Gen Con 2020 Canceled For the Exact Reason You Think

So… 2020 sure seems to be 2020ish, am I right? In probably the least shocking news, Gen Con, the Indianapolis based massive gaming event, has announced that their 2020 convention has been canceled. If you need to be told the reason why a massive event that draws attendees, vendors, guests, and industry representatives from all over the world might be ill advised right now… well… I can’t help you.

The convention put out an official statement in which the con said refunds would be offered, but asked that attendees consider rolling their badges over to 2021 instead:

In this regard, we could use your help: If you’ve already purchased your badge for Gen Con 2020 and are willing to roll it forward to Gen Con 2021, it will help us keep our staff employed through these unprecedented times and come back better than ever next year. If you’d like to pursue this option, you don’t have to do anything — we’ll convert your 2020 badge to a badge for 2021. However, if that’s not in your financial picture, we completely understand. Information about requesting a refund can be found here, and all badge holders will be contacted by email with detailed instructions. Additionally, if you’ve booked a hotel through our Housing Portal, your reservation will automatically be canceled without any fees.

The company went on to say they were cancelling any “Pop-Up Gen Con events” for the rest of 2020 as well, and that they would reach out to participating retailers directly.

This is just sort of the state of things. While there’s still a chance smaller events may be able to run later this year, there’s no safe way to run a con at the scale of Gen Con safely during a global pandemic. It’s just sort of where we are.