A-Kon 30: 2019’s Chaos and Community
Hey everyone. We’ve seen a bunch of people speculate about things being in TOTAL CHAOS behind the scenes here and we’d like to let you know that IT IS TOTAL CHAOS! But, it is also okay. Transitioning to a new owner and a new structure is hard and it takes a lot of work. In the end, it will be better for the show, for the community, and for you guys.
Right now, the work is a bit overwhelming for our little management team, but we are making incredible progress. Frank has been here in the trenches with us daily to keep things moving and we are almost there. But, it’s going to be a bumpy ride for a little bit longer while we finish up the transition and do what we need to do to get back on track.
We know it looks like we’re solely focused on the venue, hotels, refunds, date changes and everything that came up in our first couple of posts, but we’re also working behind the scenes on the event itself. It’s all coming and when it does, it’s going to be a flood of information. Our only major obstacle here is announcing the venue, which we desperately want to do. Before the cries of “TELL THE PEOPLE!” hit, we just can’t guys. We have been told expressly that if we announce before we have final approval that it would be in the “very bad” range of outcomes. We don’t want to do anything to risk the venue and Frank is working on it daily so that we can get it announced. Stay tuned for a message from him about it, Fort Worth and other stuff soon.
Now, let’s talk about H4H for a sec. There was an email that went out yesterday that was a shock to some of you. We are really sorry about that. There are a lot of different groups working together right now to help take care of you guys and get our chaos under control. We were working on a post to explain the email about the changes when the email ninja'd its way to your inboxes. The change was made due to overwhelming feedback from you guys concerned about automatic transfers and whether it would take away or complicate things like your cost, cancellation policies or other special arrangements which are needed. Additionally, we also found out that there were some credit card use laws and security practices with some of the reservations that made this approach difficult, if not impossible. When we made our first announcement, we just wanted to make things easier on you guys and we thought automatic transfers would be the way, but we learned differently and did our best to adjust for everyone.
For those who are interested, most of the H4H deposit issues have been addressed, handled, resolved or taken care of. There are still a few (~35 at last update from them) that they are still working on resolving. But, we also know some of you didn’t book through H4H and are also having issues. While we can’t promise anything here, we want to try and help you too. We have created a temporary email address - hotel.issues@a-kon.com - as a point of contact for anyone who didn’t book through H4H and has run into issues getting refunds for their reservations. Email us and let us know if you are still have having refund issues and we’ll make some calls and see if there is anything we can do to help you out.
Keep the faith guys. We are almost there. More to come soon.
UPDATE: February 11, 2019
Hey everyone, remember that post about all our chaos? We’ve run into a bit more. When we put a countdown timer up on our website, it was just for a new look and some rebranding. The venue was supposed to already have been announced and we never imagined that getting permission would take this long.
We know a lot of you have been eagerly waiting for the launch, but so much info hinges on the venue announcement, we would be releasing an unfinished website full of even more promises of “coming soon.” We know that isn’t good enough, so we have decided to delay the website launch until we can give you solid info.
We’re really sorry for the additional delay. We are just as anxious to get past this venue announcement as everyone else, and we are doing everything we can to fight to get that done. We also want to reassure you that while we have delays because of the venue, our amazing staff and volunteers are still hard at work behind the scenes to contract guests, get programming planned, updated rules and policies, and tons more.
We didn’t start this year off the way we wanted to, and the circumstances really suck, but we are in this with you guys and will continue to work as hard as we can not only to get info to you as fast as possible, but to make A-Kon 2019 worth this crazy wait.
