Whoa, I totally missed this thread until *right now!* A few quick things...

Easter is moving the event around. We couldn't move back a week due to other commitments, so the only option was to move forward. Or we could have moved literally months away, which didn't seem like a great option. It's not perfect, but we knew this in 2017 before we had the first show.

We've been asked for a number of years to find some additional time for table top RPGs in particular as their play sessions come in 4 hour chunks. Due to how our timing worked out, the best anyone who is looking for that type of gaming at the show was four sessions. To better accommodate this, we are expanding the show floor to an additional space that can host Friday morning hours. This space is actually all but definitely off-site at the Hilton, so it won't affect the "standard" move-in of other events, but will better be able to fit the more specific timing schedules that those types of games take. Friday morning also gives people who want to try a game like that a great chance to do so without them having to use essentially half of a day of the show to try it out. Cost for Friday morning this year is only $10, and we are going to supplement it with some tabletop and collectible card games as best as possible too

Lots more fun to come. Been working on a lot of stuff behind the scenes

Yes, although we just had someone else tell us theirs didn't make it through. Contact Gary directly, and he can take care of that

If you look at the top part of the page, immediately after the title is a big link in the slider to Gamer Quest. It will start appearing in other places, we don't currently have up as much info because we're putting the final touches on the Game Host stuff right now, and we expect we'll be starting to promote it further.

And yes, there will be options for signing up in advance that should be rolled out, probably in December or January, for games

Yeah, within 45 minutes of hearing this we were talking with the venue and different people about potential cross over

It really shouldn't. Parking changes timing later in the day, so unless you're showing up around 5pm for MGC, it shouldn't be much of a change. Hotels we have booked more than 1000 rooms at our rates already, which are better than you can otherwise get, so unless we manage to fill all of those it won't affect hotels in any way. Beyond that, there are regularly concerts and events downtown, and there is enough hotel space to manage everyone.

Had a big week with what felt like a dam bursting in a good way where everything is moving so much faster and better now. Expecting significant updates in the next few weeks

For both you and trilogy, I would absolutely LOVE it if you would help if that hasn't been mentioned before. We've been looking for a few extra hands, and would love to have you guys on board!!

Sorry for writing three in a row, I'm all over the place right now! I know I'm late to this response, but...

Yup, correct on all accounts!

VIG was a Friday thing specifically and that name confused the heck out of people, and it was nearly impossible to explain to them what it was without spending a bunch of time. We renamed it "preview night" because on the news, for instance, it's a lot easier for me to say, "Our preview night tonight is sold out, but doors open at 10am tomorrow!" without having to explain what the heck a VIG is and how no, tomorrow we won't sell out.

A lot of people really enjoyed the VIG name and some of the goodies - which we also took away from the Friday night package to hold the price at the same level that it traditionally was - so we decided to roll it into a special, "do all the things" package. VIG gets you full weekend passes, a bunch of swag, and a ticket to the not-arcade after party next door. That party was made to target those people who had complained we close to early on Saturday night for people from out of town, and while they have a point we didn't want to be like, okay, let's make the arcade hall run to 11pm to satisfy those people. The other shows we know of that open their halls afterward do not have as popular of after parties for their game bringers, and we want to keep that.

So the off site one features music, various industry professionals doing stuff outside their regular zone (like the voice of NBA Jam, Tim Kitzrow, live calling people playing basketball, or Ted DiBiase giving you your drink ticket to "buy" you the first drink), but it's a completely different experience than the arcade after party. It costs us a bunch to put on, and we're very capacity limited there, so we can't let game bringers in without buying a ticket - but we absolutely do not and will not let VIG ticket holders into the arcade after party on Saturday. If you are someone that want's to "party hop", we can figure out a discount on the VIG ticket, which would be around $115 if it includes bringing a machine.

