Kevin Roche is the chair of Worldcon 76 in San Jose.

Kevin is “a fan for all seasons,” with extensive experience in convention running and many other aspects of SF/F genre conventions. He co-chaired Westercon 66 in Sacramento in 2013 and chaired Costume-Con 26 in San José in 2008. Worldcon attendees will have most recently seen him as...

Kevin Roche is the chair of Worldcon 76 in San Jose.

Kevin is “a fan for all seasons,” with extensive experience in convention running and many other aspects of SF/F genre conventions. He co-chaired Westercon 66 in Sacramento in 2013 and chaired Costume-Con 26 in San José in 2008. Worldcon attendees will have most recently seen him as Masquerade Master of Ceremonies at the 2015 Worldcon, Sasquan. He also co-directed the 2011 Worldcon’s Masquerade as well as Masquerades at Anime Los Angeles, Westercon, and BayCon. He has been part of convention programming teams at several past Worldcons.

Kevin has extensive and well-received convention hospitality experience, including running the convention hospitality suite at the 2009 World Fantasy Convention in San José, and recently as bartender for the Helsinki in 2017 Worldcon bid. Fans across the USA have seen him as Fan Guest of Honor at conventions from the San Francisco Bay Area to Texas, Iowa, and Boston. He also has conference organization experience outside of the SF/F genre, having been the event registrar for scientific events (SpinCurrents 2009, SpinAge 2010, and Superconductivity 297k! organized under the direction of IBM Fellow Dr. Stuart SP Parkin).

Kevin has been making costumes since he was 8, and continues dressing funny to this day. In his secret identity as a research scientist at IBM Research Almaden, he's hard at work wrangling giant robot vacuum chambers and electrons in atomically engineered materials, and has recently joined the IBM Q quantum outreach team.

 

Kevin is also created Thinbot, the gold-medal winner in robotic bartending at Robogames, the international robotics competition, in 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2016. Thinbot is not infrequently found hard at work serving visitors to Kevin and Andy's parties at conventions.

As part of the San Jose Worldcon bid, Kevin designed and constructed the San Jose Galactic LIght Tower, a 32’ tall (1/10 scale) replica of the historic San Jose Electric Light Tower, which was first exhibited at MidAmeriCon II, the 2016 Worldcon in Kansas City last August. The tower incorporates 3000 addressable animated LEDs, controlled via cell phone app. (photos of the tower are also viewable at its facebook gallery)
Kevin is also the editor of Yipe! The Costume Fanzine of Record (www.yipezine.com),

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Don't miss your chance to nominate for the Hugos! Register as a member before December 31, 2017!

An important reminder: if you wish to nominate works for the 2018 Hugo Awards, you must be a qualified member of the World Science Fiction Society by December 31, 2017.

(To clarify: this is just to qualify to *nominate* for the Hugos. To vote on the final ballot you must be a supporting or attending member of Worldcon 76. Nominations will not actually open until early 2018)

There are 3 ways you can qualify as a member to nominate works:

  1. Have been a supporting or attending member of the most recent World Science Fiction Convention, Worldcon 75 (Helsinki, August 2017)

  2. Register as a supporting or attending member of the 2018 World Science Fiction Convention, Worldcon 76 in San Jose. This happens to be our favorite.  (This also qualifies you to vote on the final ballot.)
    http://www.worldcon76.org/membership/how-to-register

  3. Register as a supporting or attending member of the 2019 World Science Fiction Convention, Dublin 2019: An Irish Worldcon

Don't miss your chance to nominate! Register as a member today!

Note: as mentioned above, to vote on the final ballot for the 2018 Hugo Awards, you must be a supporting or attending member of the 2018 World Science Fiction Convention, Worldcon 76 in San Jose, before the final voting deadline.

 

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1943 Retrospective Hugo Awards to be presented at Worldcon 76!

