WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Chengdu, China won the bid to host the 79th World Science Fiction Convention (the 2023 Worldcon) at DisCon III, the 2021 Worldcon in Washington DC on December 18, 2021 (Beijing time). The other two bidders were Memphis, USA and Winnipeg, Canada, but Memphis had withdrawn before the final voting.
The Worldcon is the top sci-fi cultural event around the globe. It is during this event that the Hugo Award, dubbed as the “Nobel Prize in the Science Fiction Circle” among sci-fi fans, is granted to recognize the best sci-fi and fantasy works of the year.
As the winner of the bid, Chengdu will be the first city in China and the second in Asia to host the Worldcon. In recent years, a wave of enthusiasm for sci-fi is rising in China, especially after Liu Cixin became the first-ever Chinese winner of Hugo Award for his science fiction novel The Three-Body Problem in 2015. In 2019, The Wandering Earth, a movie adapted from an excerpt of The Three-Body Problem, was put on show and earned USD 699.8 million, opening a new chapter for China’s sci-fi movies.
In China, Chengdu is regarded as the capital of science and fiction and a mecca for all sci-fi fans in the country, because it is home to the Science Fiction World magazine, the world’s best-selling science and fiction periodical. It was on this magazine that Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem was first serialized.
“Over the past four decades, Chengdu has nurtured generations of science and fiction writers and fans. Lots of science and fiction groups have organized various exciting science and fiction activities in the city. Now, Chengdu is looking forward to a chance to welcome sci-fi fans from all over the world,” stated Chengdu Science Fiction Society (CSFS) in its bid filing to the Worldcon.
The 2023 Worldcon will be held on August 16-20, 2023 at Chengdu Century City New International Convention & Exhibition Center. The venue consists of 17 halls measuring a total of 120,000 square meters.