By the way, attendance caps are that on Friday night, we allow in about 10% of the attendance that we host on Saturday, although more halls are open on Saturday so it might feel like 20%. Still very low. Saturday night's after party does include the people who spend all year planning and setting up the museum, so including them tickets are limited to about half of what Friday night is, if that. And, as many can attest, if you stay for a few hours a lot of people start leaving by 10pm-11pm ish.

Hope that all helps. If you are someone thinking about going to Tom's, you should get tickets sooner than later as those do sell out. Last year they sold out in February which was really late. Every other year has been December. Tickets at https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/buy-tickets/

Sorry, swamped with stuff. Absolutely, PM incoming. And Rob is going to be here!

And more news to come soon, my life is just crazy behind the scenes. Like, I can see all the work I need to accomplish, but then whenever I try doing it, something crazy happens and I end up having to do something else. Like a 40ish foot tall tree feel down in my yard earlier this week (didn't hit the house or people!) but that takes time.... YARG!

Shaping up to be one hell of a year!

I'll be excited to see you again in 2021!

Hey everyone,

Super good news that I can't wait to share, so you're getting it here now. After much back and forth, it appears we have worked out a method for load-out with the Wisconsin Center that will result in significantly reduced pack out time. As a number of people are aware of, we had major weather impacts the past two years as snow moved in and made things difficult because of how limited the ramp space was. This resulted in us essentially having a total of six pick up spots between the two halls for load out, and has made me lose more hair than I care to admit.

Earlier today, a weather contingency plan that involves the ability for us to allow vehicles to pull into the Wisconsin Center for load out has been tentatively approved.

This has been a problem that has vexed me for a long time. One of the things I discovered from notes and details is that last year, we needed approximately 36 total hours of "loading time" to have the entire hall cleared out. This took... let's just say far longer than anyone wanted due to the limited amount of space available for loading.

An extremely conservative estimate (parking spots every 15 feet - normal parking spaces are 9 feet apart) puts our new number of spaces for the load out at 14 if the weather contingency plan would need to happen. At 14 spaces, assuming the same 36 hours of "loading time" is the same, the total load out time of the MGC would be 2.57 hours.

If we used a more realistic estimate of parking spaces ever 10 feet apart, this plan puts the number of spaces for the load out at 20. The same 36 hours of "loading time" would mean load out would only take 1.8 hours.

I feel compelled to note the above times include both the vendor hall and the game center. Arcade picking up moves a lot quicker than vendors though, so the line should move very fast for everyone on here.

Assume that we will need an extra 30 minutes to prep to start bringing cars in, but I believe that this will result in an extremely fast load out time for this coming year no matter what the weather. Three hours of load out time would be comparable to arcade load out times at the Sheraton. Two hours of load out time would be equal to the best years.

By the way, if the weather is fine, we can park on the West side of the dock and load out to vehicles that way, which allows over 30 spots at any given point in time to be loading. Our total "loading time" would probably go up slightly due to the slightly longer walk to load cars, but even if we assume a 25% penalty for slightly longer walk, the "not a snowpacolypse" plan would allow everyone to load and leave within 1.5 hours of the show ending, without any prep time to bring cars in.

I know people have been asking about how we intend to handle that this year. I wanted to tell you this here because quite frankly, I'm super excited about this as it gives us the options we didn't have in the past few years to handle this properly.

Tons of new stuff coming soon. I can't wait to tell you all what is up our sleeves this year. And then I can't wait for you all to GTFO on Sunday night in half the time or less

YAY!

So, the short answer is by having a lot more spaces.

The longer answer (for anyone who cares!) is as some people know, I used to be a capacity expert for themed entertainment. The way to look at capacity is to break down things in averages as best as possible. I broke down numbers for pick up last year based on documents I had (vendor count, different game bringer count, etc) and then worked backwards from knowing how long the total move out took and estimating how long it would take for different groups to pack and leave.

This is where I got the break down that includes 36 hours of "loading time" (if we were loading everything out on a single dock only). Including stupidity, this is about the total time because ultimately, based on the spots we had and when they finally opened, this was how long it should take.

