SaikouCon

08/21/2021

Regarding Pre-Registration Attendee Refunds and Merchant Registrations for SaikouCon: I apologize sincerely that your refund will not be immediate, and that this message is later then the August 10, 2021 date announced on the convention website and Facebook, I have been in meetings with my legal counsel every day since August 9, with a final meeting earlier today; August 20. At Counsel's urging I have not sent these messages or made social media posts until we came to an agreement regarding whether or not I would be declaring bankruptcy due to the unavoidable cancellation of SaikouCon 2021 following the 2020 cancellation thanks to the Coronavirus Pandemic and the cancellation of all future years of SaikouCon as well as all side events tied to SaikouCon.
My attorney has urged me to declare bankruptcy, but I wish to make this right instead. Unfortunately the convention is unable to refund all pre-registrations at once as the various cancellation fees for each cancelled year was in the thousands between cancelled flights for guest stars, guest star appearances, hotel rooms, non-refundable venue fees, non-refundable AV equipment rentals, and table rentals for our merchants. It actually costs more to cancel a show than completing a show.
The convention is trying to make this right for each attendee and each merchant, but I must ask you to be patient and work with me as I liquidate all of my personal assets to accommodate issuing the refunds, a number of refunds will be issued each month as the sales of my assets are made, paychecks from my upcoming full time and part time jobs will be used to issue refunds to everyone still owed refunds as well. The August allotment of refunds have been issued at the time of this message. The next round of refunds will be in September 2021 near the end of the month, they will be issued in order of badge purchase from earliest for SaikouCon 2020 in late 2019 and early 2020 forward to those that pre-registered for SaikouCon 2021.

My attorney has begrudgingly acquiesced to this arrangement, however, should claims be raised against me he will declare bankruptcy on my behalf as soon as any claims are made known to him.

To be realistic in timeframe, it will take me 16-24 months to repay every single person that pre-registered as an attendee and registered as a merchant SaikouCon 2020 and SaikouCon 2021, I am hoping for sooner than that; but with closing the convention completely I am already being denied business and personal loans I have applied for to remedy this situation as I have no collateral in the form of real estate or any vehicles I own.

Once more, I ask for patience, there is a huge misconception that all registration fees are kept in a huge money bin ala Disney's Scrooge McDuck character or that the convention has made millions over the years of operation, but that is sadly not the case. Registration fees are used as working capital throughout the year to rent the above mentioned tables, AV equipment, venue fees/rent payments, in rare cases advance partial payments to guest stars, airfare for guest stars etc. and has been since SaikouCon began; the convention has only ever made enough revenue each year to pay for itself and begin the following year's payments out to hosting venues. 99% of the above is non-refundable and uninsurable when cancellations happen due to the pandemic and the increasingly unsafe environmental conditions of the world; this is the sad truth and nature of event running. On a personal note, I ask for patience again as I am ending an event that has taken quite truthfully all of my blood, sweat, tears, effort, and mental fortitude since May of 2012 when I began planning the first show. You may be losing a stop on your summer con plans, but I am losing a career that I have lived my life for and around for a decade.

Once your turn in the refund queue has come, I will contact you again (following your email messages that will be begin being sent tomorrow, August 21, 2021 with all of the above information) to confirm your mailing address that you provided with your pre-registration payment to ensure you receive your refund via cheque as our credit processor PayPal only allows direct refunds to your credit/debit card for 180 days from payment date.

Michael Meade
Former Con Chair
SaikouCon

08/06/2021

It is with a heavy heart and sincere apology that I must announce the cancellation of SaikouCon 2021. There is no way for the convention to go on this year, we simply do not have enough programming to move forward, for panelists that have made their anger known through several posts to the SaikouCon! Unoffical Facebook Group that they did not receive emails concerning their panels in the timeline I announced earlier this year, after two extensions of panel submissions, I apologize you did not receive your status notifications on time. Many panelists withdrew their submissions over the last two weeks as the Delta Variant of Covid-19 continues to grow in infection rate across the country before I could even get your status messages out. There are currently only 15 panels that have not withdrawn before I could make contact, to put that number in perspective for new attendees, we had 19 panels for the Saturday of SaikouCon 2019 alone. These withdrawals have caused me to rework our programming schedule several times, and as I have explained several times in the past, our programming schedule is worked out before notifications are sent because of the limited space we have for panel presentations and the attempt to maximize the space without overlap or too much delay between panels.Even with the reworking and factoring in guest star panels, we just don't have enough programming for a three day convention and so close to the show there really is no way to bring in enough to make a full day let alone a full weekend.

