Category: CONsole Room News

Planning is well underway for the tenth regeneration of our convention, “10 Years in the TARDIS,” which will be proceeding in a hybrid format (in-person and online) on January 20-22, 2023!

Whether you join us in person in Minnesota or virtually from around the world, we are looking forward to bringing this community together to celebrate 10 years of CONsole Room. Take a look below at how you can begin to plan for our January celebration of Doctor Who, and stay tuned for more announcements to come!

REGISTRATION IS OPEN

Registration is officially open for CONsole Room 2023! Our two virtual options are also available: CYBERMITE and CYBERMAN.
Find more information about memberships on our REGISTRATION page, then be sure to lock in the lowest registration rate now!

HOTEL ROOM BLOCK IS OPEN

CONsole Room returns to the HILTON MSP AIRPORT/MALL OF AMERICA HOTEL and our room block is NOW OPEN! Staying at the hotel helps cover convention use of event space at the hotel and makes it easy to ensure you don’t miss a second of fun over our Who-filled weekend. Shuttle service is available for additional food and shopping options nearby and, even better, you can still access virtual aspects of our convention from the warm comfort of your hotel room!

To get more information about the convention hotel, go to our HOTEL PAGE or go to the HILTON HOTEL WEBSITE to book your room directly.

AUGUST 28 | PUBLIC BRAINSTORMING

We are continuing to gather panel ideas for the 2023 convention, and we want to hear from you! Please consider joining our virtual public brainstorming session on August 28 from 1-3PM CDT.

Join via Zoom
Passcode: 026834

INTEREST FORM FOR ARTIST ALLEY + DEALER’S ROOM NOW OPEN

Our interest form for Artist Alley and Dealer’s Room is open! The initial submission date for Vendor Interest Forms is due SEPTEMBER 15.

Learn more about being a vendor at CONsole Room and submit your interest form on our VENDORS page.

ART SHOW OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS

Do you like art? Do you MAKE art or crafts related to science fiction or Doctor Who? Would you like to show these pieces off and/or possibly sell them to fellow Whovians?

Enter the Art Show – submissions are now open! Learn more on our ART SHOW page.

Are you ready to celebrate 10 Years in the TARDIS with us? Our celebration begins now! We’ll be spending the next several months leading up to our 10th annual convention celebrating the conventions, characters, and community that have come before – and everything still to come at CONsole Room 2023 and beyond!

Stay tuned on social media, via email, and here on our website to make sure you don’t miss a thing, then get ready to join us in January either in-person or online.

Hello, fellow Whovians!

Today, we are officially nine days away from our 9^th annual convention. When we set out this year to reimagine our convention in a hybrid space, our goal was to be as inclusive and supportive of our community and as transparent in our decisions as possible. In a world still greatly impacted by COVID-19, we imagined a convention that could support a number of different outcomes but that could prioritize the health, safety, and longevity of all of our attendees, guests, and this community.

Today, nine days away from our convention, we, as many of you, are deeply attuned to the news coming in regarding COVID-19 and, in particular, the Omicron variant. While we have been diligent about making changes and working with our convention hotel to make the convention space as safe as possible – you can read more on our Policy page – we are also very aware that our precautions, while layered, are not foolproof.

Unfortunately, while our priority is always this community, our reality is that we also have legal obligations to our convention hotel. We also do not anticipate a force majeure – that is, a government or legal restriction that requires the event to move fully virtual – to come into effect at this point. Without a force majeure, our organization is on the hook for all of the costs of the convention – a cost our small nonprofit would not be able to sustain and would prevent us from continuing as an organization. (Please note that we don’t have any ill will toward our convention hotel for this, it’s simply a fact of business for event spaces such as this and we both have our organizations to look out for.)

The good news is that, by building around a hybrid space to begin with, we are as prepared for this as we can be.

We will be moving forward with both in-person and virtual access to the con, as we planned when we set out this year, giving all of the members of our community opportunities to get involved in the way that works best for them:

If you are planning to join us in person, please be reminded that we are requiring full vaccination for ALL attendees and for masks to be worn at all times. A few additional notes:

• • Pre-registration for in-person memberships ends in just a few days on Friday, January 14. We will accept registration at the door, provided you are able to follow our COVID-19 policies.
  • We are not requiring you to get tested or to be boosted against COVID-19 if you are attending in person. However, we do strongly recommend both for all in-person attendees! Help us make this as safe an environment as possible.

If you already purchased an in-person weekend membership and are ill, uncomfortable, or otherwise unable or unwilling to join us in person, you still have CYBERMAN access to our virtual content and we hope you choose to join us virtually! While the experience will be a little different than last year’s fully virtual event, we have worked hard to create an environment that is inclusive of all of our attendees, in person and online.

If you would prefer to join us virtually, good news! We still have both CYBERMITE and CYBERMAN tickets available through convention weekend. CYBERMITE tickets provide a somewhat limited experience and are FREE. CYBERMAN tickets provide an expanded virtual experience and are only $35.

In the days ahead, we will continue, as always, to be as transparent and open as possible with all of you. We hope you will join us either in person or online to celebrate this show we all love, together.

Jason Tucker and Amber Raden
CONsole Room Co-Chairs