My estimated times for each group may not be perfect, but they are relatively correct. In that case, if we have 10 vendors in at a time and one takes four hours doing something stupid (or someone shows up in the wrong spot and refuses to move, maybe the same guy), then he or she is blocking one of those 10 spots, which *does* reduce the capacity some, however the model essentially takes that into account with the averages. I believe the average vendor load up time was calculated at 20 minutes last year when I did this. Many were under this time. A few, the one you are thinking of in particular, were far over. But, in the end, it evens out.

Additionally, the next positive thing is that people like that which take longer will take longer to get their "pass" to leave and come up the dock, meaning the faster, quicker people will be able to jump the line and be - well, faster and quicker first. As material leaves, we can break down the halls further allowing more space for loading, which means that if that guy shows up at, say, 6pm to spend his three hours loading or whatever nonsense, then we will have additional space for him to do so there.

Even better, this year I will not have my movers on hand trying to help as I remember him vividly since he had multiple movers I was paying help him monkey with his car for the majority of that time.

So yeah, with any luck, other than the striking of the staging, this plan is relatively stupidity proof, and we will have professionals to do that.

Tournaments very soon will be up. Waiting on the go ahead on one thing. The preview is we will have a changed format that will make the tournament more competitive and potentially handle 300+ people in the main tournament!

For the questions about the Sunday, I completely disagree with pinzrfun's statement that things aren't going on Sunday.

In a lot of shows, they are a full three or more days. The MGC is really two. Because of that, a lot more stays. Additionally, it's very difficult to pull early at the Wisconsin Center. I really believe we solved move out, so that shouldn't be an issue.

The only stuff though that left early was stuff that was individual collectors machines, and even that was low. The rooms are all guaranteed to run until close. The vendor hall is only open Saturday and Sunday, and they have an agreement to not tear down until close. The museum is open until close. All of the new opened machines are there until close.

Last year according to records, we had five people pull anything early. We have more than 1000 volunteers who bring stuff.

It's not like other shows in that way. And yeah, we do family day on Sunday. It's a bit shorter, but we have special events for families, and admission is cheaper.

While I'm here posting...

A few tickets somehow remain for Toms Open House on Friday! Snap those up!

Should have nailed down most show game specials soon.

It's looking like a good year. Seems there is a lot of interesting stuff going on behind the scenes...

Hey everyone,

A few updates...

First, at the moment, collector games being brought appear to be pretty light. I highly encourage you to bring a machine if you haven't before - You get access to a bunch of great stuff, including the Game Center After Party on Saturday night where you get to hang out and play the games all night with just the people that brought them. We get food and (limited) drinks, and this year we're going to have some other events happening for people to enjoy. You also get an exclusive shirt that can only be gotten by bringing a machine, tickets for Saturday and Sunday, and the love and adoration of all of the attendees

Now, I do want to add to the above that we have been light on collector games at this point in the past too, and usually they still increase like crazy. I absolutely hope that happens again. The good news is that a few people have already stepped up and are potentially bringing a significant number of machines, but I'd rather have more games than less no matter what!

Secondly, the pinball announcements have been a bit light lately. That is, perhaps, also driving some of the above. I can't confirm anything, as there are a lot of moving pieces behind the scenes, but companies remain committed to making this the best experience possible as do I. The good news is that we have just started to have a bunch of things that are rolling out. First, our pinball tournament has been revamped and expanded. It remains free to enter with your ticket, and I believe has the capacity to be one of the largest three pinball tournaments in the country.

Expect more tournament announcements, some exciting homebrew announcements, and some other super fun stuff soon!

While 50 again would be awesome, that was sort of a lightning strike. I'd still expect 25 or more this year - still WAAAAAAAAAY more than three years ago.

Bunch of good questions in here. First, this post that I have posted elsewhere, then some merch answers in another...

