10th World Science Fiction Convention

The 10th World Science Fiction Convention, or the tenth instance of Worldcon, was held on the Labor Day weekend, 30 August – 1 September 1952, at the Morrison Hotel in Chicago, and was chaired by Julian May.

Participants
For years this Worldcon held the record for the largest attendance at any early science fiction convention, with 870 registered attendees, a figure which was not surpassed by another Worldcon until 1967 for NyCon 3 in New York City. By way of comparison, the previous year's Worldcon, the Nolacon in New Orleans, had an attendance of approximately 190.

Guests of Honor

 * Hugo Gernsback

Programming and events
The program included the performance of an original science fiction ballet.

Awards
It was at this Worldcon that the idea for the Hugo Awards was first proposed and adopted. These awards, the highest and oldest honor in science fiction, were first awarded at the next one, the 1953 Worldcon in Philadelphia.

In fiction
The previous convention, Nolacon, is a plot point in The Case of the Little Green Men, the first novel by Mack Reynolds, which is set in part at "AnnCon", a fictional version of the 10th World Science Fiction Convention held in 1952. The real 10th Worldcon, held in Chicago, had no actual name like "AnnCon", being simply called, in its own publications, "the 10th Annual World Science Fiction Convention" (and once as "the 10th Annual Science Fiction Convention," likely a dropped-word linotype operator's typo). Before and during the convention, its attendees often referred to it as "Chicon II," an unofficial nickname that stuck to this Chicago Worldcon in the decades that followed.