But I would be OK with a smaller convention this year. Even a decreased attendance will help businesses in downtown Indy. And it might feel like the old days in Milwaukee, when you didn't feel a mad crush of people in every aisle.
All I ask is that Gencon just sticks to the guidelines set forth by the state, and nothing more. If masks are not mandated by that point, don't make them mandated. Please don't go above and beyond what is required by the law and/or CDC. People can go above and beyond themselves should they choose to. My buddies and I already have our trip booked for Gencon, so fingers crossed it happens.
Obviously the state will be the minimum and then whatever else additionally will draw the most people based on their survey responses. If X guideline + Y nets 50% more attendance and is logistically feasible, then I'm sure they will go that path.
Indianapolis easing restrictions next week. I’m sure this is a preemptive to March madness. Keep crossing your fingers that March madness is free of anything major. Will be a huge step towards an in person gencon. Have to hope Europe can start making big steps, countries seem to lagging there.
Countries are running to problems with the new variants being more contagious. It is also looking like our lovely positive number freefall is slowing down or stalling in our nationwide numbers. Hopefully it doesn't pick back up again.
Posted by Gencon on Facebook... "A special message from our team about Gen Con 2021. Thanks for your continued patience, feedback, and support as we continue to investigate what Gen Con 2021 will look like.
"Thank you for taking the time to complete our recent 2021 interest and feedback surveys. We appreciate your responses and the guidance provided by you and our health and safety experts as we research possibilities for a 2021 show. We are still reading through the thousands of survey replies and working with local authorities, and have not made a definitive decision or set dates for badge, hotel, and event registration at this time.
Thank you for your continued support! We ask that you please be patient with us as we try to navigate the best options available for our attendees, our staff, and our convention. We will update you with dates and details about Gen Con 2021 as soon as we have further information."
And from me:)...
To the team, I'd encourage you to simplify this year if you think the more condensed timeline might get overwhelming and you feel like "if we can't do it 100%, we can't do it". You can totally run this Con, even getting started late, especially if you get out of the business of what you don't need to do.
As one example - If hotels are too much, don't run a lottery - let folks get them themselves. Then, you don't have to hear any complaints about them, either. Maybe it's a moneymaker for you, so rather than doing some sort of lottery, just make a deal with all the hotels that Con goers can mention your name to get X discount (and X kickback to you). Simple, easy, and it's not your problem if one hotel has issues. It's the hotels' issue. Then, you only keep hotels you need for volunteers...or you don't give volunteers hotels and just do a straight voucher (again, easy is good:)...
The US is starting to accept big events (see March Madness in Indy, the Super Bowl with fans, all the Six Flags opening this summer, movie theater openings in NYC, etc) - that's only gonna accelerate this spring, and by summer, we'll feel a normalcy where we're ready for this (even if some don't feel it yet now), even if in a "more protected" form. If the concern is the Con will get any blowback from the general gaming community for hosting a big event (at full or a reduced capacity), I think you'd be surprised. Lots of folks need something to look forward to for their mental and social health.
@gib_rebeg, you have your freedom to do what you will, but you don't have the freedom to make others sick.
Mike
As a reminder:
There will be zero toleration here for inappropriate posts. Or back and forth arguments that devolve the thread on whose right or wrong about what we, the government, or anyone should or shouldn't do. Take these discussions to the social media outlets of your choice. Not ours please.
Just chiming in to note that besides vaccinated and unvaccinated there is a third category: People who have already had covid. These people are at least as immune as people who have been vaccinated. The notion that immunity "wears off" after 90 days is a myth. Otherwise we would be hearing about LOTS of people getting reinfected. But that's not happening. Reinfection stories are extremely rare, probably more rare than vaccinated people getting sick.
Further, as a society we are better off if people who have already had Covid delay vaccination, so people with no immunity can get vaccinations first.
So if we have gatherings that allow vaccinated people to participate, we should also allow participation by people who are immune because they have already had the disease.
So I been thinking of the logistics of this.
Now this is thinking doing this in October or so.
Summer might be a bit too soon. ComicCon cancelled today as well for that very reason. So kicking this down the curb a bit.
Non-football weekend.