MGC Update - Yes, we're canceled. It is what it is. See https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/2020-show-update/ for all updates. We fully anticipate being able to return in 2021.

A bunch of awesome pinball people were concerned about Tom's Open House and the yearly donation we make to the Milwaukee Rescue Mission. This is a concern. If you'd like to help us cover, here is what we are doing:

We have re-opened ordering for Tom Taylor's Open House at https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/attend/ As I hope would go without saying, DO NOT order anticipating going this year. You will not. In a bit, with a timeline we are working on, you will receive the following options:

Choice 1 - Ticket good for the same event in the future
Choice 2 - Please donate my money to the Milwaukee Rescue Mission
Choice 3 - Refund

As should also go without saying, if you plan to pick refund, please DO NOT order. If you plan to do either of the other options, that would be great.

We are hoping to reach our normal donation level for the year. If there is a shortfall next year, we hope to be able to cover it out of any show proceeds.

In the case that Tom's does not move forward for any reason next year, we would refund money and plan to cover the donation from any show proceeds.

Please share with anyone who might be interested in doing this. Would be great to get this to the appropriate level.

--- Unrelated, but related ---

A number of people have asked us about ordering tickets still to help the show. Again, so long as you DO NOT purchase anticipating the show this year or plan to get a refund, this would be great. Tickets are available on the site for both VIG and standard tickets. If you purchase VIG tickets, you will receive this year's swag bag in the mail. If you don't intend to hold that, please wait for merch sales to open sometime in the next week.

Again, to do this or buy Tom's tickets, see:

https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/attend/

Thanks!

If you order one of the green shirts, our plan right now is to include shipping for free. I will tell you that this is the one shirt that we don't know quite what to do with - we start production of this one SUPER late since it is dated, so it is the only one that we can potentially pull back and modify or cancel. We will be asking people who have ordered if they still wish to get it with the date on it, if we should edit it off, or if they would choose not to get it. Depending on numbers will confirm if we move forward with making it - we sold 54 of the design so far (we usually have a big run in the next 10 days so this is about 1/2 of what it usually is) and if we drop below a certain level, it won't be financially viable to create them.

Our other shirts are far enough in production that completing them is definitely the more financially viable option. Having said that, they are paused for the moment and will resume production relatively soon. We've got some great designs this year. I've attached just two of them. I think we have two more, but I'm so burnt out, I'm not positive. I don't yet have pricing on them, but assume they will be more than the green dated shirt as their production is far more complex. Additionally, swag bags from VIG (including the NES game) will be purchasable as they are essentially complete. Parts arrive any day now for the carts... *oi*.

We will update people on this through the MGC Web site, social media, and mailers.
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In short, and without saying anything I can be liable about, the chickens started coming home to roost yesterday in an unexpected way, at that same time that ticket sales had completely cratered. The state shut down schools, but had only "recommended" events of 250 or more cancel. With that, we had no recourse with... well... anything very suddenly.

For the most part, it was incredible how many people were sticking through this with us. I only knew of a handful of drop outs. But, what had become obvious is ticket sales had fallen off a cliff - we sold 2 yesterday (oddly, until after the announcement when people started buying to help out) compared to a year on year sales of over 75. We were at the point that money had to go out to make the show happen, and money wasn't coming in. While we *may* have been able to survive off credit for a week or two, we don't think it would have been recoverable funds.

Add to this that when schools got canceled, the writing was on the wall and we were the largest event standing, and we were getting slammed with messages and notes calling us out for not canceling. The further we went, the worse optics got and we appeared tone deaf. We agreed that we didn't want to operate due to any social risk factors - added to by the "recommendation" to close essentially ceding all legal liability if anyone got sick at our show to us.

We were in a situation that us canceling had been made impossible due to certain places that were unwilling to work with us on pricing. Prices would have spiraled to insane levels, and it was clear people would not come.

Running the show would be socially irresponsible at best, and would open a world of legal liability that could have made it even worse than canceling it outright.

