Bid Update #1

London in 2014 Bid Update #1

Welcome to our first newsletter. We'll be issuing these around four times per year, to keep everyone updated on the progress of the bid.

Newsletter Subscription

The bid website at http://www.londonin2014.org/ offers you the chance to subscribe to this newsletter, if you would like to receive periodic updates about the bid progress. We won't give your email address to anyone else, or use it for any other purpose (unless you ask us to).

Bid Launch

The bid was officially launched with a party on the Friday night of Odyssey 2010, this year's UK national science fiction convention, which was held in west London near Heathrow. The choice of London as the bid venue was announced for us by Chris Priest, who was a Guest of Honour at Interaction, the previous UK Worldcon held in Glasgow in 2005. We're now looking forward to the forthcoming 2½ years of bidding, before the selection of the 2014 site at the 2012 Worldcon.

Venue

The site that we've selected for the bid is the new International Convention Centre at the ExCeL Exhibition Centre in London's Docklands, a few miles east of central London. The Convention Centre opens next month, and includes seventeen function rooms seating 2,500 people in total, a 5,000 seat auditorium and a 4,500m² meeting hall, which will provide the core facilities for the convention. It's built into one end of the exhibition centre, and we'll also be able to use exhibition space and meeting rooms from the exhibition centre to meet our requirements for space.

ExCeL is a mile from London City Airport, and has good transport links to central London via the Docklands Light Railway and the London Underground.

There are currently three four-star hotels and two budget hotels on the ExCeL site, with several more budget hotels close by. There are more on-site hotels planned, and we'll keep you updated on their progress.

Committee & Staff

The bid committee are Steve Cooper & Mike Scott (co-chairs), James Bacon & Alice Lawson (deputy chairs), Claire Brialey (secretary), John Dowd (treasurer), Rita Medany (membership) and Vince Docherty & Colin Harris (advisers). We'll be publishing updates, and our staff lists, on the website and in future newsletters.

Website

The bid website is up and running at http://www.londonin2014.org/, with information about the bid, the committee and the venue. It also offers online purchase of pre-supporting memberships, and a choice of ways to keep in touch with the progress of the bid.

Social Networking

We also have accounts on Twitter, Facebook and LiveJournal, so that you can follow the bid on your favourite platform.