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If you could fill in this form and bring it along it will speed up getting the kids registered and into their activities.

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Tl;dr: Probably no con this year.

The longer version:

By this point in the year we usually have all the sponsors booked, the majority of the cash in, and a lot of it back out again paying for goody bags, badges, shirts and putting deposits on things. This year, none of that is done.

With all the uncertainty, sponsors were interested, but reluctant to commit, we were also reluctant to accept any money, because if we spent it and then had to cancel we would have to replace it somehow.

Our venues were also not sure what was going on and if they would be open or not. Hallam has to commit to it’s students first and so even if they were allowed to open they may not have been able to accept us. Imagine having everything in place then not having anywhere to put everyone.

Other cons have moved online and have done a very good job in doing it. We could have followed, but as we’ve said before, we are an in-person event and while we could do something big and flashy online, it isn’t our style.

So, at this present time, the event is not happening, but we may review this closer to July, and if we think we can put something small on we will see what we can do. If something is going to happen, we will make a big noise about it, you won’t miss it. No promises though.

The Management.

PS, for any of you who normally attend the after con Quasar, I randomly bumped into the owner who handles our morning. He said despite not being open for nearly a year, they are surviving and and looking forward to having us back whenever we are ready.

Robin

It is with deep regret, that after a lot of discussions, we have decided to cancel this year’s event due to the coronavirus.

At the time of writing this, we are exactly four months away from main weekend, and we know a lot can happen in that time. We hope, for everyone’s sake, that the outbreak is taken under control very soon, and that by July, it is just a memory along with the bad winter weather, but we can’t take that risk.

We could hold off and make this decision in April or May, but our first priority is to our attendees. We don’t want people booking holiday from work, paying for hotels and travel, and then, at the last minute, having to cancel them and fight to get refunds.

We also have to think about our sponsors and spending commitments. We bring in quite a bit of cash from our sponsors, but most of it goes straight back out again on hosting costs. Making this decision now will limit those costs and not end up with us taking sponsor money, spending it, and then having to find ways to pay it back or to take a hit on next year’s event.

We have looked at other alternatives, the main one being a virtual event. A few people have said that they would be OK with that, but it wouldn’t be SteelCon. People come to Sheffield for the atmosphere, for meeting old and new friends, and for downing shots of odd things they will probably regret in the morning. We have had quite a few submissions of both talks and workshops and we will be contacting everyone who has submitted to see if we can help them get their work out there in some other way, possibly with another conference that is doing some form of virtual event.

For those of you who managed to grab a ticket in the test run, you’ll all get contacted as well to give you your options.

So lets hope that with hindsight, this is the wrong decision, and that by July everything is back to normal and that the con would have run as it has for the last six years. But with the foresight we have now, we can’t take that risk.

Pinching a line from @javvad, stay safe our friends, and look forward to 2021, where we will be back twice as strong to make up for it all.

We’ve just had this thank you certificate through from the nice people at Birmingham St Mary’s Hospice which was our chosen charity for this year.

Glad we could help them out in return for all they did for our friend Mike.

Can you find or answer the following:

• Enough coloured paper to make a rainbow – 1 point per colour
• What is the next film showing in the Hallam cinema? – 3 point
• Any piece of swag from a previous years conference – 5 points
• A used postage stamp – 3 points
• Your best score from a game in the C64 arcade – 1 point
• A solved Woody’s Wonder Cube – 10 points
• Find the age of the youngest attendee – youngest age found gets 5 points
• A wireless packet (be creative) – 5 points
• What are the seven layers of the OSI stack? – 1 point per layer
• Name the two songs used on the crew t-shirts – 2 points per song
• Name as many university buildings as you can – 1 point per building
• Name the 7 main rivers of Sheffield – 1 point per river
• What is the oldest football club in the world? – 3 points for the club name, 2 points for the year it was set up

All the following are for conference speakers or close friends:

• Where was Andy Gill born? – 5 points
• What was Scott Helme’s first pet? – 5 points
• Draw a picture of Woody (Mike Woodhead) – 5 points
• What is Neil Richardson allergic to? – 5 points
• What is Tanya’s favourite colour? – 5 points