Waiting until the State or City finally made the call to force events to cancel at best would have made us look like clueless dolts since everything else had already closed. If it didn't come fast enough, what I mentioned above started to kick in.

Rock... hard place.

You may read into this why exactly we felt the need to call out Evers publicly. I will say I was *shocked* that it was the City that called it, but thank goodness they did.

I'm not going to sit here and tell everyone that we're in a great spot because that is clearly not what we expected. Thankfully, we put into place a number of measures to assist in the case of a disaster like this after two years ago with the giant snowstorm, and last year's show was able to get us onto solid footing. We anticipate being able to hold the show next year as expected.

I am personally hurt at this point that people have attacked both myself and fellow show organizers. MGC was in a unique spot of having emergency plans that are panning out. I had also worked in a job that taught crisis management and that served me really well throughout this. Unfortunately, most shows are not in this position. I know of more than a handful of friends that run other shows that expect to declare personal bankruptcy over this - two more contacted me today. Anyone acting flippant or like this is a joke should realize that shows like this operate on surprisingly thin margins, and most are directly attached to their owners. It's not a time to be sarcastic about this stuff.

Having said that, I am also amazed by the outpouring of love that the show has had. I've had dozens of people reach out to me with encouragement and offers to help. At the moment, I'm stuck waiting for places to open on Monday and can't do much, but being real - this is why we do this. It sure isn't lucrative enough to do otherwise, and the stress level... yeesh.

I am disappointed that we are not going to get to operate the 2020 Midwest Gaming Classic as planned. We had a ton of great ideas, and some awesome announcements still yet to come that we will now not get to do. Ultimately though, I do believe that this is the best course of action that the show can be taking for the health and safety of those attending and the communities that we belong to, and I support the decision.

Hans,

You rock. Gary made a typo. Thanks for finding it. It's been fixed and tickets are sent for some year in the future. So you're super super early

What a difference 9 days makes, hunh? Yikes. It feels like I wrote that statement two years ago.

Anywho, new update, from social media:

We have completed a claim process for ticket holders. Information on how to create a claim will be directly mailed to ticket holders in the upcoming hours. As we have yet to begin recovery, we do not have a timeline for when claims will be completed.

If you are in need of an expedited payment due to financial hardship, please reply to the email we send and we will do our best to honor your request as fast as possible. Please do not do this if you can afford to wait as we want to prioritize those in need first.

In general, options for ticket holders will be refunds, the opportunity to convert ticket value to MGC merchandise credit, GOATStore.com credit (a retro game store we also run) or keep the tickets for use at a future event. Keeping tickets for the future will be the default option. This process will be available until 12/31/2020.

Thank you for your understanding and patience during this time.

.........

That email process has started. As we rarely email that list directly, it may take a few hours to receive an email. We also have a small update at https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/2020-show-update/ describing the process now.

Correct. If you do nothing, the option will remain to make a different choice until 12/31/2020 at which point any items you have will move to whatever their default option is, which for the most part is "convert to future year". You can also go and confirm that you want it to be this way now if you'd rather.

The three main exceptions are:

VIG - The default option is for us to send you your Swag Bag in the near future, and your ticket will become a VIG ticket with no swag bag in the future. These ticket holders will have the option to add a Swag Bag in the future.

Workshops - Will be refunded by default with the exception of Ben Heck's Computer Build, which will be shipped and conducted via livestream. We will probably notify this group and move up the submission date so we're not holding money until the end of the year.

Merchandise - We anticipate producing the merchandise and shipping it at no additional cost. We will be contacting people directly on this in the upcoming days to confirm there is enough interest, as the shirt in particular is the one which has not yet been produced. I posted the image from it with my post (looking for generic images for my posts as photos of people seem.... weird at this moment, I added it below too) and we've sold like six of them in the last hour, so I now anticipate we will have enough interest to produce it.
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Thank you. We do plan to print and ship them, so long as not too many people drop their orders. They were the one thing not somewhere along the process so I can hold them back otherwise. However, we've sold a couple handfuls since the cancelation, so I anticipate they will be made.

