We’ve noted that some of our members have reported issues with AirBnB cancellations. We are sorry that is happening. Many of our own team are booked into AirBnB and it is an affordable option in most cases.

Unfortunately, on the 1st of June this year new legislation is supposed to come into effect that will severely limit the ability for Dublin houses and apartments to be rented out for short-term lets if they were not specifically built for the short-term market (i.e. the Key Collection and StayCity apartments that are part of the convention block are permitted).

The exception to this will probably be if the house/apartment is a person’s primary residence and then only if either let out for a maximum of 90 days per annum, and for a 14-day maximum period, or if the entire property is not rented out (i.e homeshare accommodation).

As of yet we do not know the full legislation, as it is still with the Dáil (the Irish legislature) so we cannot even be sure if the new legislation will grandfather in existing bookings.

The official site from the Minister for Housing is here: https://www.housing.gov.ie/housing/private-rented-housing/residential-tenancies-board/minister-murphy-announces-new-reforms

Disappointingly, we are hearing stories of landlords making preemptive moves to get out of the short-term let business and cancelling existing bookings. So we would like to now advise members who have rented houses/apartments for their trip to Dublin from a private landlord to contact them and confirm that their booking is still good.

And please note although this is colloquially termed the AirBnB law, it covers all short-term lets including those made privately and through other companies and platforms.

We wish we had more definite news to pass on, but we are as much in the dark as anyone, and the current issues we are hearing, stem from actions taken in preparation for the new legislation, rather than the legislation itself, making it even harder to ascertain the impact.

If you are affected please do look to our accommodations, there may be something that could suit you.

Accommodation page: https://dublin2019.com/location/accommodation/

Hotels page with map link & rates link: https://dublin2019.com/location/accommodation/hotels/

You can book directly with Conference-Partners, our hotel booking bureau.

Members with access needs should contact access@dublin2019.com as soon as possible, immediately if you can please, as we are still holding a small number of accessible rooms at various hotels with easy wheelchair-friendly commutes to the CCD, but we have to release these shortly. Our team are happy to assist.

My thanks and once again, contact your landlord and confirm your plans please.

Very best

James

James Bacon
Chair
Dublin 2019, an Irish Worldcon

The post Short Term Rentals (AirBnB) in Ireland appeared first on Dublin 2019.

More specifically, we need your generosity, kindness, and participation in this special crowd-sourced programme that will help us facilitate Dublin 2019 attendance for members of several groups who have barriers to attendance.

You can help. Our community is filled with incredibly generous people who want to help others share in the joy and wonder of Dublin 2019 — An Irish Worldcon. Please give to the Fantastic Dublin Fund by making a financial gift in any amount (because every euro, dollar, pound, and yen counts!) or by giving your unused membership(s) to the FDF. (Please note that gifts to Dublin 2019’s FDF are not tax deductible). To make a gift, click the donation button and make a difference today!

How the Fantastic Dublin Fund will be used. A sample list of groups is listed below, but for more detailed information as well as access to our FAQ, please be sure to visit and read Dublin 2019’s FDF policy.

• Irish Fans of Limited Financial Means
• Irish Traveller Community
• People of Colour
• Programme Participants from Marginalized Communities/Participants of Colour

Boost the signal. There is one more way that you can help, and that’s by spreading the word about the Fantastic Dublin Fund within your social media network. The more people who hear about the Fund, the more people will give to it, and we need donations in order to make this work. So, even if you don’t have the cash to help, we would deeply appreciate your sharing the FDF link with others who may either have the resources to give or who may need to take advantage of this special opportunity for funding assistance from the FDF.

On behalf of Dublin 2019 we thank you for your generosity and support, which will make the Fantastic Dublin Fund possible. We look forward to seeing you and celebrating speculative fiction and art in all of its glory this coming August in Dublin, Ireland.

Thank you from the entire Dublin 2019 team.

The post Announcing the Expansion of the Fantastic Dublin Fund appeared first on Dublin 2019.

We have watched as membership increases beyond our expectations, and have been working for some time now on how to ensure we can welcome and accommodate everyone.

We also want to ensure that any expansion works to improve the experience for members who come along, while taking into account that there is not a building directly next to the Convention Centre Dublin that we can expand into.

Eight hundred and fifty meters from the CCD, or just over half a mile, are a number of facilities that we have decided to hire and use at a wonderful location called The Point. Conveniently, there is a Luas stop outside the CCD and one outside our new facilities, with direct tram travel between them. The facilities include hotel function rooms for over 300 people, auditorium space in the Odeon Cinema for 1,000 people, 2,600 sq metres of extra exhibits space, and a number of bars, social spaces, and restaurants, all in one ‘Block’.

