MileHiCon

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MileHiCon
Genre Science fiction/Fantasy
Location Denver, Colorado
Country Flag of the United States United States
Organizer MileHiCon, Inc.
Filing status Non-profit
Official website

MileHiCon is an annual science fiction/fantasy convention held in Denver, Colorado in October. It is primarily literary, although it also has an art show, art programming, science track, the Critter Crunch (similar to Robot Wars), the Critter Flotilla (robotic competition in the Hotel pool), an independent science fiction film contest, a video room, anime room, Masquerade, gaming, etc. It is run by MileHiCon, Inc., a Colorado non-profit corporation, and donates money each year to local literacy programs.

[edit] History

The first MileHiCon was held in October 1969, and was first known as "Mini-con", due to its small size. It was run by the Denver Area SF Association (DASFA), and was held in the same meeting room that DASFA usually used. DASFA soon discovered that another convention called Minicon had been started the previous year in Minneapolis. To avoid confusion the association decided to rename it OctoCon, referring to the month in which it was staged (October) After changing the name, they discovered there was a convention in England called OctoCon. DASFA then renamed the convention again. The two finalists were:

  • "MileHiCon", which plays off Denver being "the Mile-High City", and would be unlikely to be duplicated.
  • "LungfishGranolaCon", which refers to an ancient DASFA tradition of lungfish jokes, a type of word game.

MileHiCon won a narrow victory (by one vote, the legend goes)[citation needed].

Around 1980, MileHiCon was incorporated as an entity separate from DASFA (which still meets, but still is not incorporated). As of 2005, it generally has an attendance of 900-1000 people.