The other big help is Tom Tickets. I've seen a number of those come through as refunds already - which no problem, I know many who have already lost their jobs, so I get it - but we are hoping to still maintain this donation or as close as possible to it.

Yes, they are still under preorder merchandise. I need to talk with the production company yet to nail down that but we've sold enough since the cancelation I believe they will be printed.

Posters are already done but I am not sure when I will get them.

Hey guys, got some updates:

First, if you can afford it and don't have Tom tickets, I'd really love to sell a few more of them. We are still unsure of any situations regarding pay outs - and in all honesty, even with the COVID-19 situation, it *still cost* $10k+ in immediate funds to cancel, so that's "fun." Anyway, I'd love to make the donation happen, so if you are in the position to purchase any of these, we'd really appreciate it. About 1/3rd of the Tom tickets have requested refunds, and we have only sold a couple since the cancellation. If you purchase a Tom ticket this year, we'll match your donation next year when we can hopefully afford to.

Second, if you are interested in the green event shirts or hoodies and nothing else, (see photo), you should think about ordering one of those soon.

Both of those can be purchased at https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/attend/

We intend to update our online store in the next few days with additional shirt designs (two of which I included in earlier posts), discounted merch from years past, and so on. It would really help to get a number of things sold. If you are looking at anything from the past, you may want to wait as we are working on nailing down everything that we're going to get in there, and we do intend to drop some prices.

One important note - due to how production is working right now (our production house is closed due to the pandemic), we anticipate that shipping for anything will not be until early June. We hope to do it sooner, but that's where we're looking right now.

Thanks! Stay safe everyone.

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I feel super lucky a previous job I held trained me in crisis management, and that training was apparently really good and helped a lot.

As I said when it was happening, it was personally really hard to take people who proclaim to like the show purposely doing things to undermine both myself and others publicly. There weren't many, but those people really stand out to me. Trying to poke fun of others dealing with a crisis is over a few lines in my head. The fact I've directly said that to those people and they opted to continue was even more frustrating. I guess you learn who your real friends are in crisis.

And, I guess that's the good thing. Excepting a few people, everyone else has been super understanding and supportive. And the people who were jerks aren't ones that support the show beyond buying a ticket, and aren't the ones who make it happen. Every vendor, sponsor, volunteer, or anyone else who plays any real role in the show has been exceedingly understanding, and has worked with us to an amazing extent.

And that's the thing that I keep trying to focus on. Ultimately, even with all this shutting down and disruption, it does come from the goal of doing the best we can for everyone. Even if we all got infected, the data shows that the majority of us would be okay. But, we've chose to take drastic measures to support the worldwide community, and I find value and reassurance in that.

There will be at least two other hoodies based on the designs I posted on the previous page, but the hoodie currently listed is the same design as the T. Odd that it doesn't have the photo appearing...

The two designs on the previous page will also have hoodies, as will a yet-to-be-revealed design from Tad Stones. We're just working on a tagline for that one now...

Yup, those two. I believe that both of those artists will be doing those as prints, but we won't be directly.

The ordering stuff is sort of confusing because we're running two separate systems. If you're looking to get a green shirt or hoodie only, it makes sense to get it now. When they move to the "Shop", they will end up with a shipping cost which is a flat $7. We're planning to discount them to probably $15-18ish at that point in time, so they will go up $2-5.

However, if you're planning to get a green shirt and anything else, the shipping is flat, so you'll pay that $7 and it would be slightly cheaper.

I'm waiting on hopefully the final Tad Stones design tweaks, and then we're (well, I'm) raiding storage hopefully tonight to look for any other past merch that we can sell. With any luck, the "Shop" site will go live tomorrow.

Tom's tickets are the thing that will disappear, so that is the thing anyone who is thinking about should do!

