ICon festival

ICon is an Israeli Science Fiction and Fantasy fan convention held annually in the Tel Aviv Cinemateque during the Sukkot holiday. The name ICon is a shortening of the phrase Israeli Convention. The first ICon was held in 1998 and was presented as a convention. The earlier ICons lasted for 3 days each, but with the increasing demand, they started lengthening, and to attract more people, it was changed from convention to festival. However, the name ICon remained. ICon 2006 was 5 days long and held about 5000 visitors every day.^{[citation needed]}

The festival is the biggest fan convention in Israel and features lectures, movies, stage play, roleplay, dealer tables and other activities. Each ICon has a main theme and is visited by a famous guest from abroad; past guests include science fiction author Orson Scott Card and fantasy authors Guy Gavriel Kay, Steven Brust and Neil Gaiman. In addition, since 1999, the Geffen Award for original and translated science fiction and fantasy literature has been given during the festival. In former years, it featured a battling ring, where people could fight each other using soft LARP weapons. However, this activity was disallowed for security reasons.

Writer Tim Powers fights at the battle ring. ICon 2005

A battle at the "Colosseum" battling ring at Icon 2005

Among the organizers of the festival are The Israeli Association for Science Fiction and Fantasy, "Starbase 972" Star trek fan club, The Israeli Roleplaying Association and others.

On 2010, due to some disagreements among festival organizers, the festival was split to two festivals: One festival is called "Icon Festival". it is organized by "Israeli Society of Science Fiction and Fantasy", on the subject "Through the Looking-Glass". The other festival's name was changed to "Icon TLV" and its subject for 2010 is "Heroes and Monsters".

External links

• Icon Festival held by "Israeli Society of Science Fiction and Fantasy"
• Official site of "Icon TLV" (changed name)