MidAmeriCon

(Did you mean Big Mac the fanzine?)

MidAmeriCon, the 34th Worldcon (often called Big Mac) was held September 2-6, 1976, in the Radisson Muehlebach Hotel and Phillips House in Kansas City, MO. GoH: Robert A. Heinlein, FGoH: George Barr. Wilson Tucker was Toastmaster. Chaired by Ken Keller.

The KC in '76 bid beat Columbus in 1976 and Highmore in '76 in the 1976 Worldcon Site Selection.

Carol Resnick as “Haunte” at MidAmeriCon.

Joni Stopa ran the highly lauded masquerade, the judges included Sally Rand, and Patia von Sternberg did a strip tease while they deliberated.

MidAmeriCon hosted the 1976 Hugos and the 1978 Worldcon Site Selection, which chose Iguanacon.

WSFS business meeting wrangling affecting MAC inspired concom member Bill "The Galactic" Fesselmeyer to pen “How the GRINCH Stole Worldcon,” a classic piece of smoffish faan fiction for PR 2.

MidAmeriCon was very worried about the increase in convention sizes in the ’70s and took drastic steps to control membership by significantly raising the price of an attending membership which started at less than $6 and ramped up to an unheard of $50 at the door — an innovation that became Worldcon tradition — as well as using hospital bracelets to back up name badges as proof of membership, to control ghosting, and limiting programming about fringe fandoms — which did not.

For the first time, the Hugo Awards Ceremony and GoH Speeches were separated from the banquet and held separately as an extravaganza. While successful, this proved the death knell of the Worldcon banquet and began the rise of the over-the-top, nearly unmanageable Hugo ceremony. (At least Mac didn't keep switching presenters but used Bob Tucker as sole MC and presenter.)

The newsletter was called the Bullsheet. A significant portion of the convention was video recorded by KMAC, organized by Scott Imes. Some of the video shot there has been digitized and posted on YouTube by Fanac (see below.)

More Info

• MidAmeriCon publications and photos on fanac.org.
• Fred Pohl's MidAmeriCon Reminiscence.
• Interesting and extensive con report in Karass #24 (September, 1976), continued in #25/26 (November).
• Tom Perry's con report in Mota 21.
• Video of Masquerade winners.
• Recording of James Gunn talk.
• Video of Robert Heinlein GoH speech.
• Video of Weird & Horror Genre Luncheon panel.
• Interview about MAC with Ken Keller (2016).
• MidAmeriCon videos.

MidAmeriCon members toss Chairman Ken Keller into the hotel pool at the con's end.
Photo by Bob Webber.

---

Aussiecon I	Worldcon - Bidding - Hugos	SunCon
first	MidAmeriCon	MidAmeriCon II
	1976

This is a convention page. Please extend it by adding information about the convention, including dates, GoHs, convention chairman, locale, sponsoring organization, external links to convention pages, awards given, the program, notable events, anecdotes, pictures, scans of publications, pictures of T-shirts, con reports, etc.