Our site screws up the way the poster looks, so here is the actual image of it. The hoodie looks like the green shirt, but as a hoodie which is broken and I can't figure out what happened now.

Other items can be seen at https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/shop/

The shop page will update soon with a bunch of new shirts, actual photos of the Exit Loop game that is currently unavailable, label pins, and whatever else I can find at storage to sell

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The MGC Shop is now updated with a bunch of cool stuff and random goodies that we found from past years and whatnot. Buying anything would super help. VIG ticket holders will get their choice of one of the shirt designs this year.

I entertained myself with descriptions. Enjoy exploring this stuff. Some photos of newly listed stuff I hadn't had photos of before below!

https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/shop/

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A bunch of updates - if you got our emails or saw our social media, this is going to be pretty similar to what I put there yesterday. Going to write a separate little update in a different post after:

I hope everyone is doing as best as possible in these trying times. I wanted to provide you with an update about the refund process for the 2020 Midwest Gaming Classic, and ways that you can help the event if you have the means to. I apologize in advance for the length of this update, but we wanted to give you all the details we could.

On Refunds…

When we sent the initial communication about refunds on March 15th, we stated that we believed that refunds would be issued in 6-12 weeks, meaning by the end of April to the middle of June. This was due to the fact that it takes time for us to work with the groups we had contracted to recover our funds and officially shut down the show for 2020.

Unfortunately, while it seems like this should be an easy process, it is not. Adding to the complexity, I am no longer in contact with any of the sales people who had been working with us just five weeks ago. Because of this, working through contract details and recovering funding has taken even longer as we have to work with people that do not know anything about our situation.

In the meantime, we have applied for loans, but have not yet secured them. The banking system is similarly overwhelmed, and it is taking a long time to get replies to any inquires.

I want to be very clear that we have no doubt we will be able to pay everyone who requests a refund, but we are now less clear on that timeline as so much of it is out of our hands. As soon as we have a further update, we will share that.

If you are in the situation where you need the money sooner than later, we are using all money raised by merchandise sales as a pool to grant people who need refunds sooner than later those refunds. If your situation changes, please do contact me and we can expedite your refund. Please do this only if you really need it so we can ensure we have money for those who do.

Finally, if you have not done your ticket claim yet, please do so unless you intend to hold your ticket for the future. Instructions can be found at the MGC web site under the “Show has been canceled” link at the top of every page.

How To Help…

If you have the means right now to support us, it would be really huge. We updated the MGC Shop a couple weeks ago with a ton of new offerings, like the shirts above, special brand new designs from Dirty Donny, Brian Allen, and Tad Stones, some random stuff we found in our warehouse, and so on! We’ve also dropped prices on a number of things from the past.

Please be aware that if you purchase items from our shop, we expect a 1-2 month delay in shipping as our production facility cannot currently make or deliver any shirts to us. The good news is we’re able to take orders for colors we otherwise wouldn’t have tried to see if there is interest.

Many of these shirts will only be available during this period, and once we produce them certain designs will no longer be available, so if you can spare money for some MGC swag, definitely check it out by heading to https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/shop/

Another place you can go to that helps is if you’re looking for some retro games to play at home, Gary and I have run an online retro video game store for 20+ years called the GOAT Store – for Games Of All Types. In fact, the MGC exists because of it! We’re using any purchases made from the GOAT Store right now to also put into our pool for early refunds, so if you’re looking for a few games to pass the time, we’d love it if you’d check it out. Please note that the inventory for the GOAT Store is currently located at Gary’s house, so we are able to continue shipping, although it may take a few extra days to find everything and get it out. GOAT Store is located at https://www.goatstore.com

What’s Next…

I’m still working daily on wrapping things up from the 2020 show, but I also think that the MGC is there to build a community of gamers. In the upcoming days, I intend to use our social media platforms – specifically Facebook – to share some fun things about past shows, host some informal tournaments for everyone, and do our best to give you something positive to interact with if you venture onto social media.

