FanWorks 2020 will be postponed
Mar. 13th, 2020 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trelkez posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fanworksFanWorks will no longer be taking place in August 2020.
We're currently looking into rescheduling options; there are a lot of factors to consider including hotel availability, staff availability, academic calendars, scheduling conflicts with other events, and Chicago weather. We will be making a decision in the next few days and will update as soon as we have new dates.
Why we've chosen to reschedule
August is months out yet, and we have no way of knowing what the situation regarding COVID-19 will be like then.
It could be fine! We don't want to cause worry about what things might be like in August. It could very well be that the originally scheduled con weekend will turn out to be a fine time to have had an event.
We could wait until early May and likely get a much better sense of how things are developing; we can reschedule up until 90 days before the con. But if we do that, we'll be greatly extending the window in which people will be booking travel, putting in time off, and so on, and we want to minimize that risk for our attendees as much as possible. We would also limit our ability to offer registration refunds, as the further we go into the con season, the more money we have to spend on contract deposits, equipment, supplies, and so on.
For those reasons, we're making the decision now, rather than waiting as long as possible. That puts us in the tough position of knowing August could be fine, but not being able to risk it financially. We can afford to reschedule, but not to cancel. (Event cancellations are incredibly expensive, as you may have seen in the news regarding major event cancellations over the past week.)
We also anticipate that the coming weeks and months may be a difficult time to ask people to focus on creating panels, vidshows, and all the programming and content that putting on the con requires. We want people to be able to focus their energy where they need it in the near future, and that includes the con’s staff.
We know that some of you may have already booked travel or put in time off, and we are truly sorry for any difficulties this may cause. The circumstances being what they are, there are no perfect solutions; all we can do is try to make the best decisions we can for our attendees and the con's future.
What will happen next
In the next few days, we'll be making a decision on new dates for the con. As soon as we have that information, we'll announce it on all of our platforms, update our website, and directly email all registered attendees.
We are looking at a fairly wide spread of dates at this point and don't want to speculate on when the con might be, so there will be no preliminary information on rescheduling, just a firm announcement of new dates.
If you've already registered to attend FanWorks
When new dates are announced, a form will go out to all registered attendees. Through that form, you'll have the option of rolling forward your registration to the new con dates, requesting a full refund of your $135 registration cost, or donating the cost of your registration to the con without rolling it forward to the new dates.
There are annual overhead costs we have to cover – the base cost not just of putting on the con itself, but of having con infrastructure. (This is one of many reasons con registration is generally nonrefundable; we are making an exception to our policy given the circumstances.)
For that reason, we may not be able to refund wristband purchases. We've chosen to prioritize refunding ticket payments over refunding bar wristband payments. If you request a refund of your registration, you will have the option of requesting a refund for your bar wristband also, but we can't guarantee we can make that happen. Once the dust settles and we can better assess where we're at financially, we'll look at all wristband refund requests and directly communicate to those individuals whether or not we can afford to issue those refunds.
Virtual con
We're looking into the possibility of doing a virtual con in the original con weekend, August 8 – 9th.
This would be in addition to the rescheduled con, not replacing it. The virtual con would probably look a bit like last year's digital con – streaming vidshows, a zine – plus online panels, chat rooms, and other social components. Whether or not we're able to do a virtual con will depend on a variety of factors including our new con dates, so we won't have any updates on that until after new dates are announced.
If you have questions, feedback, anything you want to communicate to us at this time, you can leave screened comments here or email jen@fanworkscon.com.
We're currently looking into rescheduling options; there are a lot of factors to consider including hotel availability, staff availability, academic calendars, scheduling conflicts with other events, and Chicago weather. We will be making a decision in the next few days and will update as soon as we have new dates.
Why we've chosen to reschedule
August is months out yet, and we have no way of knowing what the situation regarding COVID-19 will be like then.
It could be fine! We don't want to cause worry about what things might be like in August. It could very well be that the originally scheduled con weekend will turn out to be a fine time to have had an event.
We could wait until early May and likely get a much better sense of how things are developing; we can reschedule up until 90 days before the con. But if we do that, we'll be greatly extending the window in which people will be booking travel, putting in time off, and so on, and we want to minimize that risk for our attendees as much as possible. We would also limit our ability to offer registration refunds, as the further we go into the con season, the more money we have to spend on contract deposits, equipment, supplies, and so on.
For those reasons, we're making the decision now, rather than waiting as long as possible. That puts us in the tough position of knowing August could be fine, but not being able to risk it financially. We can afford to reschedule, but not to cancel. (Event cancellations are incredibly expensive, as you may have seen in the news regarding major event cancellations over the past week.)
We also anticipate that the coming weeks and months may be a difficult time to ask people to focus on creating panels, vidshows, and all the programming and content that putting on the con requires. We want people to be able to focus their energy where they need it in the near future, and that includes the con’s staff.
We know that some of you may have already booked travel or put in time off, and we are truly sorry for any difficulties this may cause. The circumstances being what they are, there are no perfect solutions; all we can do is try to make the best decisions we can for our attendees and the con's future.
What will happen next
In the next few days, we'll be making a decision on new dates for the con. As soon as we have that information, we'll announce it on all of our platforms, update our website, and directly email all registered attendees.
We are looking at a fairly wide spread of dates at this point and don't want to speculate on when the con might be, so there will be no preliminary information on rescheduling, just a firm announcement of new dates.
If you've already registered to attend FanWorks
When new dates are announced, a form will go out to all registered attendees. Through that form, you'll have the option of rolling forward your registration to the new con dates, requesting a full refund of your $135 registration cost, or donating the cost of your registration to the con without rolling it forward to the new dates.
There are annual overhead costs we have to cover – the base cost not just of putting on the con itself, but of having con infrastructure. (This is one of many reasons con registration is generally nonrefundable; we are making an exception to our policy given the circumstances.)
For that reason, we may not be able to refund wristband purchases. We've chosen to prioritize refunding ticket payments over refunding bar wristband payments. If you request a refund of your registration, you will have the option of requesting a refund for your bar wristband also, but we can't guarantee we can make that happen. Once the dust settles and we can better assess where we're at financially, we'll look at all wristband refund requests and directly communicate to those individuals whether or not we can afford to issue those refunds.
Virtual con
We're looking into the possibility of doing a virtual con in the original con weekend, August 8 – 9th.
This would be in addition to the rescheduled con, not replacing it. The virtual con would probably look a bit like last year's digital con – streaming vidshows, a zine – plus online panels, chat rooms, and other social components. Whether or not we're able to do a virtual con will depend on a variety of factors including our new con dates, so we won't have any updates on that until after new dates are announced.
If you have questions, feedback, anything you want to communicate to us at this time, you can leave screened comments here or email jen@fanworkscon.com.
