>> No one could really deal with the pricing (our local cons rarely put us back more than 35€/3 days) <<

One of the sessions I went to mentioned that fandom is considered worthy of government support in Finland. Do you think that played a role there?

Our local conventions are often in a similar range if one signs up early. If you sign up closer to the event, membership costs will range from possibly just a bit more than that to about twice that, depending on pricing structures. But Worldcons are almost always pricier because so much more space is needed. Voting plus early membership for Worldcon 76 ran us about 120€.

>> Oh, and it was my first time hearing filk! Filk was just the best! I can't imagine participating, but I loved listening. <<

Then you may have heard me. I only sang a few times, because there were a lot of people there and I didn't want to take too many turns, and they needed to kick us all out around midnight so we could make the last train.

>> I divided my time between filk, the academic track and eating. It was a pretty awesome time. <<

Swap in a broad range of panels for myself, and it looks like my Worldcon, too.

>> Wait, really? I remember reading months ago that Dublin would get really crowded and there wouldn't be enough space because its so small a city. <<

Not that small. Just checked the numbers; it's about 480,000 -- Helsinki's only about 20% bigger than that. And the metropolitan area for Dublin is about 4x the city population.

>> Oh man. I'm going to have to think about this. <<

Let me know if you decide you can make it. Then we'll figure out how to say hi to each other in person.