I heard that the Goodwood had the main manager fly out right before Gen Con due to the unexpected loss of his mother. A GM came in to cover in the managers sted, without much knowledge of the inner workings of the Indy location.  Coupled with unexpected a/c issues in the bar area and kitchen equipment issues at a time like Gen Con.  They were in a tough spot this year. 

I gave Goodwood 2 chances and unfortunately, they failed on both.  The lack of A/C obviously really hurt to begin with but giving exclusivity to the DAG group on multiple nights just killed it for me.  Throw in the fact that the closest thing I saw there that was geeky was when they ran Battlebots on the big screen. 

Otherwise, it was a serious fail.  They will have to do a lot to win me over.

Of course, it appears Covid killed the entire downtown scene (Gen Con wise).  As soon as the street party ended each night, the whole town just got quiet with the exception of the non-Gen Con bar district over by the Homewood Suites.

Right now most business are still trying to recover from the lockdowns. The hotel industry took it hard. The Conrad just lost a massive lawsuit to try and get lost funds. So unless a business knows they will see a good return on doing a theme, most will pass due to cost.

And as mentioned, a lot of employee's don't want to participate in theme events ether. Due to ether not being interested in those themes, or the cost on them as well. Not every business pays for costumes.

Also as some said, most places are still operating at below normal staffing levels. Just about every place is struggling to find workers.

I would give it a year or two, new themes will pop up, some will pass. Things are not back to normal yet.