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fanworksNext year's FanWorks convention will be the weekend of August 7th – 9th, 2020 in Chicago, IL at the SpringHill Suites at O'Hare Airport.
Registration for FanWorks 2020 will open on Sunday, January 12th at 2:00pm Eastern.
Attending membership will again be $135. We are currently working out costs of bar wristbands and other possible registration add-ons, and will update with those when prices are set.
The con block room rate at the SpringHill will be $119/night for a double or king. All guest rooms at the SpringHill include a living area with a pull-out couch and a kitchenette with a fridge, microwave, cabinets, and sink.
We'll be posting an interim guide to the SpringHill soon, with a more complete photo tour coming after we do a site visit for photography in early 2020. Our website will be updated in the coming week to reflect our new dates and location.
More information on the move from Detroit to Chicago:
The Sheraton at Detroit Metro Airport is a beautiful hotel, and there were definitely perks to the amount of space. But in the end, we felt we had no good choice but to move on from the Sheraton for 2020.
The decision to move came down to a few factors:
1. Cost: The price of all that space was not cheap. We made ends meet in 2019 in a variety of ways that were fine for a new con getting off the ground, but were not sustainable long term. Unfortunately, for year two the cost was going to go up significantly (including the direct cost to you of the hotel rooms), with strong indicators that the cost would continue to rise in future years.
We received extensive attendee survey feedback on the hotel after the 2019 con, and this played a role in our evaluation of whether or not the increasing cost of the Sheraton was worthwhile. Your feedback matters, and we appreciate everyone who let us know about their experiences with the hotel.
2. Our needs vs. available space at Metro Airport: We thoroughly explored the hotel offerings around Detroit Metro Airport in 2018 prior to signing with the Sheraton, and there were no other good fits for FanWorks in the area, necessitating a move away from Detroit Metro Airport.
3. Benefits of the SpringHill: Moving west should (hopefully) make travel easier from the west coast while still remaining near a major hub airport. The SpringHill staff are very familiar with our kind of event; the hotel has previously hosted CONfabulation and VividCon. The cost is very good, and there are a variety of benefits to the space that we couldn't have had at the Sheraton (more on this below!).
We sincerely apologize to any attendees in southern Michigan and the surrounding area for whom Chicago will be a travel inconvenience.
*
Some notes about the new hotel and what it means for the con:
Any questions can be left here as screened comments or sent to jen@fanworkscon.com.
Registration for FanWorks 2020 will open on Sunday, January 12th at 2:00pm Eastern.
Attending membership will again be $135. We are currently working out costs of bar wristbands and other possible registration add-ons, and will update with those when prices are set.
The con block room rate at the SpringHill will be $119/night for a double or king. All guest rooms at the SpringHill include a living area with a pull-out couch and a kitchenette with a fridge, microwave, cabinets, and sink.
We'll be posting an interim guide to the SpringHill soon, with a more complete photo tour coming after we do a site visit for photography in early 2020. Our website will be updated in the coming week to reflect our new dates and location.
More information on the move from Detroit to Chicago:
The Sheraton at Detroit Metro Airport is a beautiful hotel, and there were definitely perks to the amount of space. But in the end, we felt we had no good choice but to move on from the Sheraton for 2020.
The decision to move came down to a few factors:
1. Cost: The price of all that space was not cheap. We made ends meet in 2019 in a variety of ways that were fine for a new con getting off the ground, but were not sustainable long term. Unfortunately, for year two the cost was going to go up significantly (including the direct cost to you of the hotel rooms), with strong indicators that the cost would continue to rise in future years.
We received extensive attendee survey feedback on the hotel after the 2019 con, and this played a role in our evaluation of whether or not the increasing cost of the Sheraton was worthwhile. Your feedback matters, and we appreciate everyone who let us know about their experiences with the hotel.
2. Our needs vs. available space at Metro Airport: We thoroughly explored the hotel offerings around Detroit Metro Airport in 2018 prior to signing with the Sheraton, and there were no other good fits for FanWorks in the area, necessitating a move away from Detroit Metro Airport.
3. Benefits of the SpringHill: Moving west should (hopefully) make travel easier from the west coast while still remaining near a major hub airport. The SpringHill staff are very familiar with our kind of event; the hotel has previously hosted CONfabulation and VividCon. The cost is very good, and there are a variety of benefits to the space that we couldn't have had at the Sheraton (more on this below!).
We sincerely apologize to any attendees in southern Michigan and the surrounding area for whom Chicago will be a travel inconvenience.
*
Some notes about the new hotel and what it means for the con:
- We were already planning on reducing the number of simultaneous panel tracks from 5 to 3-4 based on attendee feedback. This will not change at the new hotel. We have at minimum 5 rooms available for panels and vidshows, plus the con suite.
- The con suite will be in the event space this year. We couldn't have done this at the Sheraton, so this is a big plus for us. We should be able to at least serve soft drinks in the con suite, with coffee available in the hotel lobby that can be brought into any con spaces.
- Our space will still be spread out over two floors, with rooms on the first and second floors of the hotel, but in the SpringHill the first floor con rooms are much less isolated, which we hope will help.
- The overall schedule format is likely to remain roughly the same, including length and quantity of breaks, as feedback was overwhelmingly positive on those.
- There will still be evening events on all nights of the con. Events won't run quite as late this year (Sparkle Motion is currently planned to end at 11:00 pm), but we feel this will be an overall benefit to both people hosting room parties and the sleep levels of con staff.
- Speaking of room parties: The SpringHill guest rooms are going to be a significant upgrade for anyone who likes having people hang out in their room. If you tried to have a room party in 2019 and couldn't quite make it work, the sofas at the SpringHill are here for you.
- We expect to have a larger dance floor this year. The lower cost of the event space means we'll have the ability to upgrade the con experience in a variety of ways, and one key way is a more elbow room for dancing.
- It should (fingers crossed) be easier to isolate the sound from the vidshow room this year, which was a big point on last year's feedback.
Any questions can be left here as screened comments or sent to jen@fanworkscon.com.
