We would welcome anyone who showed up and wanted to work with us. Good luck getting them away from their specialty cons.
Most of it is the graying of fandom. I'm sure you've seen plenty of talk about it. The kids aren't interested in our kind of convention. People always had their own areas of interest, but the only place they had to find their own few kind was at a general fan run Con. They tended to run around with the few people who shared their own particular interest but at least they were at the Con and they could be exposed to other areas of fandom and be wheedled into helping out with things.
Times have changed. The internet lets people get together virtually. It lets them find even more people who share their interest and only their interest. They can connect with each other without having to go through the intermediary of a SciFi/Fantasy club that only meets once a month, or the yearly convention. They can organize their own Con, and now they don't have to put up with our weird obsession with books, or old movies or tv shows they don't care about when they can get all the anime cosplay and voice actors they want at their anime con a couple miles away.
They know we're here. They just don't give a damn, because their needs are already being met.
Re: my question was a bit rhetorical
Most of it is the graying of fandom. I'm sure you've seen plenty of talk about it. The kids aren't interested in our kind of convention. People always had their own areas of interest, but the only place they had to find their own few kind was at a general fan run Con. They tended to run around with the few people who shared their own particular interest but at least they were at the Con and they could be exposed to other areas of fandom and be wheedled into helping out with things.
Times have changed. The internet lets people get together virtually. It lets them find even more people who share their interest and only their interest. They can connect with each other without having to go through the intermediary of a SciFi/Fantasy club that only meets once a month, or the yearly convention. They can organize their own Con, and now they don't have to put up with our weird obsession with books, or old movies or tv shows they don't care about when they can get all the anime cosplay and voice actors they want at their anime con a couple miles away.
They know we're here. They just don't give a damn, because their needs are already being met.