Fan Run Conventions and Hotels
Why they are often oil and water
Fan run conventions often have a contentious relationship with the hotels that host them. (I am mostly familiar with science fiction conventions, but most of these same things apply to other events like anime and gaming cons.) These conventions are at the bottom of the list of things that hotels want to host, so they either end up at second-tier hotels that are hungry for business or on undesirable dates that the hotel could not otherwise book. It is no accident that the two major science fiction conventions in Boston are on holiday weekends in January and February; winter is not the best season to visit Boston, and professional groups avoid holiday weekends.
(Side note: those holiday weekends are often desired dates for fan conventions. Professional groups avoid them to allow people to be with family on those dates. But for fans the fan group is their intentional extended family, and thus are the people they want to spend time with.)
It all comes down to the bottom line. Fan conventions don’t make as much money for hotels as professional gatherings do, and often not as much as non-convention bookings like weddings. One fundamental reason is that most people at a fan convention are spending their own money to be there rather than being sponsored by a company. (There are exceptions, such…
