LAcon V has announced the Hugo Awards Base will be designed by Scott Lefton, and the Lodestar Award Base will be designed by H. Emiko Ogasawara.

Lefton specializes in multiple artistic forms, including metal, glass, wood, electronics, and digital design. He designed the 2004 Hugo Award base and the Hugo rocket displayed on the International Space Station. He is also an engineer. He says, “I’m honored to have been chosen to craft this year’s Hugo base design, and hope that it will remind people about LAcon V and about what our community values in creativity.”

Ogasawara is an artist and art instructor who works in traditional media, such as ceramics, sculpture, printmaking, and paper engineering. Her work often “emphasizes interactive, functional, and kinetic elements that invite people to become participants rather than mere viewers.”

For more information, see the LAcon V website, Lefton’s website, or Ogasawara’s website.

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The British Fantasy Society, HWS, and Karen Fishwick have revealed preliminary plans for Fantasycon 2027. Fantasycon 2027 “will include some aspects of World Fantasy Convention including the World Fantasy Awards. This is alongside all the usual Fantasycon content of panels, readings, books, art and social activities.”

Fantasycon 2027 will run September 24-26, 2027 in Birmingham, England. For more information, see the official Facebook event page.

The Nuremberg 2028 Worldcon bid has announced its withdrawal from the race after a decision by a crew-committee assembly.

This decision comes from a mix of personal, organisational and timing reasons. Since our introduction at Smofcon in November, we have received wonderful support from volunteers, artists, experienced conrunners and communities across Central Europe. We are deeply grateful for that.

But as site selection begins, we have to be honest: we are not at the point where we would need to be in order to ask the community to vote for us and be ready to carry the responsibility of winning.

The Kigali bid, which was changed from Uganda to Rwanda in 2024, also withdrew February 7, 2026 due to lack of resources.

This leaves the Brisbane bid for 2028 the only remaining bid for the 2028 Worldcon. The bid’s administrators responded to the Nuremberg bid withdrawal:

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