On Saturday, December 2, Worldcon 76 in San Jose and Dublin 2019: An Irish Worldcon (the 76th and 77th World Science Fiction Conventions) issued the following joint announcement:

The Hugo Awards, presented first in 1953 and annually since 1955, are science fiction’s most prestigious award, and one of the World Science Fiction Convention’s unique and distinguished institutions.

Just this summer, the Hugo Awards were recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running science fiction award.

Since 1993,  Worldcon committees have had the option of awarding Retrospective Hugo Awards for past Worldcon years (1939 onwards) where they had not been presented a multiple of 25 years prior to the contemporary convention, with the exception of the hiatus during World War II when no Worldcon was convened.

This summer, however, a revision to the rules was ratified which gives Worldcon 76 in San Jose and Dublin 2019: An Irish Worldcon an opportunity which, if neglected, won’t return for another quarter century.

With that opportunity in mind, we are pleased to announce that Worldcon 76 will be presenting the 1943 and Dublin 2019 the 1944 Retrospective Hugo Awards during their respective conferences:

Worldcon 76 in San Jose invites you on the evening of August 16, 2018,  to walk the red carpet back through time to a 1943 Worldcon that never was, and celebrate with other fans the works of 1942.

Dublin 2019, An Irish Worldcon is planning a First Night extravaganza, combining Opening Ceremonies and the Retro Hugos, celebrating the past, present and future of both the genre and Worldcon.

During those tumultuous years, there was no shortage of speculative fiction, including the introductory versions of works destined to become classics. Live and animated cinematic works of all lengths provided escape to people around the world.

We invite you now to join us on a brief visual tour of those years, some of the marvelous, the strange, the terrifying and the wonderful works of genre, and help us select the Retro Hugos for works of 1942 and 1943.
As we make our future tomorrow, so too we can celebrate these Visions of Future Past.

View the 1942 retrospective video

 View the 1943 retrospective video

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Hotel Reservations Open For Members Tomorrow

The Number One Question we've been asked since spring is "When will room reservations open?"

We have just sent out an email to all registered members informing them that hotel reservations for members open tomorrow, Nov 22, at 1PM PST.
Reservation information will be posted publicly here on the website at a later date, to ensure members get first crack at the hotels.

(Actually, we sent out 3, because yours truly typoed both the date and time, setting it two weeks in the past. Clearly I was undercaffeinated.)

If you are a member (attending or supporting) and did not receive a copy of that email, please write This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. so we can fix it.

And yes, we are aware there is a 4th typo in the email, our hotel information page is https://www.worldcon76.org/travel-lodging/hotels (that typo was inserted by the editor interface, not me)

Please spread the word!

Our SJ Galactic Tower in the Chair's Backyard

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The Worldcon 76 Program Needs You!

Are you interested in being a Program Participant?  Have a great idea for a Program Item?  Then what are you waiting for?!  Both can be submitted using our handy form here on the website.  If you are submitting a Program Item and want to be on the item, please make sure to give us your name, as the form does not automatically capture that info.
 

You can make panel and topic suggestions through our Program Item Submission Form

You can make program participant suggestions (including yourself) through our Program Participant Suggestion Form

 (And don't forget we're always looking for more staff and volunteers.. check out our Volunteer Page!

 

 

 

(PS: remember all program participants and volunteers have to be members of Worldcon 76. If you haven't yet, start your registration today by making a down payment on an attending membership!

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Hotel Info coming soon... Reservations open later this year

One of the number one questions that we keep hearing is "When will hotel reservations open?"

We'll be updating our travel pages soon*, and there will be lots of hotel information in the PR coming out in the next month. We expect reservations to go live (via our RegOnline system) late this fall. 

*The "Facilities" page does now list all the hotels we have contracted blocks with already.

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Service Mark Notice

"World Science Fiction Society", "WSFS", "World Science Fiction Convention", "Worldcon", "NASFiC" and "Hugo Award" are service marks of the World Science Fiction Society, an unincorporated literary society. You can contact the WSFS Mark Protection Committee at mpc@wsfs.org.