The additional space is not only desirable to accommodate our members, but also to accommodate everything we want to celebrate and bring to our members. It allows elements such as our art show to increase their footprint, it allows programme to programme more items for the 800 potential participants who have signed up already, it allows us to include an amazing installation from a featured artists, it will allow us to have more large displays, and it will allow us to increase dealers’ space and our ‘creative alley’.

The new spaces are the Odeon Cinema, The ‘Warehouse’, and the Gibson hotel.

The Odeon Cinema offers us six purpose built auditoriums, with very high standards in projection, for presentations and film. There will be food concessions available here as well as some social space. Programme items in the Odeon screens would run on the half-hour to allow movement between items at the Odeon and the CCD. The availability of purpose-built audio-visual equipment, will of course be appreciated, especially by our art and media teams.

The ‘Warehouse’ features some 2,600 sq metres of exhibit space in two large rooms. It is directly below the Odeon Cinema, and has just seen the Dublin Christmas Flea Market take place for the second year running. 

The larger of the ‘Warehouse’ spaces has very high floor to ceiling windows along one whole side, offering considerably more natural light than we would have at the CCD. With the enthusiastic support of our Art Show team, we will now situate the Art Show in this space. In many respects, it made me think of Andy Warhol’s Factory, although the wall of glass offers us quite a unique feature for convention or other spaces.

The Warehouse offers us the opportunity to expand what activities we were intending to have occur, offering our Programme, Fringe and Events divisions extra space to look at what will work well. We will be working to make this a vast ‘creative hub’ with a focus for art, art-related and other creative activities that occur and can occur at a Worldcon.  

The Gibson Hotel is next door to the Odeon, and I have mentioned this previously in communications, and is where we intend to have the WSFS business meeting amongst other activities and programme. The Hotel also has two bars as well as indoor and outdoor social space, and outside these three venues there are a number of eateries, including Starbucks, Eddie Rockets Diner, Rubys Pizza and Grill, and the Salad Box.  

Our Fringe division has demonstrated to us that we can do more, beyond the walls of the Convention Centre Dublin, and now with this space we will bring you our ‘Creative Hub’.

We can now start to realise some of the more brilliant ideas that the team have harboured and work to bring to fruition such ideas as collaborative art projects, live model sketching, workshops, performances and presentations as well as a crafting lounge,  a generous showcase for our featured artists, and a walk through installation — to name but a few of the elements.

The choice has been simple. We want to do more, to bring you more, to enhance your experience at Dublin, and as membership grows, we also want to welcome people, and make them feel comfortable. It was expand or die, wait, no I mean expand or stop taking memberships.

We have worked hard to get this far, and are committed to continuing to work hard on our new Creative Hub and hope you will enjoy what we have planned.

As ever my very best – James

The post Dublin 2019 Expands: Announcing Dublin 2019’s New Creative Hub appeared first on Dublin 2019.

Go check it out! If you have any questions on anything, you can either e-mail the direct contact mail in the Progress Report or info@dublin2019.com and we’ll get back to you.

The post Progress Report 2 is out! appeared first on Dublin 2019.

Afua Richardson is known for her work on Genius and World of Wakanda, and has recently created a variant cover for Shuri #2, the Wakanda-based series written by Nnedi Okorafor. Her work across many other stories includes drawing for X-Men 92, Captain Marvel, Captain America, and the Mighty Avengers for Marvel Comics; Wonder Woman Warbringer and All-Star Batman for DC Comics; and Mad Max.

Afua also worked with U.S. Representative and civil rights leader John Lewis to illustrate Run, a volume in his autobiographical comic series co-written with Andrew Aydin. Her first full-length graphic novel was the award-winning Genius series (Image Comics/Top Cow). Written by Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman, and drawn by Afua, it tells the story of an urban liberation movement led by a strategically gifted 17 year-old girl. In 2011, Afua won the Nina Simone Award for Artistic Achievement for her trailblazing work in comics.

In this short video, Afua talks about her work on Genius and about her other work, too. In addition to being an illustrator and writer, she is a musician, vocalist, performer, songwriter, voice actor, activist, and mentor.

We are thrilled that Afua will be joining us and our other featured artists next August, and we are looking forward to the part that they will play in the convention. To find out more about all our featured artists, visit our featured artists page.

The post Afua Richardson joins the featured artists at Dublin 2019 appeared first on Dublin 2019.

