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Post by garhkal on Mar 4, 2020 19:15:55 GMT
With the # of sports team events, i've been hearing that are shifting to not having fans for, and other events lessening the # of attendees, has anyone heard of this impacting any of the gaming conventions yet?
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Post by Pistolwhip on Mar 5, 2020 15:01:28 GMT
At this point I'm not inclined to skip events due to the virus. If things get worse, and I suspect they will, I'll reassess. As for con organizers, they put a lot of work into planing these and I suspect they don't want to piss away all that effort. That said, it could reach a certain threshold that they have no choice. I suspect it will take one convention of reasonable size to close before others follow suite. No one wants to be the first but once it happens others will find it easier to follow suit. It's like how when a storm is moving in and the window to land planes is closing, some pilot has to be the first to divert to another airport and the rest after him do as well.
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Post by Jeremy on Mar 5, 2020 15:09:32 GMT
Besides, a lot of gamers are introverts and self isolate. That reduces risk of infections.
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Post by jasony on Mar 6, 2020 3:31:29 GMT
Chicago also had a comic-con last weekend. In comparison a gaming con like CodCon is just a few hundred people (if that) is safe. It's probably a greater risk of catching something going to work/school. There's more paranoia about corona than anything. There's been more deaths due to the "regular" flu in the US than corona in the whole galaxy.
Just follow the 24-7-2-1 rule. For every 24 hours of a convention get seven hours sleep, two actual meals, and one shower/bath.
ETA removed stuff about my job.
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Post by Tim B on Mar 8, 2020 2:08:58 GMT
Seatle is canceling things, but they have a large amount of traffic from China.
The good news: The Virus is generally NOT lethal.
The bad news: It tends to make you really ill for a long time.
I'm looking forward to being able to work from home. I know some companies are going to 100% work from home in some areas when they can.
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Post by jasony on Mar 8, 2020 4:51:59 GMT
Seatle is canceling things, but they have a large amount of traffic from China. The good news: The Virus is generally NOT lethal. The bad news: It tends to make you really ill for a long time. I'm looking forward to being able to work from home. I know some companies are going to 100% work from home in some areas when they can. Good luck working from home. I'm not sure I could because of the distractions. My computer is in a "man cave" of sorts optimized for my enjoyment, not working. (Plus there's my attention-hungry cat.) I wish my employer had better clarification about remote-working. I get this impression some of us can't do it because it wouldn't be "fair" to those departments who are unable to do it (like customer service). I takes a certain mentality to be able to sit down at the place were you play games and do work instead.
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Post by Captain Jeff on Mar 8, 2020 20:10:52 GMT
Well... I'm still going to events until I'm physically unable to attend. Perhaps we should put a PI together to save Earth from this plague!
Jeff G
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Post by jasony on Mar 9, 2020 1:46:46 GMT
Well... I'm still going to events until I'm physically unable to attend. Perhaps we should put a PI together to save Earth from this plague! Jeff G Same here. I know this is a little OT but it's why I want to get more people in Sparks. When the "old guard" retires from gaming, move away, etc I still want there to be Sparks. I feel the same way about sci-fi conventions. I see a lot of the "old guard" there too and less of an effort to recruit young people into the con-staff.
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Post by Elizabeth on Mar 18, 2020 3:03:24 GMT
Late to the party, but adding my two cents. They're already starting to cancel cons and it's probably going to go on for a couple of months (I'm honestly hoping everything goes back to normal by end of May).
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Post by garhkal on Mar 18, 2020 5:25:59 GMT
Well, i've still not gotten a reply from Origins. BUT i too hope the mass panic is done with by the end of may... IF not, what happens to those who bought badges FOR those cons that get cancelled?
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Post by Pistolwhip on Mar 18, 2020 14:03:23 GMT
Well, i've still not gotten a reply from Origins. BUT i too hope the mass panic is done with by the end of may... IF not, what happens to those who bought badges FOR those cons that get cancelled? I have no clue what the margins on these cons are but I imagine they can't go a year without operations and stay solvent. If they still have your money (it may have gone to down payments for operational expenses) to return I wouldn't be surprised if these things become convention killers as the big dogs (GenCon, DragonCon, Origins) file bankruptcies. These are worst case scenarios but the news is getting grim. That said, real talk: the US, if not world economies, can't take a sustained lock down until those events go off. Eventually people will have to be allowed to reenter society; to go to work, socialize, travel. To do otherwise risks more death by starvation and risk civil unrest as supply chains break down. One could argue that it is better to let the disease burn bright and quick to sweep through the world like a brush fire than the slow crawl that takes forever and paralyses society for a longer period of time with potentially larger economic consequences. That's my dark way of saying that I think things will be up and running in time for GenCon but I wouldn't trust any con to go off until the end of May at the earliest.
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Post by garhkal on Mar 18, 2020 18:59:59 GMT
One of my ADND gamers, feels the same. He used to be an economics/political sciences prof,till he had to medically retire.. He used to LOVE gaming, mostly to see how other DM's ran economies in their home made worlds. In HIS professional opinion, if we as a nation stay locked down for even just two whole months, there's going to be such impact, that a good chunk of the economy (mostly those small mom and pop businesses) WON'T recover. As it goes longer than two months, the # of businesses which can't recover INCREASES...
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Post by Tim B on Mar 18, 2020 22:43:41 GMT
CDC is suggesting 8 weeks of social distancing, so if we assume this week was the start, we're looking at hitting an end mid-may. The problem is when you flatten the curve of infections, you increase the time it takes where everyone can get back to normal.
We'll see how people handle this.
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Post by garhkal on Mar 19, 2020 6:17:42 GMT
Just got this from origins..
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Post by Pistolwhip on Mar 20, 2020 2:12:49 GMT
May first seems like a reasonable time to make that call, from today anyway. Who know what the future holds, which is kind of the issue.
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