2020 Queens Baseball Convention is CANCELLED!

I will have some thoughts on this later in the day when I have some more time, but for now I wanted to share the sad news with you.

In the meantime, you can read the thoughts of one of the organizers – Media Goon – in his post from this morning. I’ll chime in later. Sorry fellas.

2020 QUEENS BASEBALL CONVENTION CANCELLED

Organizers of the Queens Baseball Convention announced today the cancellation of the 2020 event, originally scheduled for January 18th, citing a combination of factors.

Keith Blacknick and Dan Twohig, co-founders and partners in the 7-year old fan-fest, stated that an unexpected schedule conflict combined with slower than expected ticket sales led to their decision.

”Our initial ticket sales were very strong, but tailed off fairly quickly,” Twohig stated. “We started falling behind in our sales projections and were not going to be able to make them up in time. Then this past week we found out about a schedule conflict that could not be changed. This led Keith and I to make a tough decision.”

“We really did not want to cancel as we are the only fan fest run by fans, for fane,” added Blacknick. “We have built up a wonderful, loyal and appreciative following in the Mets fan community and don’t want to let them down. At the same time, we are just fans ourselves and run this in our spare time.”

While the January event will not take place, Blacknick stated this was not the end of the QBC: “Dan and I are going to reevaluate what the QBC brand is, what it means to the fans, and where it goes moving forward.”

Refunds for all tickets purchased will be issued within the next few days. For any other questions, please contact either Keith or Dan at [email protected]

ABOUT THE QBC
Founded in 2013, the Queens Baseball Convention was created as a mid-winter gathering of fans of the New York Mets. Our design is a combination of “Fan Fest” meets “Comic Con.” Since its start it has grown into the largest fan-run fan fest in the New York area.

….

In his post, Keith answers some FAQs that are probably in your mind right now.

Is this because of the Mets Fan Fest?

We don’t know if that is the reason or not for strong starting off sales and then sales trailing off, but we weren’t able to have the title sponsor that we have had for the last few years that helped us promote the QBC.

Are you mad at the Mets?

Mad isn’t the right word. Our initial intention was to bluff the Mets into doing a fan fest years ago. They told us that it Mets fans don’t want to go to them. We proved them wrong. They realized this and started their own. So we “WON” with our original goal. They asked us if we wanted to join them, we negotiated with them, they didn’t want to pay us any money to help out, so we said no to them. One of the reasons we got off to a late start with the QBC is because we were trying to work with the Mets and we couldn’t pull the trigger on a lot of things earlier. I think there is two words for this to tell you guys the truth. One is Pride. Pride in knowing that we know what Mets Fans want. And Annoyance. Annoyance in the fact that we look forward to this every year now and that we can’t hang out with our fellow fans using our vision.

So, even in thus negative time, we wish the Mets and our fellow fans a good time at the Mets Fan Fest.

Note that I was one of the founders of the original event but have not been actively involved in several years (other than hosting panels from time to time). I want to play my cards up so my POV is clear as I discuss this in upcoming posts. But right now I gotta go out.