Here’s yet another very informative post from a winner. https://samtasticbooks.com/2024/02/17/rabbit-test-unwins-the-hugo/?fbclid=IwAR37jOj1peTOqIF9QPIeqOy5K95rpFfm_F_kaZEp29Dy_J7iy_h3FtSFuKg

And in today's exciting episode, things have taken a turn for the worse.   I didn't think that that was even possible, but it was.
Chengdu Worldcon Won’t Account for Sponsorships - File 770

 

Might I ask an uninformed question?  I read (skimmed) the link that Surtac provided concerning Chengdu.Did I understand that the reason Worldcon rejected Raytheon was because of their weapons-related production and relationships with the military?  Same for Boeing with Seattle's convention?
Science fiction has never seemed to shy away from using weapons.  So telling us that Raytheon is bad because they didn't disclose certain aspects of their sponsorship is one thing, but then to also justify their rejection of Raytheon because Raytheon provides those terrible Tomahawk missiles to the US government and Boeing provides warplanes so they're also problematic strikes me as ironic.  If those are the reasons why, that they are "protesting" the sponsorship of weapons manufacturers, yet they freely make use of various weapons in their stories....well, I am just a bit confused.  I don't even get involved in much of the workings of conventions.  The one Worldcon I attended in Chicago in 2012 soured me on them after the way certain people acted.  I stopped reading Scalzi's blog for the same reason.  So, maybe my question is rhetorical, rather than asking for information. 
 

It's actually a good question, Joe, but it's one I can't answer.

I gave up paying any attention to Worldcon after 2017.  I actually had attending memberships for Helsinki 2017 for Eldest Daughter and myself but pulled out of actually going when ED decided she'd return to Hong Kong on holiday with a friend instead.  But that's another story.

I don't know specifics of why later Worldcon memberships had sponsorship issues with Raytheon or whoever and it may be exactly as you have speculated.  That doesn't worry me.  It's history.

But Chengdu wanting to obfuscate and hide its financials? That does concern me.  Let me try to explain why.

I spent a dozen years from the late 1990s to the end of the 2000s as one of several international customer representatives on a steering committee that helped plan and run an annual customer conference / convention for an IT company that had a significant international presence and market share within its field of operations.  Yes it was run from inside the corporations marketing area, but the budget was not open-ended and there was always pressure to minimise costs.  The conference moved around from year to year across the continental US in no fixed pattern so things like venue hire, catering, transport for equipment exhibition showcases and so on varied.  Customer attendees were attending on their employer dollars so a reasonable standard of conference hotel, food etc was required.  Likewise, the cost of guest keynote and motivational speakers of the quality of Buzz Aldrin, Dean Kamen and Malcolm Gladwell, amongst others, was not trivial.  If we could get other companies to provide sponsorship dollars to put their names on conference lanyards, a themed breakfast or two, coffee services in the equipment exhibition hallways etc. then it was money from their corporate marketing budgets that we didn't have to find in ours.

We weren't expected to publish our conference costings but the same pressures exist to minimise costs to attendees if reasonably possible.

I understand Worldcons are meant to be non=profit but if Chengdu gets away with hiding its true costs and funding sources, how can future cons properly understand what challenges they will face?  Will hosting a Worldcon simply become too risky under the present (lack of) enforcable rules?

That's the gist of my concerns.