Patrick,
I've just accepted a role in Melbourne. I won't be there until November, but would be interested after we arrive.
Cheers,
David
Hey ho.
Perhaps my error ... I didn't read anything in Bond's article that suggested he was only referring to fans of fiction and movies. Are there differences between otaku and tifosi? What are they?
I'd say that the level of fanaticism can be pretty high in many of the examples I used. F1 fans travel all over the world, dress up in funny costumes, and parade around carrying massive flags showing which team or driver they support. Google "Tifosi" for a flavour.
Lego fans do things like build this 46' self-supporting bridge http://gizmodo.com/5272536/46+foot-long-self+supporting-lego-bridge-to-set-new-world-record.
Each of the other have their own version of fanatic behaviour ... my favourite for sheer lunatic fun remains the annual Bloomsday celebration of Joyce's Ulysses.
I'd suggest that Bond didn't restrict his comments to a degree of magnitude of fan base (or for that matter Eliezer with his reference to Vance's books).
But I'm quite willing to state that the fan base of F1, many who spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars of year to attend a single race, and which attracts a global viewing audience of some 50 million per race (1 billon over a season) surely is in the same magnitude of Star Trek.
Or take Playmobil, with something like 2.2 billion sets sold and an annual turnover of close to Euro 500M, and which has inspired many annual conventions all over the world.
I'd, respectfully, suggest that your unfamiliarity with my examples speaks more to your range of cultural, artistic, sporting, and commercial, interests than it does their global fan bases.
In the same vein as newerspeak's reference to Proust, how about Joyce fans and their annual bloomsday celebrations?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsday
Changing genres, I believe all of these references* have both fans and "conventions", and anyone would be hard-pressed to call any of them "bad" or flawed:
Architecture: Frank Lloyd Wright
Jazz: Davis, Coltrane, Peterson, Brubeck
Toys: Lego, Barbie, and Play Mobil
Military aircraft: P51 Mustang
Racing: Volvo Ocean Racing, F1, World Rally, MotoGP
Cars: 1955 Gullwing, 1965 Shelby Cobra, Enzo Ferrari
Birding: The Great Horned Owl
* Handle: David_Rotor
* Name: David
* Location: Ottawa, Canada
* Age: 44
* Gender: Male
* Education: MSc
* Occupation: Procurement, Business Development
I started following this site when it was introduced on Overcoming Bias. I came across OB while doing some refresher work on statistical analysis, more particularly how I could help some clients who were struggling with how to use statistical analysis to make better decisions - or in other words they were ignoring data and going with a gut feel bias. I stuck around because I found the conversations interesting, though I find it more difficult to make them useful.
On the religious front ... atheist from about the same time I figured out Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
Another suggestion ... design it as a tri-fold 11X17 page. 10,000 four colour glossy paper for about $1100 online. This format "stacks very nicely. Again, should be cheaper locally.
I found more than one ... this one was still up on my browser. Look for "booklet" rather than pamplet. Pamphlets are generally single folded pages.
It looks like 5 November is the day we'll be arriving in Melbourne, so unfortunately I won't attend this meetup.
Perhaps the next one.
Cheers,
David