Loscon 2021
The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (LASFS) is aware of the situation with respect to Westercon 73, and we regret that the Seattle Westercon Organising Committee (SWOC) who won the bid for Westercon 73 has experienced the troubles it has.
LASFS will host the functions mandated in the Westercon Constitution for Westercon 73 at Loscon 47, held over Thanksgiving Weekend, 2021. This includes the Business Meeting and Site Selection voting.
Individuals who decline to get their memberships of Westercon 73 refunded from SWOC are welcome to attend Loscon 47. Those keeping their supporting memberships will be able to vote as well, but have no other participation. If  the supporting members wish to attend Loscon 47, they may pay the difference, for the current attending rate and the supporting rate for Westercon 73. All attending badged members at Loscon 47/Westercon 73 will be able to participate in Westercon 75 site selection. LASFS undertakes no other obligations for Westercon 73. All contracts and agreements made by SWOC in the name of Westercon 73 remain the responsibility of SWOC. Please watch for further statements.

Karl Lembke
Board Chairman
Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society

See https://westercon73.org/

Click here to see if there's an update on the Westercon website

Also see Richard Lynch's Fandom in the Sixties Convention chapter . 

from File 770 (June 24, 2021)

The Tempe (Arizona) committee has dropped their unopposed bid to host the 2023 Westercon because the recovery from the pandemic has not moved quickly enough to assure them the region’s fans will support and attend their con. They are now considering a bid for 2025.

They announced on the bid’s website:

    With sadness, CASFS and WesternSFA are officially withdrawing our bid to host Westercon 75 in Tempe, AZ in 2023.

    This is because of the ongoing effects of the COVID pandemic. While we expect that the country as a whole and the southwest in particular will be much more open in 2023 than it is today, that expectation has sadly not translated into support for Westercon 75 thus far and choosing to continue at this point would put both our sponsoring bodies at serious risk. We cannot survive on local fans alone. We also need regional fans to be ready to travel again and it’s clear that they’re not comfortable doing that yet.

    The prudent option, which was taken unanimously by our committee and both our sponsoring bodies, is to withdraw at this time but to ready a future bid for a time when the wider community is hopefully ready to return to a physical Westercon.

    Our current plan is to submit an equivalent bid to host Westercon 77 in Tempe in 2025, once we’ve agreed a contract with our hotel in mid-2022.

The bid was a joint effort of the Western Science Fiction Association and the Central Arizona Speculative Fiction Society.

Kevin Standlee explained on the Westercon.org that the site selection process for 2023 will be conducted at Loscon 47 in November 2021, because this year’s Westercon was merged into Loscon after the original Westercon 73 committee disbanded and handed the convention over to LASFS, owner of the Westercon service mark.

Standlee also told File 770: “Because Westercon’s deadlines are hard-coded into the Bylaws, we’re not allowed to reopen filing to be on the ballot. Bids can still file, though, and be eligible to win. There will still be an election (at Loscon), but if no eligible bid wins, it will go to the Business Meeting (at Loscon), and if the meeting can’t decide, then as you probably know, LASFS will have to decide.”

According to Fancyclopedia 3 :  "Westercon is formally sponsored by LASFS, though in practice it is completely independent. Nonetheless, in the event that Westercon were unable to function, the LASFS Board of Directors would be responsible for sorting things out." 

In 1948, Walter J. "Doc" Daugherty of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society proposed that an annual West Coast convention be started for West Coast fans who couldn't afford to travel east each year. The first Westercon was held in September, 1948. It was a one-day event with an attendance of 77, and its official title was "the first Annual West Coast Scienti-Fantasy Conference." Click here to see its Program Book and Len Moffatt's convention report (including his copy of the names from the convention's Guest Book).

It wasn't until 1951 that the Westercon became a weekend-long event, settled into the July 4th holiday and began traveling to different cities.