Thanks to everyone, online and in person, for your participation in WisCon this year!

For our in-person attendees: Please keep testing regularly until 2 weeks after the con, to the extent you are able! If you test positive, please let us know using the COVID reporting form. The link to that form is available in our emails sent out to registered members and on our official Discord.

As part of our COVID-19 safety policies at WisCon 45 in 2022, we will send out email updates to registered in-person members each day we learn of at least one new case, just as we did each day during the con. We plan to do this for two weeks after the con, then post a final update and summary publicly on wiscon.net.

Thanks for your help in continuing to keep our members safe!

Our traditional Thursday evening (5/26) Guest of Honor reading has moved this year to the Madison Public Library Central branch (201 W Mifflin St), a 0.2 mi (~5 min) walk from the Concourse! Here’s a Google Map with walking directions.

Doors will be open at 5:30, and the event starts at 6pm Central. Our Guest of Honor Sheree Renée Thomas will be reading this year.

Afterwards, she’ll be signing books. No book? No problem! Room of One’s Own will have a table at the event with Ms. Thomas’s books available for purchase. If you’re in town Thursday night, please come out and join us!

If you need to take a taxi to or from the venue and could use some financial assistance, taxi vouchers for Union Cab are available at the Concourse front desk. Be aware that wait time may be up to an hour due to staffing shortages.

Since the reading happens before WisCon and is free and open to the public, we cannot guarantee that attendees will be vaccinated and/or masked.

We sincerely apologize to the members of the WisCon community! We accidentally misinterpreted CDC guidance regarding how long it takes to be “up-to-date” after a booster (according to the CDC, you are up-to-date immediately after receiving a booster). This means that for people ages 12 and over, if you received your primary series more than 6 months before the con, as long as you have received at least one booster shot prior to picking up your con badge, you are up-to-date. It’s not too late to get boosted and attend WisCon!

Here is the fixed vaccination policy language, in full:

Everyone attending the convention—including members, vendors, and any contractors—must be up to date on their COVID vaccines when they arrive at Registration to pick up their con badge. Up to date means a person has received all recommended doses in their primary series of COVID-19 vaccine; and for individuals 12 and older, one booster dose if their primary series was completed more than six months before the con. (See “Stay Up to Date with Your COVID-19 vaccines.”)

At Registration, we will be checking vaccination cards to verify that EITHER:

• a primary series was completed on or after November 27, 2021 and before May 12, 2022  (This means, your primary series happened less than 6 months before the con. In which case, your last shot needed to happen at least 2 weeks before the con for you to be up to date.) OR
• a primary series was completed before November 27, 2021 AND a booster shot was administered at any time afterward. (This means, your primary series happened more than 6 months before the con. In that case, you need to be boosted, but you are up to date as of whenever you got the booster.)

For those coming to WisCon from other countries: we will accept proof that you have received any vaccine recognized by the WHO. More information on WHO recognition of COVID vaccines can be found on their website.

TLDR: Party applications are now open until Saturday, 4/30, at 11:59pm US Central time — but in order to reduce the amount of unmasking that happens during parties, we’re only permitting non-alcoholic beverages to be served at parties: no food, no booze.

As fun as room parties at conventions can be, what’s even more fun is an open party available to everyone.  Starting at 9pm Friday-Sunday, WisCon offers parties hosted by WisCon members and open to every member of the convention.  In past years, parties have included karaoke, a haiku-and-earring party, and piñata-smashing.

Party spaces must be requested in advance. Unfortunately, we are unable to entertain late party requests due to scheduling requirements.

Party reservations are prioritized due to a number of factors.  We are particularly enthusiastic about parties with a history at WisCon as well as parties that are promoting other cons, SF groups, book & author promotional parties, and other events. Please note that there are a limited number of party room reservation slots available.

We’re counting on your creativity to host awesome parties even without the appeal of food.  Maybe your party have will awesome music, fun games, or cool craft activities! How about a mocktail bar?

To submit your party request, please email parties@wiscon.net. Include in your request:

• Your name, email address, and a phone number where we would be able to reach you
• The names and email addresses of all other party hosts
• Name or title of your party
• Brief description of your party (just a sentence is fine)
• Scheduling preferences, as party schedules impact other programming, and it may not be possible to change dates once initial schedules are set.
• Any special equipment or room layout needs you have

If you’re considering requesting party space, please read the complete list of WisCon Party Rules. Questions? You can reach us at parties@wiscon.net.

