The 81st World Science Fiction Convention in 2023 site selection votes are in, and the winner is Chengdu, a first for the the People’s Republic of China. The convention dates are August 23-29, 2023. The convention’s guests of honor will be authors Sergey Lukianenko, Russia [Night Watch series], Robert Sawyer, Canada [Neanderthal Parallax series], and Liu Cixin, China [The Three-Body Problem].

Convention bidding committee web pages.

The Chinese version looks ready, but the English is still in the “bidding” phase, soon to turn over into the convention page proper:

Chinese: http://www.worldconinchina.com/kh/
English: http://www.worldconinchina.com/index-e.html

Chengdu

“The Happiest City in China” according to polls, Chengdu is the capitol of Sichuan Province, in the south-west of the People’s Republic of China, with many attractions for travelers, with or without the excuse of a Worldcon to go there. There are only about 1,800 giant pandas left in the wild today, of which more than 1,300 live in Chengdu, making it the “hometown of pandas”.

CNN has run a glowing article recently about travel to Chengdu, which begins: “While China still hasn’t announced solid plans to reopen its border to international leisure travelers, there’s no harm in starting to dream about your next visit now.”

In the meantime: the 80th World Science Fiction Convention, also known as Chicon 8, will take place in Chicago, Illinois, USA from September 1-5, 2022.

For more information on next year’s WorldCon, please visit https://chicon.org/

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Susan L. Fox