Archipelacon is a volunteer-run science fiction, fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction convention. The convention is organised at Alandica Culture and Conference Centre in Mariehamn, Åland Islands, Finland. The convention attendees are called members, and everyone attending is expected to be in hold of a valid membership, including children.
Archipelacon is not an annual convention. The first Archipelacon was organised in 2015. Helsinki had lost a bid to host Worldcon in 2015 and the Nordic fandom wanted to do something different, something that had never been done before. Mariehamn was chosen because Alandica was an interesting venue with a lot of potential. While Mariehamn had had a Nordic convention for several years at that point, the tiny relaxed Åcon with a maximum of 100 members was nothing compared to Archipelacon with the cap of almost 800 members! The first Archipelacon was sold out, and it was a huge success all around. The programme varied from lectures, panel discussions and interviews to workshops and performances, all around the themes of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction, regardless of the medium.
The idea for a second Archipelacon came up at Worldcon 2019 in Dublin. Archipelacon 2 chair (and back then the chair for Maa ja ilma ry, the association responsible for the first Archipelacon as well as Worldcon 75 in Helsinki in 2017) Karo had the idea of organising something that was different from the national convention Finncon. The official decision to organise Archipelacon 2 was made in the spring of 2020, and the convention was announced at Virtual Finncon in July 2020.
The decision to apply Eurocon status for Archipelacon 2 was made relatively early. The last and only Eurocon in Finland was in Turku in 2003. In 2023 the ESFS General Meeting chose Archipelacon 2 as Eurocon 2025.