As mentioned in an earlier post, the Queens Baseball Convention event in January has been canceled. That post has a statement from the organizers.
Let’s start at the beginning. At one point on this blog I used to do an annual post with The Mazzy Awards. One year we, on very short noticed, said we would do a live event to see if people showed up. A surprising number of fans did.
That led to, over a few beverages, “if the Mets won’t do a Fan Festival let’s do our own!” I was one of the founders of the Queens Baseball Convention and had a lot to do with the organizing of the first two events. After that, I left the band for various reasons but the guys had my love, support and encouragement to continue on.
So while it does make me sad to see that the event has been cancelled, I totally understand why. These things don’t just happen. It’s a lot of work on the back end, and the finances aren’t easy because folks are always going to claim that it’s too expensive. But hey, players don’t show up because they are cool, they get paid for their time. Sound systems don’t just exist. Venues want a piece of the pie. It all adds up.
For years one and two I wrote the checks. Year one made sixty dollars. That was perfect. Year two, if I remember correctly, lost two hundred dollars. Not as cool as making sixty, but hey fine. We kept everything on budget. All good. We weren’t trying to get into the Fest Business, we just wanted to attend a Mets Fan Fest and there wasn’t one.
As for the decision for the 2020 event – the guys put out a statement. I don’t know anything else.
Meanwhile, there is a Mets Fan Fest now, so in that sense of things, Mission Accomplished. I am not sure the Mets Fan Fest is how I would have done things – I think something like QBC Year 2 with easier routes to getting JDG and Pete Alonso to come is how I might run things if I ran Mets Fan Fest – and it’s way short of CubsCon or whatever Red Sox Fest is called – but like all things in Queens, baby steps.
So, I’m sad, but I get it. Sorry fellas, I know you worked hard on these things.
