Just three days ago I was suggesting the online gaming convention Friends of ConTessa as a way to have remote but human contact during the Covid-19 crisis. Friends of Contessa used a site called Tabletop Events to handle the logistics.
ConTessa wasn’t the only convention. Plenty more, most of which are traditional offline events, used Tabletop Events for bookings.
As of May 1, 2020, Tabletop Events will close down.
The reading is bleak. Here’s a key paragraph;
Over the past couple of months, we’ve had very little new revenue. In addition, we’ve paid out tens of thousands of dollars in cancellation fees, reducing our profit to zero. We’re at a critical juncture, without new revenue we’ve come to the realization that we’re going to have to shut down operations. We thought about trying to get a disaster recovery loan, but based upon all the information we’re seeing, a vaccine is at minimum 12-18 months away, and we just don’t see anyone attending events until there is a vaccine in place. A loan to cover the cost of staff and servers for that amount of time would put us so far behind the curve that our small business would never recover. With the small amount of money we have remaining, we will pay our staff and pay for the servers for just long enough that everyone can get their data, and issue any refunds that they want to issue (minus our fees).
If you are affected by this, either with refunds or needing a new partner then Tabletop Events’ post on the news has contact details and more information.
You can, of course, still attend ConTessa this month, but if that convention or any of Tabletop Events customers want to run after May, then they’re back to the old and stressful ways of handling the logistics.
What are your thoughts? Strike up a discussion and leave a comment below.
