This section has information for people running, or thinking of running, a BiCon. If you just want to find out about future BiCons, we suggest you go back to the BiCon home page.
You cannot fully appreciate the bisexual community – its good points and its bad – until you have been on a BiCon team.
If you do, you'll be expected to follow the Guidelines (or to have said in advance that you're not…)
How do you get to lead a BiCon team?
The first step is to contact BiCon Continuity. They will discuss with you what you can offer and what you need. If you don't talk directly to Continuity, do not assume that they know about what you are currently thinking or that they will tell a DMP about your possible interest.
A reason for that is that far more people have said they are interested in doing it than actually do it – and that's OK! Not everyone is suited to running a BiCon and this is a good opportunity to consider what's involved and see if it really is for you.
As part of that, Continuity will ask you about a number of issues that you may not have thought about. A PDF version of the August 2020 version is here:
It's not intended to be scary, but it does set out some of the things you need to have considered. A version suitable for answering will be sent on request – some questions need more space than is in the PDF version.
Until you have Continuity's approval, do not enter into any contracts with venues etc.
If there is more than a year before the one you're thinking of running
Great! For many years, it's been the ideal that people make a DMP bid to run the BiCon two years ahead. This means you have time to sort the venue and dates so you can announce them at the BiCon before yours. But whether it's one year or longer away, Continuity will ask you to seek the approval of the DMP at the next BiCon.
Sometimes there will be more than one person wanting to do the same year and, for whatever reason, they don't want to do it together. In any case, the DMP's decision will be followed by Continuity unless there is a very good reason not to do so.
So while no-one will expect a presentation with music, lasers and endless slides, be prepared to answer questions about who's involved with your bid, plus where and when you are thinking of having it. It's OK not to have a precise answer to those, especially two years beforehand, but if you don't have any idea and someone else does have more answers – or if there's no-one there from your team to answer questions – the DMP is very likely to go with another bid.
If it's less than a year
This obviously isn't ideal, but there have been years where at the end of BiCon there has been no-one offering to run next year's event. There have also been years when, for one reason or another, the team who were going to run the next BiCon have been unable to continue. (One of the basic rules of running a BiCon is that it's far better to say that you can't continue rather than pretend everything is ok when it isn't.)
In either case, Continuity will have made an announcement seeing if there are any people willing to form a new team.
Free use of bicon.org.uk domains
Bicon organisers are welcome to use sub-domains of bicon.org.uk (for example 2019.bicon.org.uk) to publicise their event. We are happy either to host the site on our server or just point the relevant year.bicon.org.uk address to somewhere else. Hosting the site here means you can concentrate on the content because we look after all of the techie side for you and also means you can take advantage of our email server.
External links
The private LiveJournal Dreamwidth BiCon Organisers community has a host of experience, some of which may well end up here.
Others who have written about running a BiCon include Ian and Marcus. Both are somewhat opinionated pieces, originally largely written after ones that didn't go as well as they could have.
From a US perspective, there is Tom's guide, which also includes advice for using venues like hotels.
(Last updated: 17th May 2021)
