2013 Hugo Trophy Unveiled

The design of the 2013 Hugo Award trophy was unveiled during the Opening Ceremonies of LoneStarCon 3, the 2013 World Science Fiction Convention, on the evening of August 29. In keeping with recent practice, LoneStarCon 3 elected to showcase the trophy early in the convention so that members could see it before the final night of Worldcon. The trophy has been on display in the convention’s Hugo Award history exhibit since shortly after the convention’s Opening Ceremonies.

While the Hugo Award trophy always includes the rocket originally designed by Jack McKnight and Ben Jason as refined by Peter Weston, each year’s Worldcon can design its own base. In recent years, most Worldcons have had an open design competition to design the Hugo Award base. This year’s trophy base designer Vincent Villafranca appeared in the Opening Ceremony and unveiled the trophy there.

The 2013 Hugo Awards will be presented at a ceremony in San Antonio on the evening of Sunday, September 1, 2013, starting at 8 PM CDT. The ceremony will be broadcast live on Ustream and described on the Hugo Awards web site as a CoverItLive Broadcast.

2013 Hugo Awards Ceremony to be Broadcast Live

LoneStarCon 3, the 2013 World Science Fiction Convention, in partnership with Ustream, will broadcast the 2013 Hugo Awards Ceremony live and advertising-free on Sunday, September 1, 2013.

The ceremony will be held in the Grand Ballroom of the Marriott Rivercenter hotel in downtown San Antonio, starting at 8 PM Central Daylight Time (9 PM EDT, 6 PM PDT). LoneStarCon 3 Toastmaster Paul Cornell, himself a past Hugo Award winner and multiple Hugo Award nominee, will host the ceremony.

In addition to the live video broadcast via Ustream at, the official Hugo Awards site will provide live text-only (lower bandwidth required) coverage via CoverItLive. As in previous years, the CoverItLive event will be hosted by former Worldcon Co-Chairman Kevin Standlee and two-time Campbell Award Nominee Mur Lafferty.

LoneStarCon 3 has partnered with Ustream, the leading video technology platform for live business communications, to provide this exclusive, ad-free broadcast, enabling science fiction fans around the world to participate in this prestigious event without interruption. This means that issue with automated ‘bots that affected last year’s broadcast has been dealt with, and the ceremony is a “whitelisted” event on Ustream.

For more information and the full announcement, see the LoneStarCon 3 web site.

1,848 Ballots Cast in 2013 Hugo Awards

LoneStarCon 3 has announced that 1,848 valid final ballots were received for this year’s awards, representing a voter turnout (percentage of eligible members who voted) of 42%. The figure of 1,848 is the third-highest ballot count in history after Renovation, the 2011 Worldcon, and Chicon 7, the 2012 Worldcon. LoneStarCon 3 previously announced an all-time record of 1,343 nominating ballots, highlighting the ever-increasing interest in and support for the Hugo Awards.

The Hugo Awards will be announced at a ceremony at LoneStarCon 3 in San Antonio, Texas on Sunday, September 1, beginning at 8 PM Central Daylight Time.

Hugo Award Voting Closed

Voting for the 2013 Hugo Awards is now closed. The winners will be announced at the Hugo Awards Ceremony at LoneStarCon 3, the 2013 World Science Fiction Convention, on Sunday, September 1, 2013. According to the LoneStarCon 3 web site, the convention is finalizing plans to show the Hugo Awards Ceremony by video streaming and to also provide lower-bandwidth plain-text coverage, with details to be announced in early August. For more information, see the Hugo Awards page at the LoneStarCon 3 web site.