb Geisler and Stephen Boucher
At-con Registration: Saul Jaffe, assisted by Gary Plumlee
Hospitality Suite: Sara Paul
Cheesemonger: Dave Axler
Restaurant Guide: Stacey Helton McConnell
Many thanks to:
- Phoenix in 2014 NASFiC bid for a generous con suite donation
- Detroit in 2014 NASFiC bid for Friday evening cocktails
- Spokane in 2015 Worldcon bid for Saturday breakfast
- Helsinki in 2015 Worldcon bid for Saturday evening cocktails
- Orlando in 2015 Worldcon bid for Sunday morning breakfast
- Rick Kovalcik for the loan of his sound system, screen and transport of a data projector
- MCFI for loan of a data projector
- PSFS for loan of a data projector and flip charts
- BSFS for loan of Con Suite equipment
- the Greater Delaware Valley chapter of the International Costumers Guild aka the Lunatyk Phrynge for its support
- Philip Thorne for taking notes at a number of panels
- Dave C. for loaning a laminate punch
- Ruth Leibig & Henry Balen for program database support
- Mary Dumas and David Goldstein for recording the Fannish Inquisition
- Debi Chowdhury for cutting an impressive number of bagels
- GoogleMaps for maps
- Anthrocon
- Kira Heston for loan of badge laminator
- Barbara Van Tilburg & OffWorld Design for an appropriate T-shirt
- Mike Nelson for some specialty beers
- and Danny Lieberman and the Hyatt Regency for photos
History of the Philadelphia Smofcon
by Laurie Mann
The notion of a Smofcon in Pennsylvania goes back at least to 1993, at the Lexington, KY Smofcon. I got up and said at the vote for future Smofcons I'd like to bring one to Pittsburgh. Downtown Pittsburgh hotels were relatively cheap. Since then, Pittsburgh hotels have gotten almost as expensive as anyplace else and the downtown restaurant scene has improved quite a bit. Over the next 15 years or so, I'd float this trial balloon, and Lynn Cohen-Koehler started floating one for Hershey (which is a cool place to spend a day if you're driving across Pennsylvania).
But, by the early '00s, Pittsburgh lost its designation as a hub city for US Airways, and it was increasingly hard for people to fly directly to Pittsburgh. I was critical of the Hershey bid as, once people flew to Philadelphia, getting to Hershey wasn't all that easy unless you rented a car.
Joni Dashoff and I decided to join forces to bring a Smofcon bid to Philadelphia, and, thus, the "Pan-Pennsylvania Smofcon Committee" was born. Todd and Joni would handle the hotel and money, I'd handle the programming and the Web, Jim would handle the beer. Ben Yalow came on board to help out as well, even though he didn't live in Pennsylvania.
Joni and I talked it up at a couple of Smofcons, and the vote for our Smofcon would be at Amsterdam. Much as I wanted to be there, I couldn't go so I put together a PowerPoint presentation that Joni gave. We wound up being uncontested, won by show of hands.
And, this Website will tell you much of the rest of the story,