We are making AMAZING progress on our work to #SaveWisCon, thanks to your help!

• We have now raised just over $32,000 in donations of which $30,000 will be matched, for a total of $62,000 raised to support WisCon! This is absolutely incredible, and we are so grateful for everyone who contributed and helped spread the word.
• 70 people have completed our Volunteer Interest Form to help out with pre-con volunteering. Thank you all!
• We’ve gained 252 new email newsletter subscribers since November, which is helping us make sure everyone gets the latest con news and updates. Not getting the newsletter? You can sign up here.
• We have a total of 418 registrations (in-person and online). Our goal is 1,000! Please register and tell your friends about WisCon, too.

• The Alamo Literary Arts Maintenance Organization (ALAMO)
• The Carl Brandon Society
• SFWA (The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, soon to be the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association)
• The Speculative Literature Foundation

We deeply appreciate their support and encourage everyone to learn more about these excellent organizations.

Thanks to your donations and these grants, we’re at roughly $67,000 in total funds raised!

Is this the end of #SaveWisCon fundraising? Are we just done now, forever?

Well…probably not, y’all, for a couple of reasons:

• It is basically impossible that we can book enough rooms to meet our hotel contract, so we are going to owe the Concourse a lot of money. This is just how things are because of the pandemic:  we want people who feel comfortable to attend WisCon in person to attend, but we recognize that in-person events are a significant risk for many people.
• My initial $70k-ish fundraising goal assumed that we would sell 500 online memberships (half of what WisCONline sold in 2020). We’re currently at a small fraction of that, and I don’t know how likely it is we’ll be able to get close to 500. So that’s revenue we were hoping to have that we may not have.

From now through April 24 at 11:59pm US Central time, you can apply to join the 6th floor discounted room lottery!

What is the 6th floor discounted room lottery?

Being able to stay in a room in the Concourse Hotel is one of the pleasures of WisCon — and also one of the biggest financial barriers to attending the convention.  As part of our commitment to affordability, each year WisCon is able to provide a limited number of rooms with discounted rates.  We hope that offering this discount can help just a few more people get to WisCon by making your stay a bit more affordable.

Though we call it a “discount,” the way it actually works is that WisCon will pick up the tab for the Sunday night of your stay. To be eligible, you must be staying at the Concourse on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights.  You may be staying longer, but must at least be staying on these three nights.

We generally have 5 double rooms (with 2 queen beds) available on the the sixth floor, although the number, type, and location of the rooms may vary slightly from year to year depending on what space the convention needs for programming.  Because the number of discounted rooms is very limited, we make these rooms available through a lottery system — details below.

Noise caveat

Because the rooms that are marked as “eligible discounted sleeping rooms” are on the sixth floor, that puts them on the same floor where many of the parties are held in the evenings and also where the safer spaces and the Con Suite are. This means that there’s more noise generated by foot traffic, elevators, and so on. If you are someone who needs a very quiet room with not many people passing by at all hours, then the discounted rooms may not be a good fit for you.

Room lottery

We do not ask specifics of your need for a room — we assume that if you request a discounted room that you need one.  But because we have a limited number of eligible rooms, we offer rooms to members via a lottery. We do track who receives a discounted room and may remove an entry from the lottery drawing if that entrant was awarded a discount the previous year; this caveat is a factor only if we have more requests than rooms available.  (If we do not receive more requests than rooms, then you may receive a discounted room two years in a row.)

We are accepting requests through April 24 (closing at 11:59pm Central Time). After the request window closes, we will get in touch to let you know if your request is filled.

To request to be entered into the drawing for a discount, send an email to affordability@wiscon.net, with the subject line: ROOM RATE DISCOUNT. Include the following details:

• The first and last name your hotel reservation will be under
• Your arrival and departure dates
• The number of people in your party
• Any accessibility needs you have.
• The best email address to contact you.

Entries which do not supply all listed information will not be entered into the lottery. Please limit submissions for the discount lottery to one entry per party.

See you at WisCon!