November Early Confirm List

• Elizabeth Bear
• John Berlyne
• Marie Brennan
• S.A. Chakraborty
• Paul Cornell
• Jack Dann
• Lucienne Diver
• Cory Doctorow
• Scott Edelman
• Steven Erikson
• Jo Fletcher
• Sarah Gailey
• Max Gladstone
• Daryl Gregory
• Joe Haldeman
• Ju Honisch M.A.
• SL Huang
• Wataru Ishigame
• James Patrick Kelly
• Conor Kostick
• Mary Robinette Kowal
• Rebeca Kuang
• Mur Lafferty
• Yoon Ha Lee
• Paul Levinson
• Jo Lindsay Walton
• Shawna McCarthy
• Mary Anne Mohanraj
• Mari Ness
• Garth Nix
• A.J. Odasso
• Sarah Pinsker
• Lettie Prell
• Gillian Redfearn
• Karl Schroeder
• V.E. Schwab
• Brian Showers
• Robert Silverberg
• Rebecca Slitt
• Alan Smale
• Melinda Snodgrass
• Allen Steele
• Christine Taylor-Butler
• Adrian Tchaikovsky
• Lisa Tuttle
• Mary Watson
• Fran Wilde
• Sean Williams
• Terri Windling
• Navah Wolfe
• Micah Yongo
• E. Lily Yu

As always, if you would enjoy paneling at Dublin 2019, please be sure to send in your Programme Participant Query Form.  We cannot follow up with you about being on programme unless you fill in this form!

The post Would Paneling – Look Who’s Coming to Dublin 2019 appeared first on Dublin 2019.

When we reach 700 First Worldcon members, we will be ceasing this offer. We think this is quite an achievement and are very pleased that we can welcome so many fans to their first Worldcon. Dublin 2019 has benefited from a brilliant idea that Helsinki implemented. However, once we reach 700 first Worldcon memberships sold we will remove the First Worldcon rate option from our website. We expect that this could happen quickly after we make this announcement.

I am sorry that we cannot keep this particular offer going. I did not expect us to reach that figure this soon, but we are pleased so many have availed of the offer. We hope many other people will also choose to make Dublin 2019 their first Worldcon, but we cannot sustain selling memberships at this discounted rate and still bring you the convention we envision.

We are and will be pursuing other initiatives:

– We have an instalment plan available to help spread the cost of a Dublin 2019 membership.

– Beginning Saturday the 20th of October, we will have 100 memberships available at the first Worldcon rate exclusively for residents of the Island of Ireland, to help encourage those from Ireland to attend their first Worldcon. Local initiatives elsewhere have proven successful and we hope that will be too.

– We will soon launch the Fantastic Dublin Fund, which will help fans of limited financial means attend Dublin 2019.

– We have donated memberships to Con-or-Bust to help fans of colour to attend Dublin 2019.

I am grateful to all the fans who have joined and support Dublin 2019. With your support we will continue to work to make Dublin 2019 a welcoming experience as well as a brilliant celebration of the fantastic.

The post From the Chair’s Desk: First Worldcon Rate Ending appeared first on Dublin 2019.

What if we had a panel of current and former NASA employees who talk about life in space? What if we had an Irish oral storyteller recite the telling of “The Legend of Cú Chulainn” and “The Leprechaun and the Thistles”? What if … Dublin 2019 members were able to share great programme ideas BEFORE they are sitting in a programme room suggesting a panel on how to terraform Mars?

To make all this happen requires a couple of things. One: a body of ideas submitted by prospective panelists; and Two: engagement from you, the fan/attendee/panelist. The sooner the better.

Got a great idea? Not sure it’s a great idea? Send it to us anyway! Some of the most inventive panel ideas come out of brainstorming sessions where we go over ALL the ideas submitted. So please share  with us via our Idea Submission Form.

As part of that brainstorming process, the Dublin 2019 Programme Team hosted a panel at Worldcon 76 in San Jose, which also included a fun trivia session to get the creative juices flowing. We are planning to hold a similar session at Octocon in Ireland, 19-21 October 2018. To bring a little of that fun here to Would Paneling: The Dublin 2019 blog, we are sharing 3 trivia questions. (To find the answers, check below.)

Dublin 2019 Programme Trivia!

• Question 1: Which famous fictional mad scientist was imprisoned in Ireland after being framed for murder?
• Question 2: The opening scenes of which Star Trek novel take place in the Wicklow mountains in Ireland?
• Question 3: Name The Irish member of the X-Men.

Now that you are thinking creatively about fun programme topics and trivia, unleash your ideas and share them with us!

Please note that due to the nature of programming 600-800 programme ideas and managing the schedules of 500+ people, programme ideas used may be altered to fit the overall needs of the programme. Thank you so much for your help! We look forward to hearing your ideas!

