MagiCon

(Did you mean a New Orleans regional?)

MagiCon, the 50th Worldcon, and second in Florida, was held September 3–7, 1992, at the Orange County Convention and Civic Center, The Peabody Hotel and The Clarion Hotel, Orlando, FL. GoHs: Jack Vance (pro), Vincent Di Fate (artist) and FGoH: Walter A. Willis. Spider Robinson was Toastmaster, but Mike Resnick acted as MC for the Meet-the-Pros party. It was chaired by Joe Siclari and sponsored by FANAC.

See 1992 Hugos, 1995 Worldcon Site Selection, 1995 NASFiC Site Selection.

Orlando in 1992 was the bid for MagiCon and won against competition from DC in '92 which was forced to withdraw a couple of months before the vote. See 1992 Worldcon Site Selection

MagiCon's exhibit hall featured a miniature golf course themed around The Enchanted Duplicator in honor of Fan GoH Walt Willis.

Mike Glyer commented at the time that "The con's pleasing personality could only have come from organizers who had looked into their own hearts for what people value in a worldcon, then spared no effort to deliver it."

MagiCon Art Retrospective

The MagiCon Art Retrospective was the first attempt to provide a historical exhibit of science fiction art at a Worldcon. It was conceived by Chairman Joe Siclari, a genre art collector, to take advantage of the special knowledge of Artist GoH Vincent Di Fate.

Di Fate had written and spoken widely about S-F art, its history and its influence in other media. He had also organized numerous special exhibits and had consulted at various auction houses and museums. Di Fate enlisted the help of Roger Reed, the director of Illustration House, a leading art gallery specializing in illustration art.

The exhibit encompassed dozens of illustrations covering over a century of art, starting in 1913. Among the artists included: Wayne Barlowe, Rudolph Belarski, John Berkey, Hannes Bok, Edmund Dulac, Dean Ellis, Virgil Finlay, Frank Frazetta, Kelly Freas, Fred Freeman, Jack Gaughan, Josh Kirby, Paul Lehr, Stanley Meltzoff, Leo Morey, Frank R. Paul, Ludek Pesek, Richard Powers, J. Allen St. John, John Schoenherr, Andrei Sokolov, Gene Szafran and more.

The popularity of the MagiCon Art Retrospective encouraged other Worldcons to provide the resources to develop additional special art exhibitions, most notably Chicon 6 (2000) and Noreascon 4 (2004).

More Information

• MagiCon publications and photos on fanac.org.
• Virtual Memory Book.
• MagiCon videos.
  • Isaac Asimov memorial.
  • Walt Willis interview by Ted White.
  • Memories of the First Worldcon.
  • Joe Siclari interviewed by Warren Buff.
  • Vincent di Fate talk.
• Mike Glyer reposts File770 reports on the convention, 25 years on.
• Joe Siclari and Edie Stern recount some of their MagiCon stories.

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Chicon V	Worldcon - Bidding - Hugos	ConFrancisco
SunCon	Florida Worldcons	last
	1992

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