DeathJester

Add a big win on the GOOD SIGNS column: New York City announced that it will fully reopen (no restaurant, venue, or business restrictions) on July 1st. Given that we were the hardest hit last year, this is optimistic news for when we can expect the attendance limits to be dropped.

I can't think of a single example of where the virtual convention did bigger business than the traditional con so I highly doubt that will become the new norm going forward. ... except maybe for E3 since that show was already in a bad place prior to the pandemic.

GOOD SIGNS: - Blerdcon is going full speed ahead with their event in July so Otakon is no longer the COVID reopening guinea pig. As long as that event is not forced to cancel then Otakon will be able to operate. - The DC vaccine sites are switching to walk-in distribution which is a sign that vaccine supply is greater than demand so I doubt they will be still using the convention center for too much longer. - Most states are proceeding with their reopening plan because now that the vaccine supply is growing there is less concern about regional hospital system meltdowns. Government is

RIP PAX East 2021. Although they still plan on going forward with PAX West in September. Otakon is looking more on the borderline now. On one hand even the conservative projections show 80% vaccination rate by July but its not like Otakorp can wait until the last 30 days to start planning an entire con in earnest.

Certain states are already pushing for full capacity events right now so its really going to be DC's call again on whether Otakon can happen. I am going to be cautiously optimistic and hope that the vaccine rollout goes as planned and we can have a proper Otakon this year.

The Good: I was shocked that the Carole and Tuesday panel was live since it means those guys were in a studio at like midnight, so it was great that they took questions from the twitch chat. Twitch moderation was also great- the staff did their best to address issues on the stream. The Bad: The usual technical mishaps- audio issues, video drops, etc. The panel lengths were too short at 30 minutes. The Ugly: I'm not about to complain about you guys pulling an event together when the entire world is on fire. You guys turned chicken poop into chic

Stream is live now

AMEN BROTHER. I think visibility was my biggest problem with the initial batch of online conventions. Being 4th of July weekend I had already made plans to catch up with my family on video chat, cooking way too much meat for a single household, and then marathon gaming with my friends online. By the time I remembered that these cons were going on I tuned into whichever one was running on youtube and saw they were just showing anime episodes so turned it back off. So if I as an avid con-goer bounced off of the stream then I doubt they did any traffic with the general youtube / twitch / ot

You likely missed it. The room block tends to be smaller for the days before and after the con. The good news is that in general the waitlisted rooms almost always get confirmed once they clean up glitches and duplicate reservations out of their system.

Coronavirus ain't gonna stop me from doing my annual request: Asian Kung Fu Generation.

Here in New York, Gov Cuomo had a great counter to a reporter who was asking why we were still occupying convention centers as field hospitals even though the hospitalization rate was going down. He reminded everyone that the hospital situation stabilized because of the state mandate to shut businesses down. Until the hospital system can remain stable when businesses and travel are reopened, the state needs the additional COVID treatment capacity available. Using that logic I highly doubt that the WEWCC is only going to used as a hospital until the end of June.

AND OPTION NUMBER 1 IS OUR WINNER. Hope everything behind the scenes are good given that the cancellation was forced upon by the venue. I guess we'll see when the 2020 financials get released what the impact from skipping this year is.

Remember that Otakon hotels have not pulled any deposits yet and full refund cancellations are allowed up to 72 hours before check in. There is zero chance that any hotel would be willing to automatically roll over room reservations to next year.

The Spring conventions really got the short end of the stick since they were too deep into regular planning to make any kind of effort to salvage their work. Otakon is still 3 months away so if they switch gears now they can have a more robust virtual event beyond just opening up a "wish you were here" discord channel. The main things you would have to lose beyond the attendee driven stuff (photo groups, parties, being around humans) is the dealers room / artist alley and the physical hangout spots like the Maid Cafe, Lolita Garden, Photo Suite, Manga Library, etc. Again I am going to str

Of course, no one has a crystal ball into the future and governments are prone to make stupid decisions but if the field hospital is expected to be completed at the end of May (~1 month construction) then I have extreme doubts that it will only be used only through June and then converted back into a usable convention space by the end of July. Here are what I think the possible outcomes are given the current situation: 1) Convention gets cancelled due to the WEWCC being unavailable and COVID uncertainty. 2) Convention gets postponed to later in the year due to the WEWCC being unav