A few not-as-official updates:

1) I posted some stuff on Facebook telling stories on the days of the show itself. They might have some interesting background from it if you want to watch me ramble for like an hour and half for a couple days in a row

2) As a couple people mentioned above, it only takes one infection to have a mass breakout at a show. Since it appears the virus was caught so easily through airline travel, and since many of our guests are regular airline travelers, I know more than a dozen people that believe they had it, including at least one that kept working not thinking it was more than a cold, but is now very concerned that they could have been spreading it. I also personally know two that have died from it, including a 24 year old. I have zero doubt canceling the show was the correct move.

3) The community has been awesome understanding what we have been going through. The haters seem to have gone away. While I'm very frustrated by some of the groups right now and roadblocks that are being put in front of us, communication like the above has been met with a ton of positivity, and I haven't always been sure if they will or not. It makes up for the people taunting me as it went down.

...and seriously, if you can spare some money to buy some merch or purchase some stuff at the GOAT Store, it would be huge. We've been basically matching the money coming in with the money we owe for people asking for expedited refunds, and while it's pretty clear merchandise won't be able to save the show alone - as cool as the shirt designs are, we're not going to sell 30,000+ shirts - it's giving us the room to breathe to be able to hold on at this worst point until we start to get answers. Links are:

https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/shop/

-or-

https://www.goatstore.com

I eagerly look forward to the hopefully relatively near future when we are able to start better discussing and planning for our next show. It's going to be one hell of an awesome thing, I promise

I've got a bunch of updates today about refunds, MGC 2021, and merchandise! I again apologize for the longer update here, but things often move together, and we want to keep you up to date with the information we have.

On Refunds...

Since our last communication, two major things just happened - we were approved for a small loan, and we have worked through the contract process with a number of groups, which had been holding up the fund recovery process.

Fund recovery does still take time, so agreements that we are preparing to sign will not mean we instantly have the money back, but we now have a rough idea of when it will come. Because of this, starting to refund claims based on the date ticket were ordered, starting with the oldest orders first.

We do not know when this process will finish, but are working as quickly as possible. We are going to continue to hold some funds for expedited refunds for anyone who finds themselves in need of money sooner than later. As always, please contact us via the email form on our web site if you need an expedited refund so we can take care of it for you.

Finally, as before, if you have not done your ticket claim and intend to receive a refund, please do so. Instructions can be found at the MGC Web site under the "Show has been canceled" link at the top of every page.

On MGC 2021...

As part of the above, we believe we have dates for the 2021 Midwest Gaming Classic - April 30 to May 2!

This is far earlier in the process than we would usually announce the dates - in fact, we are still working on a couple small contractual issues, so it isn't yet "official" - but we thought it was only fair to tell you now as so many people are holding their tickets for next year already.

At this point, we do NOT have hotel rooms pricing and availability, nor are we putting tickets on sale yet. We will make a more official announcement about the dates in the future, but we wanted you to know as soon as we could.

On Merchandise...

We are looking to produce and ship merchandise as well as VIG swag bags in the next few weeks and will keep people apprised of the situation as best we can.

The GOAT Store - the retro video game store that we also run - continues to ship items on a regular basis.

Again, if you have the means to support us either through merchandise purchase or retro game purchase through the GOAT Store, we would really appreciate it.

While we have been and continue to be certain we are able to refund money to anyone who asked, I cannot pretend that this situation isn't very trying for us as a company as the vast majority of our revenue is tied to the Midwest Gaming Classic.

Your support has allowed us to be able to expedite refunds for everyone who needed one immediately, and we are extremely grateful for that.

What's Next...

I'm hoping to have a bit more time again to post some fun stuff on social media again. Beyond that, we'll be putting the merchandise into production officially soon, and I'll be working to nail down contracts for next year as quickly as I can, while also recovering all of the money due for refunds.

As always, thank you so much for your support!