According to this, you have 25 furry conventions in the United States, 3 in Canada, 1 in the UK, 4 in Germany, 1 in Austria, 1 in the Czech Republic, 1 in France (so that’s 7 in the EU), 2 in Russia (one of which whose schedule is tentative because its based upon the scheduling of a solar eclispe), 1 in Australia, and 1 in Japan.

According to Scificonventions.com, there are 59 conventions in the United States, 5 in Canada, 3 in the United Kingdom, and 6 in Australia.

According to the Wikipedia list of anime conventions, there are 34 conventions in the US, 5 in Canada, 2 in the UK, 3 in Germany, 1 in France, 1 in Spain, 5 in Australia, and 4 in Japan.

There are close to 0 genre/media-based conventions in the Southern Cone of South America (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay), or in China, both of which, no doubt, have their own very large fandoms, ranging from the amateur flash shorts of China’s Flash Empire to Brazil’s Fauna Urbana.

So what’s the deal here? Are genre or media conventions just a Western concept, or can they be integrated into other developing cultures with a good bit of restructuring?

There are alternatives to the traditional convention structure, such as unconferences (also known in Sci-fi parlance as Relaxacons), in which people get together without any central comittee planning, no guests of honor, no professionals, or anything like that.

So maybe annual get-togethers should just come closer to earth?

Maybe.