Thousands of science fiction and fantasy fans will be going back to the future this week when Seattle plays host to Worldcon, the world’s premier sci-fi convention, for the first time since the Space Needle opened its doors.
“The Pacific Northwest is a great community of makers and doers and learners, and people really deeply engaged in speculative fiction and all that genre has to offer,” Kathy Bond, the chair of Seattle Worldcon 2025, told me. “We want to share that with the rest of our world community.”
Registered Worldcon members selected the site of the annual convention under the auspices of the World Science Fiction Society — a tradition that started with the first convention in New York City in 1939. Seattle’s organizers have been preparing for this week since 2017, when they sent in their initial bid to host Worldcon.
Bond, a volunteer who works as an attorney at her day job, became involved after attending her first Worldcon in 2015 in Spokane. “From there, I got it into my head that we could totally do this in Seattle,” Bond said.
The path hasn’t always been smooth: This spring, a controversy arose over the revelation that generative AI was used to glean information about prospective speakers. Bond issued an apology, and the organizers reworked the process for vetting Worldcon’s panelists — but the episode led some writers and fans to create a one-day alternative convention called ConCurrent Seattle, set for Aug. 14.
