Anthrocon bumped for . . . 2012 NHL Entry Draft?
Anthrocon announced Friday night that next year's convention had been moved up a week to accommodate a mystery event, at the request of the City of Pittsburgh.
The new dates are June 14–17, 2012. Anthrocon was duly rewarded for its flexibility:
Pittsburgh has been given a very rare opportunity to host an event that they have been wanting to host for many years. The only trouble was that the proposed event (and we won't say what it is until it is officially announced) would lie in part over Anthrocon's planned weekend. [...] As much as we love our adopted home city and would do anything in our power to support them, we were hesitant to change the date of our convention after having announced it.
Pittsburgh replied with, "What if we got you another hundred hotel rooms within walking distance of the Convention Center?" — We said, "Where do we sign?"
While the event has not been announced, it has been rumoured that the NHL Entry Draft, convened annually in late June, might be coming to Pittsburgh for the first time since 1997.
The city is home to the Pittsburgh Penguins, who fought the Detroit Red Wings for the Stanley Cup in 2008, and won it from them in 2009.
The Penguins recently moved into a new arena (though it didn't help them this year), and hoped to turn the draft into "a weeklong celebration".
Anthrocon has faced a lack of hotel space in recent years, and this year's lackluster growth was directly attributed to the room shortage. Potential expansion options nearby include the historic Rennaisance Pittsburgh and the recently-built Fairmont Pittsburgh.
About the author
GreenReaper (Laurence Parry) — read stories — contact (login required)a developer, editor and Kai Norn from London, United Kingdom, interested in wikis and computers
Small fuzzy creature who likes cheese & carrots. Founder of WikiFur, lead admin of Inkbunny, and Editor-in-Chief of Flayrah.
Comments
THIS IS ALL GARY BETTMAN'S FAULT!
OTOH, if this is true, I can use this to troll a few fur-hating hockey fans.
Fuck yes more reason for me to hate on my "national sport". Well, even more since the hockey riots earlier this year, lol.
LET THE HOCKEY-BASHING BEGIN.
Hating the sport.. because they pushed your precious con back a few days even though they made concessions? That's sad.
boo hoo, your furry convention was pushed a week ahead because the NHL wants to use an arena funded by one of their teams. it's a HOCKEY arena. it was mainly designed for NHL games.
It's not the arena they want, it's the rooms (and possibly the convention center). Anthrocon fills four key downtown hotels and is likely to already have them booked out in advance for next year.
Um, because of Hockey we are able to secure more hotel space in the area? And Anthrocon will be sooner rather then later?
I fail to see why I need to hate the NHL here? These are both good things.
Lots of irrelevant and false comments here, lots of people claiming Anthrocon is being 'pushed out' or 'pushed back'. They're actually being moved forward.
Sometimes I'm wondering if there are two different articles up there that people are reading.
I think if Pittsburg got the NHL draft then good for them, Pittsburg is a great city, I really do hope that more cities follow in their footsteps. The normal city phobia I usually have was no where in sight during AC.
Except normally I wouldn't give a shit. It being hockey pushed me to the give a shit, troll every hockeyjock stage. I really don't want to see a bunch of adult men skating around an ice rink with a stupid circular object, and especially not the same men being bounced around clubs and drafted into clubs for several days.
FML. I need a website, but I have not a domain.
just like a lot of hockey fans don't want to see some grown men dressed as animals roaming around in a HOCKEY arena, making animal noises, or whatever furries do. you people still have your convention, why are you crying about it? the NHL makes more money than the furry convention.
Tip: only 20% of con attendees actually fursuit. Look shit up before you throw around claims like that. I can tell you're a hockey fan or at worst a really bad, misinformed troll, so I will cease to feed you.
FML. I need a website, but I have not a domain.
The other Anon looks likes a generic anti-furry troll with some hockey interest, but what you've been saying pretty much parallels it, just replacing anti-furry with foaming anti-hockey. If it is just "a bunch of adult men skating around an ice rink with a stupid circular object," it seems pretty ridiculous to get so worked up about it. Unless you wish to argue people are justified in raging on other people's arbitrary interests and hobbies...
With this hotel thing, it seems more like a simple business decision: the city trying to optimise the benefits and incoming money. Nothing really special about hockey, as it could have been any of a zillion other interests more popular than the furry fandom (and is it even certain to be the NHL draft at this point?). At least the city tried to be nice and accommodating about it, balancing conflicting interests.
I'll give Pittsburg that -- they did try and strike a balance.
I wasn't arguing that at all, I just like trolling hockey-jocks. XD I was actually completely calm when I wrote that.
