Midamericon, the 1976 Worldcon

It was the biggest Worldcon yet, and the organizers were very much afraid of getting overwhelmed at the door. One reason was that their guest was Robert A. Heinlein, who hadn't been to a convention since most people active in fandom (remember the 70s were a big growth period) had joined.

Fred Haskell was an official photographer, and has a thick stack of contact sheets from this convention.

So they did two famous things: They set the at-the-door price at the unheard-of level of $50. And they issued plastic hospital bracelets as proof-of-membership (they also issued name badges, for the purpose of telling people your name).

This was the first Worldcon I worked signifantly on -- I was one of Scott Imes' two assistants in charge of the video recording and playback (Ken Hoyme was the other). This ran on channel 12 of the hotel cable system (not very well, as it worked out), and we called it KMAC-12.

I also took a lot of pictures. I don't have by any means all the good ones here yet. I tend to scan groups for particular purposes, and a few extras each time I play with a roll.