Noreascon 3 – 1989 WorldCon
The 50th Anniversary World Science Fiction Convention, Noreascon 3, was held over the U.S. Labor Day weekend in Boston, Massachusetts. It was not the 50th Worldcon becasue of an interruption during World War II.
Guests of Honor were Andre Norton, Ian and Betty Ballantine and the Stranger Club, Boston's first SF fan group. Members from the club who were honored included: Louis Russell Chauvenet, Chan Davis, G. Timmothy Orrock, Robert D. Swisher, Harry Stubbs (Hal Clement), and Art Widner. (Stubbs/Clement is the only person to be honored as both a fan and a professional by a Worldcon. He was pro Guest of Honor at Chicon 5 in 1991.)
Actual attendance was 6,965 members, a slight increase from the 200 people signed up for the first Worldcon, 50 years before. Mark Olson chaired the convention which was held in the Sheraton Boston Hotel and the Hynes Convention Center.
The Worldcon is the largest gathering of professionals in the field and literally hundreds of professional writers, editors, artists and filmmakers were there. Members of the first Worldcon were given special notice at the con. Among them were: Isaac Asimov, L. Sprague de Camp, Charles Hornig, Julius Schwartz, Forrest J Ackerman, Lloyd Arthur Eshbach, Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Madle, Robert D. Swisher, David Kyle, Harry Harrison, and Milton A. Rothman. There was no "Exclusion Act", even the Futurians were allowed to attend. -- Joe Siclari