What is the history of CONvergence?
With the exception of our year 2000 convention, CONvergence has been held in the same hotel each year, the Sheraton Bloomington South (formerly the Radisson Hotel South), a hotel that has a long history with regional fandom, having hosted Minicon and other SF conventions in past years. CONvergence was begun in 1998 in response to changes being made to Minicon, which had been the major SF convention on the local scene for decades, and in a different form is still held in the Twin Cities every Easter weekend. Minicon had intended to sharpen it’s focus on SF literature, and to shrink the size of their convention which had ballooned to over 3,000 attendees after 32 years. CONvergence was never intended to copy or replace the “old” Minicon, but rather to take advantage of the perceived need to fill a niche that allowed us to create something new. We hoped to provide a home for those that wanted the large, boisterous convention that Minicon was moving away from, while further broadening our
