Why does it cost so much for a Balticon membership when I can throw a SF party at home for almost nothing?
Balticon started small and cost little to run in the early days. When you throw an event for under 50-100 people you can use your house and gather some old video tapes of SF TV programs, some chips and the party is on. Once you start renting hotel space for hundreds and then thousands of people to attend, flying guests of honor in, setting up full theatrical stages, buying insurance and paying copyright fees, producing program books that are collectors items, buying food for the con members at hotel prices to meet their contract terms, mailing thousands of flyers and everything else–it costs a lot of money. Professional conventions nearly matching the Balticon size charge hundreds of dollars for an attendee and don’t deliver the 24 hour a day 12 program tracks at Balticon. Even at the cost of attending Balticon(or any other major SF con) the hotels find us low profit events; this is why all SF cons are on poor hotel business weekends. People often ask why Balticon and Baycon and Oasis