As always, if you would enjoy paneling at Dublin 2019, please be sure to send in your Programme Participant Query Form.  We cannot follow up with you about being on programme unless you fill in this form!

Trivia Answers:

1. Victor Frankenstein
2. Spock’s World by Diane Duane
3. Banshee

The post Would Paneling – The Programme Blog: Bringing Your Ideas to Dublin 2019 appeared first on Dublin 2019.

So, Really, What’s All this About GDPR?
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a new European Union data privacy law, which requires us to have proof that you gave us your consent to have your data in our system, even if we entered your data before the law went into effect 25 May 2018. Since every Worldcon is an independently incorporated entity, Dublin 2019’s programme team has to build our programming database from scratch. Even if you were a member and/or participant of a previous Worldcon, you have no relationship with Dublin 2019.

We are not allowed to email you from our programme database unless you fill out our Programme Participant Query Form. It is designed to collect your contact information, your consent to be contacted in the future, and some optional data. This is NOT our programme survey, which contains more detailed information, like availability, programme topics, and accessibility questions. It is simply the mechanism with which we can collect your consent to send you a programme survey in the future…and we will send a survey to everyone who requests one. So, when we say everyone who is interested in being considered for a spot on Dublin 2019’s programme has to complete this form, we mean everyone, whether your name is George R.R. Martin or Charlaine Harris (who both filled in their forms. Thanks, George and Charlaine!!!).

Dublin 2019’s Programme Team is Coming to Worldcon 76 in San Jose
This is it! This is your chance to meet some of our programme team, give us live and in-person programme ideas, and to win some fun swag! (And it’s very cool swag! … and there might be chocolate! I’m not supposed to say anything since the prizes are supposed to be sur“prizes!” So, shhhh….!)

Join us at our special programme panel at Worldcon 76!

Dublin 2019 Programme Pitches
[Sunday, 19 August, 2018 from 4:00-5:00 p.m.]
Dublin 2019’s Programme Team is here and they want to hear from you. What’s the wildest and wackiest thing you’ve never seen and would like to have as a panel at Dublin 2019? What clever and cool idea do you have to share? You have an opportunity to pitch your ideas to the Dublin Dragons. Plus, there will be trivia for added fun!  Prizes and swag will be handed out.
Ian Stockdale (M), Brian Nisbet, Sara Felix, Elizabeth McCarty, Marguerite Smith

Standard Information that Everyone Should Know
Dublin 2019 looks forward to hearing from you! To learn more about the Dublin 2019 Programme division, our dates, and processes, please review our Programme Q&A. We also have additional information in our Code of Conduct that we are asking all of our members to review as well.  If you have any further questions, please contact us at programme@dublin2019.com or visit us at https://dublin2019.com/programming/

The post Would Paneling – The Programme Blog: GDPR, Prizes, and More! appeared first on Dublin 2019.

One of those pieces of work has been the ongoing negotiations with our facilities, including hotels, and it became clear that despite great efforts, our hotels are more expensive than we would like and the booking arrangements are less than we had hoped for.

We have considerable discounts off current Dublin rates, but like one’s airline ticket, one has to pay up early to get the best price. Rates generally also include taxes and a full Irish breakfast, but even so we would have liked to have done better.

This is not the news I want to give, and I am sorry. Yet we agreed that it is important that we are honest and upfront about the situation with all our members as soon as we realised how things stood. Hence, we are using all communication channels, as we hope that fans who are forewarned can plan and find solutions that suit them, and we will work to provide a range of offerings.

We will be publishing our price list in August, and opening general hotel bookings in January, and hope this will allow you to be informed, and make both provision and plan for booking of your accommodation.

We are continuing to work on other offerings, and are pleased with the student accommodation options we have so far, but recognise that the hotel situation in Dublin is not akin to other cities where Worldcon has been hosted.

The convention is not tied to any one hotel by contract. We will have a wide range of contracts, and therefore booking elsewhere yourself independently of the convention is not an issue for us at all.

Most of all, I am sorry we do not have better prices for you all, but we are really working hard on this and hope we can manage it as best we can with you.

We will share our prices in August, so people can plan accordingly. Below is the information we have, that will also be on our website on our hotels and accommodation page.

For those with room-related access needs, you’ll be able to make reservations in December 2018, before general booking opens. In addition, our Access team of Paul and Jen are available at access@dublin2019.com for any queries. For general hotel-related questions, please contact facilities@dublin2019.com.

My very best as ever,
James Bacon

The post From the Chair’s Desk: Important Hotel Information appeared first on Dublin 2019.