12/18/2023 0 Comments Artisan dice convention dates 2019![]() Gen Con 2019 drew a record 70,000 visitors, according to its organisers. It will be smaller but still not tiny, if it runs.” “I suspect it may only be a couple hundred or something, but that would still be comparable to what it was in about 2016. “We’d got to about 425-450 exhibitors in 2019,” he says. Denning also expects most exhibitors that aren’t based in the UK will be skipping the event. The show will be smaller than normal because the organisers were only able to secure two of the usual three halls in Birmingham's NEC when it was postponed to 2021, and the nearby Hilton Hotel typically used to host roleplaying games is closed for renovations. Denning is planning to have some precautions still in place, such as wider aisles on the convention floor. UKGE is set to run July 30th to August 1st, starting after the proposed June 21st end to all social distancing requirements in the UK. We’re planning on the assumption that we should be able to do something and hopefully it will be as close to normal as possible. “For the moment at least, we’re planning on the assumption that we should be able to do something and hopefully it will be as close to normal as possible, but we’re also putting in place steps in case we have to limit things,” says UKGE director Richard Denning. (Gen Con did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this article, but pushed its 2021 event from August to September, when it will be running a mix of in-person and online activities.) Most have delayed opening ticket sales or postponed their shows to later in the year in the hopes of having more clarity about what sort of government regulations they’ll be under in terms of capacity, masking and social distancing. ![]() ![]() Stacy is part of a group of event organisers - that also includes representatives of Gen Con, the UK Games Expo, Gamehole Con and Lucca Comics & Games - which has been meeting every two to three weeks on Zoom since last summer to discuss best practices for a return to in-person shows. “You’ve got to hope for the best and plan for the worst.” “Everyone’s taking a ‘wait and see’ approach,” Stacy says. Event organisers, game publishers and players are all eager to return to some sense of normalcy, but the uncertainty surrounding when social distancing guidelines will end and people will feel safe returning to crowded convention halls makes planning these events more complicated than ever. The world’s biggest tabletop conventions are all dealing with the same challenges as vaccinations put the end of the COVID-19 pandemic in sight. There are a lot of moving parts in this train.” ![]() ![]() “But you’ve got to start planning for the future because these shows take a year to plan. “There are a few people who say, ‘You can’t do this. A year on, GAMA executive director John Stacy is hoping the event will finally return on September 30th 2021. In April, they pushed the event back to October, but then cancelled the event altogether two months later. While they didn’t understand the scope of the crisis yet, the leaders of the nonprofit quickly realised that their annual consumer event, Origins Game Fair, wasn’t going to happen in June. When the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11th 2020, the Game Manufacturers Association was hosting its annual trade expo in Reno, Nevada. ![]()
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