Move the dealers to the floor of the stadium AND the entire concourse between the hotels and the stadium. Its a good few miles of hallways, rooms, halls, etc. Spread the dealer hall vastly apart and thus you make it socially distanced as a matter of course.
October its not too cold for the food trucks and you put more of them down side streets, etc rather than the cluster#*# in the park.
Hotels will be off capacity on a non football weekend, so not a problem there.
Run some shuttles to and from the hotels to the stadium for people with disabilities. Not everyone can make that hike several times a day,
The more you thin the herd intentionally, the easier it is to social distance.
How do you propose handling people visiting booths? are you limiting the number of people that can be at each booth? the lines to get into places like Paizo or KDM or Asmodee or exploding kittens or... you get the idea, these lines are forever long and before you propose making people sign up for time to visit please consider the amount of additional workers this would require.
General question, do people generally not feel safe when you see someone has used sanitizer and they are wearing a face mask? This has been our normal living situation now for over a year. I would have no problem standing anywhere or sitting at any table with a group of fully masked individuals that have used sanitizer.
One last concern, you are backing this up to October, that is when Origins is, also the NFL. You will not get the NFL to schedule around a convention nor would Indy be interested in potentially angering that golden goose.
I don't brave the dealer hall rush during normal times. I've been pushed and jostled way too much in the past. And I've seen people knocked down and hurt because of it.
I'm not sure what can be done about it. But I think the area of most concern is the dealer hall and people rushing to get items, and not caring who or what is in their way. Covid protocol wont stop these kinds of people.
Thoughts about doing the exhibit hall as a (free) timed ticketed event, similar to what they are doing at zoos these days? Could help with congestion. Yes, many negatives if you are trying to get the new hot product or find yourself with a random 30 minutes but no ticket (and I'm sure tons more that I didn't mention). But if that's the difference between having the con or not, it could possibly work...
Also I don't know if you knew this, but the NFL schedule makers work around *a lot* of regional events in host cities, many significantly smaller than GenCon. So long as any negotiating is done before the schedule is done, I doubt that's an issue.
What happens if a demo takes much longer than expected? what if you are in line to buy something? how do you remove people that are supposed to have left? how do you prevent people from entering when it is not their time? Is there a line of people that wait every half hour to get in? do they need to wait until X amount of people have successfully left the hall before entry is allowed?
I do not know how you can justify asking people to spend a 1000 dollars on hotel, food and badges for a four day event and then tell them they are only allowed to attend the event at X time for Y amount of time.
I imagine Gen Con is considering everything as they have to but this seems like a logistical nightmare to try to impose this would basically be the Hotel lottery happening everyday of the convention...
There is only so much distance you can put between people at a convention. (Not to mention all the interaction outside of the convention center that would be completely outside of Gencon's control - hotels, restaurants, food trucks, taxis, airlines, etc). Some things aren't logistically feasible and/or might be impossible even with other safety concerns e.g, I very much doubt that the fire department would allow hallways to be clogged with people/vendors. They already bark at people that sit on a bench opening day. Timed staging of things like the vendor hall would just create big logjams of the 2 bodies mashing together in one crowd anyways not to mention things like food service taking a pounding in that window of 'I'm going to the vendor hall right now vs I just came out of the vendor hall'.
There is going to be a reduced crowd regardless. There is a group that will come no matter what, a group that won't come no matter what and then the middle that is undecided which will come or not come based on various factors. Because of the reduced attendance, things will naturally take care of themselves and Gencon can massage some scenarios to help out (like offering specific areas that will be 'distanced gaming' for those that would be more wary of interacting closer).
Biden just announced a major partnership with Merck and Johnson & Johnson to deliver the newly approved J&J vaccine. According to Biden, there will be enough vaccine for American adults by the end of May. Assuming that is true, it seems like Gen Con could realistically operate in a post-vaccine world.
It will be interesting to see what the public health recommendations are in a situation where everyone (adults, anyway) who wants a vaccine will have had one.
There are a lot of choices a large event could make. I hear a lot of people here throwing out ideas. Personally, I have no desire to try to plan a convention myself. But, this is great news and I feel like it really opens the door to possibilities. Granted, assuming a live event happens, it will still be different than normal.