New Zealand National Science Fiction Convention

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, some convention bids were made only a year in advance. At Norcon II in 1984 there was no bid by any group to hold a national convention in 1985. One reason for this was an assumption that many New Zealanders would instead attend Aussiecon II, the 1985 Worldcon, in Melbourne, Australia. However, a group from Dunedin at Norcon II announced that it was willing to stage a national convention in 1986, and won the bid for that year's convention. It was then taken for granted that Halleycon in 1986 would be the next national convention - New Zealand's seventh.

A few months after Norcon II, a group of Auckland fans decided to stage Orcon at Easter in 1985 and in their publicity called it the seventh national convention. A few weeks prior to Easter 1985 the Halleycon committee contacted the Orcon committee and made it clear to them that they had no right to call it a national convention. The Orcon committee accepted this - however by that point the convention programme booklet had already been printed which stated it was the seventh national convention. All of Halleycon's progress reports and publicity stated that it was the seventh national convention, and numbering of national conventions has continued from this, with the 1987 convention being officially the eighth New Zealand national convention.