Trophies

Hugo Award Base & Lodestar Award Designers Announced

~ Kayla Allen ~ 1 Comment

LA con V, the 2026 Worldcon, announced on June 15, 2026, that the 2026 Hugo Award trophy base will be designed by Scott Lefton, while the 2026 Lodestar Award will be designed by H Emiko Ogasawara.

Each year’s Hugo Award trophy consists of the rocket originally designed by Jack McKnight and Ben Jason and later refined to its current form by Peter Weston, mounted on a base designed specified by each year’s Worldcon committee.

The design of each year’s Lodestar Award is specified by that year’s Worldcon committee.

The final base designs will be revealed as part of the convention’s Opening Ceremony in Anaheim on August 27, 2026.

For more information, see the full announcement at the LAcon V website.

Glasgow 2024 Announces Designers for the 2024 Hugo and Lodestar Award Trophies

~ Kevin ~ 2 Comments

Glasgow 2024 has announced that the 2024 Hugo Award Base will be designed by Iain J. Clark. The trophy for the 2024 Lodestar Award for Best YA Book will be designed by Sara Felix. The final base designs will be revealed as part of the convention’s Opening Ceremony in Glasgow on 8th August. The 2024 Hugo Awards and Lodestar Award will be presented in a ceremony in Glasgow, Scotland on the evening of Sunday, 11th August.

The Hugo Award trophy consists of a rocket design by Jack McKnight and Ben Jason as refined by Peter Weston. Each Worldcon committee can design the base of the trophy presented by their Worldcon. Each Worldcon committee also selects he trophy design for the Lodestar Award. Each year’s Hugo Awards are administered by that year’s Worldcon. The Hugo Awards are not administered by the Hugo Awards website. For questions about the 2024 Hugo Awards, contact the 2024 Hugo Award Administrators.

For further details about the 2024 Hugo Award and Lodestar Award trophies, including information about the artists, see the announcement from Glasgow 2024 on their website.

2023 Hugo Winners

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Chengdu, China – Chengdu Worldcon, the 81st World Science Fiction Convention, has announced the winners of the 2023 Hugo Awards, Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book, and Astounding Award for Best New Writer. The announcement was made live via the Chengdu Worldcon website on October 21st 2023. The full list of winners and finalists is available on our 2023 page.

1847 valid nominating ballots (1843 electronic and 4 paper) were received and counted from members of the 2022 and 2023 World Science Fiction Conventions for the 2023 Hugo Awards. We do not have details of the voting statistics in the final ballot. We will post them as soon as we receive the information.

The photo of the trophy was provided by Richard Man, winner of this year’s Best Fan Artist Hugo.

2022 Hugo Award and Lodestar Award Designers Announced

~ Kevin ~ 4 Comments

Chicon 8, the 2022 World Science Fiction Convention, has announced who will design the 2022 Hugo Award base and the 2022 Lodestar Award. The Hugo Award trophy consists of the rocket designed by Jack McKnight and Ben Jason and refined by Peter Weston, with the design of each year’s base determined by the individual Worldcon committee. The information from Chicon 8’s announcement follows below.

Continue reading →

1945 Retro-Hugo and 2020 Hugo Award Trophy Designs Revealed

~ Kevin ~ 4 Comments

The trophies for the 1945 Retrospective Hugo Awards and 2020 Hugo Awards were unveiled as part of the CoNZealand opening ceremonies on 29 Jul 2020 (NZST)

1945 Retrospective Hugo Award Trophy designed by James Brown

2020 Hugo Award Trophy designed by John Flower

Click through the photos above to see the artists’ discussion about their designs as revealed during the CoNZealand opening ceremonies.

The 1945 Retrospective Hugo Awards and the Sir Julius Vogel Awards for New Zealand speculative fiction will be presented online at CoNZealand at 11:00, Thursday 30 Jul 2020 New Zealand Standard Time. This ceremony will be available live only to those members of CoNZealand attending online.

The 2020 Hugo Awards, Lodestar Award for Best YA Book, and Astounding Award for Best New Writer will be presented online at CoNZealand at 11:00, Saturday 1 Aug 2020 New Zealand Standard Time. The Ceremony will be streamed live online (no CoNZealand membership necessary) on The Fantasy Network.

You can use web sites like TimeAndDate to convert local time in New Zealand to local time elsewhere.

2020/1945 Hugo Award Base Designers Announced

~ Kevin

CoNZealand, the 78th World Science Fiction Convention, has announced the two New Zealand artists who they have selected to design the 2020 Hugo Award and 1945 Retrospective Hugo Award trophy bases.

Worldcons are required to use the standardized rocket topping the Hugo Award trophy, but each Worldcon designs their own bases. CoNZealand invited New Zealand-based artists to submit base designs. Five designers submitted proposals, and two were selected to design the bases for the trophies to be presented by this year’s Worldcon. John Flower will design the 2020 Hugo Awards trophy base, and James Brown will design the 1945 Retrospective Hugo Award trophy base.

The iconic rocket ship atop the Hugo Award trophy originally designed by Jack McKnight and Ben Jason and refined and standardized by Peter Weston is a service mark of the World Science Fiction Society. This registered rocket ship design may only be used on Hugo Awards and may not be used on other awards presented by WSFS.

The announcement from CoNZealand follows:
Continue reading →

The 2018 Hugo Award Trophy

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

The trophy for this year’s Hugo Awards was unveiled as part of the Worldcon 76 opening ceremonies. The base design is by Sara Felix and Vincent Villafranca. Here’s a close-up of the base.

This year’s Hugo Award winners will be announced on Sunday night (California time). For details of our live coverage see here.

Retro-Hugo Photo Update

~ Cheryl

This photograph of Worldcon 76 Chair, Kevin Roche, pictured with his husband, Andy Trembley, gives a much better view of the tower behind the rocket. The design is based on the San José Electric Light Tower.

The base of the trophy is made from cherry wood because cherries were a major crop in San José before the advent of Silicon Valley.

Peter Weston, The Hugo Award Rocket Man (1943-2017)

~ Kevin ~ 1 Comment

Peter Weston with a Hugo Award rocket Peter Weston, the man who created the current version of the iconic Hugo Award rocket, died on January 5, 2017, aged 73, according to a report published by Locus Online today. Although each Worldcon designs its own Hugo Award trophy base, since 1984, all metal Hugo Award trophy rockets have been cast from a mold created by Weston at the foundry he owned. (Non-metallic trophies followed the same design but were constructed using a different process.)

Weston gave presentations about the making of Hugo Award rockets and made the presentation available to The Hugo Awards web site for us to preserve here. The World Science Fiction Society recognized Weston’s contributions to the Hugo Award by including his name in the WSFS Constitution after the original designers of the Hugo Award trophy, Jack McKnight and Ben Jason.

Besides his contributions to the Hugo Awards, Weston chaired the 1979 Worldcon in Brighton, UK, and was Fan Guest of Honor at the 2004 Worldcon. He edited anthologies and was a finalist for the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Related Work for his memoir, Stars in My Eyes: My Adventures in British Fandom.