ICon Festival (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

: פסטיבל אייקון) is an Israeli

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

and

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...

fan convention Fan convention (also known as con or fan meeting), a term that predates 1942, is an event in which fans of a particular topic gather to participate and hold programs and other events, and to meet experts, famous personalities, and each other. Some ...

held annually in the

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

Eshkol Pais during the

Sukkot or ("Booths, Tabernacles") , observedby = Jews, Samaritans, a few Protestant denominations, Messianic Jews, Semitic Neopagans , type = Jewish, Samaritan , begins = 15th day of Tishrei , ends = 21st day of Tishre ...

holiday in September–October. Venues in previous years included the adjacent Cinematheque, Eeroni Aleph school and ZOA house. The first ICon was held in autumn 1998. ICon is normally three days long, though in previous years it featured a parallel film festival which lasted longer. The title is a contraction of "Israeli Convention". Graphically, "IC" resembles the first letter of the festival's name in Hebrew, hence the capitalization. ICon features a plethora of talks on subjects including literature, science, television, films, specific fandoms and general genre theory as well as writing and art workshops and a host of

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

s. The convention encourages

cosplay Cosplay, a portmanteau of "costume play", is an activity and performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character. Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture, ...

, and includes a masquerade event. It normally features an original film, play or musical created by Israeli science fiction fans. ICon 2013 featured over 270 such events over the 3.5 day period. Rather than a dealers' room, ICon features a dealers' court through the festival lobby and the outdoors areas of the venue. The festival usually features a battle ring where costumed

LARP A live action role-playing game (LARP) is a form of role-playing game where the participants physically portray their characters.(Tychsen et al. 2006:255) "LARPs can be viewed as forming a distinct category of RPG because of two unique feature ...

players and visitors can battle against each other with soft simulated weapons. The annual Geffen Award ceremony for Hebrew and translated science fiction and fantasy literature has been held at ICon since 1999. The venue consists of the Eshkol Pais building, which features talks, a makeshift "café" rest area, a tabletop games room and some of the dealers' court including a second-hand booth where visitors deposit used goods for sale. The Eeroni Aleph adjacent school is used for roleplaying games and allows out-of-town visitors to sleep inside for the duration of the night. Nearby venues, such as ZOA, are sometimes used as well on busier years. Past guests and guests of honor include authors

Orson Scott Card Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is the first and (as of 2022) only person to win both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for both ...

Guy Gavriel Kay Guy Gavriel Kay (born November 7, 1954) is a Canadian writer of fantasy fiction. The majority of his novels take place in fictional settings that resemble real places during real historical periods, such as Constantinople during the reign of Jus ...

Steven Brust Steven Karl Zoltán Brust (born November 23, 1955) is an American fantasy and science fiction author of Hungarian descent. He is best known for his series of novels about the assassin Vlad Taltos, one of a disdained minority group of humans livi ...

Neil Gaiman Neil Richard MacKinnon GaimanBorn as Neil Richard Gaiman, with "MacKinnon" added on the occasion of his marriage to Amanda Palmer. ; ( Neil Richard Gaiman; born 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, gr ...

Daryl Gregory Daryl Gregory (born 1965) is an American science fiction, fantasy and comic book author. Gregory is a 1988 alumnus of the Michigan State University Clarion science fiction workshop, and won the 2009 Crawford Award for his novel ''Pandemonium''. P ...

and

Brandon Sanderson Brandon Winn Sanderson (born December 19, 1975) is an American author of high fantasy and science fiction. He is best known for the Cosmere fictional universe, in which most of his fantasy novels, most notably the ''Mistborn'' series and ''The ...

, as well as actor

Chase Masterson Chase Masterson (born Christianne Carafano on February 26, 1963) is an American actress and singer. Early life Chase Masterson was born Christianne Carafano in Colorado Springs, Colorado. As her father was in the Army,nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

s. The year 2013 saw over 250 volunteers (including staff) running ICon. Over the years ICon was held by Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy and Israeli Roleplaying Association, along with the Starbase 972 Star Trek fan clubStarbase 972
/ref> and others. Since 2010, due to dispute among festival organizers, the festival was split to two festivals: "ICon", organized by the Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy and held in the Eshkol Pais in Tel Aviv, and "Utopia" (previously "Icon TLV") at the Cinematheque in Tel Aviv.

References

External links

Icon Festival

Utopia Festival

The History of the Future
—Israeli general science fiction events calendar {{DEFAULTSORT:Icon Festival 1998 establishments in Israel Book fairs in Israel Festivals in Tel Aviv Film festivals in Israel History of Tel Aviv Israeli science fiction Recurring events established in 1998 Science fiction conventions in Asia Sukkot