FML. I need a website, but I have not a domain.
Well, be thankful that you won't have to, since it'll probably be after Anthrocon (wherever it happens).
The only real upshot of this for furs is that there will be more room for people at AC, which is a good thing.
Thank Jesus (not something I normally do as an atheist), I hate hockey.
FML. I need a website, but I have not a domain.
Ahahaha! Are you aware that the worst Furry novel ever written (in my humble opinion), "Solarion: A Romance", by Edgar Fawcett (Lippincott, 1889), is a screamingly rabid pro-Christian diatribe that equates science and atheists with Satanists? The atheistic Mad Scientist uses science to give speech to the dog Solarion, who spends the rest of the novel kvetching that he may have intelligence but he doesn't have a Soul because only God can create Souls.
Fred Patten
And stuff like that is WHY I'm atheist. So much of the Christian belief system can be thrown into question so easily.
FML. I need a website, but I have not a domain.
i cant wait for anthrocon
children, I can see the Hotel point One of the perils of booking a fan convention at four or five star hotels. The issue is what best business for the hotels. Let's face it big sport officials, million dollar players and owners, and associated news crews with fat expense accounts , willing to drop a load at inflated hotel resaturates beats out furries who scrip by put four into a room and eating at local sandwich shops. After all it one week earlier, Grow up folks it just one week out.
The Hockey News, CBS, NBC, Deadspin, SB Nation and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review have now picked up this story.
Edit: Also TSN, AOL Sporting News, Sportsnet and - seemingly reluctantly - the Pitsburgh Post-Gazette.
Let's just hope all the rumors and wild speculation doesn't jeopardize whatever event Pittsburgh had planned...
With something this big, I doubt a few speculative news reports will scuttle it now. If anything, they're positive.
Besides, I'm sure publicity staff at Visit Pittsburgh and the NHL will be delighted to be able to justify their employment.
Maybe if Barack Obama is in town for next year's Anthrocon he can take some advise from Anthrocon staff on how to come out on top in negotiations.
What is with the negative comments?
Pittsburgh just got something big to come to their city, something the city may also have a personal stake in, and they asked nicely if Anthrocon could move, and threw in incentives. I repeat, they asked nicely, and made darn sure furries'd be back at the regularly scheduled time in 2013.
Also, DW was apparently mistreated by a hockey player in his early childhood. Seriously. You don't pop your comment cherry solely to bash hockey if you don't have some sort of deep, painful issues on the subject.
And now it's official.
What's more important then furries? PENGUINS ON ICE!
Oh wait...
I know this is a tad rude to wonder but it strikes me as *funny* that they somehow came up with 100 more rooms out of supposedly max capacity thin air. So either they unlocked some normally unavailable to us folks rooms, or they have been gently holding back on rentable rooms for the con to actually rent in previous times.
I know its nice we get them but I find it a tad distasteful that when they had been saying all places are full up and now *remember* 100 more rooms to have AC move a week one has to always have the lingering voice in your head.
Gaia bless though and hope to see you all in 2012
Pakesh_De
Chaircritter for Furnal Equinox
Are these 100 more rooms at the same hotels? The "within walking distance" makes it sound like it could be any random hotel in the area that the city can get a new block out of. Also, when a hotel sets up a block for a major convention or conference, are they actually saying they are giving you every single room? Or do they have some rooms they keep aside so that others can still stay at the hotel if needed? Conferences I have been to that were aching for space and potentially had more money/clout than a furry con still seem to have people staying in the hotels that are not connect to the conference. I have even been able to get those rooms when the con block was full, just sometimes costs a little more (or occasionally even a little less), so they weren't hidden.
Thinking about this and trying to envision how this might have happened...
The hotels in question don't automatically commit 100% of their rooms for an event. They know they're going to have other things going on, are going to need some of the rooms for other purposes, and make a decision on that basis how many of their rooms they can commit to an event like Anthrocon. So along comes this other opportunity like the NHL draft, and they really want it, but they have to bump Anthrocon off by a week to get it, and they know Anthrocon is going to object. What can they offer in return to sweeten the pot for Anthrocon to make it worth it? The hotels in question, who are all in a position to benefit from the NHL draft but want to remain in good standing with Anthrocon, will have some boardroom discussions where they look at the number of "held back" rooms, and make a decision that it's worth committing some extra rooms to Anthrocon to remain in their good graces and get the NHL draft too.
Mind you, this is all pure speculation. If what happened is anything like what I described here, then no doubt there were discussions about things like "If we give Anthrocon an extra hundred rooms this year, are they going to expect them in subsequent years?"
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