If you have room reservations at the Mountain Laurel Resort, please call in to cancel your rooms. I know not many of you were able to book rooms with them this year as I have been told by a few attendees that they were told by the reservations department that the resort double booked several rooms due to the presence of another group they have contracted for occupancy on what was going to be SaikouCon's weekend. SaikouCon is not liable for the resort's reservations department, for that I apologize as well, I was not made aware until the end of July what had happened at the resort in that regard.

Cancellation messages and details will be sent out to all attendees, merchants, remaining panelists beginning this Tuesday, August 10 after I have cancelled all our equipment rentals and spoken to the convention's legal representation. This year's difficulties, including the shutdown of the convention email for several months in 2020 and again in 2021 due to spam reports that caused registration confirmation messages for attendees and merchants to be severely delayed up to this cancellation which has been a point of justified anger from many attendees and merchants (I know who has been making the spam reports against the con e-mail address, thank you for adding to the difficulties of restoring the convention after the 2020 cancellation), the blocking of my ability to message and post on SaikouCon's Facebook profile for several months, again seemingly from spam reports against the con profile (messages were locked and all my posts were displaying as being from my personal Facebook, which does not show up on the timeline of anyone that follows the con page), being locked out of the convention's Instagram since the end of last August which continues now for some reason even the Facebook/Instagram tech department can't figure out. In the realization that these difficulties have made our operations face insurrmountable blockades, SaikouCon will not be returning again. For many this will be frustrating or upsetting, for some a sign of relief it seems, and for a few a victory that SaikouCon will not be returning. The con website and social media profiles will remain intact, only to make sure the name is not taken by anyone else and restarted without my express permission as the owner of the name. I do not do this out of spite, but to safeguard those that will miss the show. As some of you know, we have had issues in the past with people pretending to be representatives of the convention and spreading false information about the convention's future as well as promising guest bookings for thousands of dollars to voice actors and in one case a YouTube parody artist, that were not staff but presenting themselves as such. The false bookings I did not make public knowledge, but the group pretending to be talent booking agents working for SaikouCon led to several problems for us in 2016, and almost a lawsuit with one individual that thought they were being robbed of a substantial appearance fee because I never purchased them airfare. Again, SaikouCon will not be back. I have no plans to continue any side projects connected to SaikouCon that were in the planning stages before the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

As the con chair, I apologize for all of this. I ask that none of you hold this against my team as many of them will still be active in the anime convention circuit, and please do not take any frustration about SaikouCon 2021's cancellation and the end of SaikouCon as a whole out on them, including my family members that are part of the con staff. I apologize for issuing rollovers rather than refunds for 2020, our event insurance would not cover the show for cancellation due to the pandemic, and the government aid and loans promised small businesses were denied to me at all turns due to the convention being a sole proprietorship with less than 200 employees; as I was told repeatedly by the Small Business Administration. Without that aid we were just out too much money on supplies, equipment rentals, airfare for guest stars both announced and unannounced (again, flight insurance would not cover the fees because they do not cover pandemics), and various other sundry costs for printed materials like our badges and cost for the supplies to make our SaikouKaiju and con t-shirts. The last minute cancellation in 2020 was largely due to the former on site management team at Mountain Laurel Resort, I stress former management team. Said team would not accept our postponement until the last possible moment after we had spent out all of the above resources on the supplies needed to run the convention properly; we tried in May of 2020, the end of June 2020, and the beginning of July 2020 until the Pennsylvania Govenor's Office stepped and said no events larger than 25 people in attendance the week after Independence Day 2020. Again, I ask any grudges or anger not be held against or taken out on my staff, both volunteer and permanent, I will no longer be part of the anime convention community after this, but some of my staff will be and I want them welcomed and still held as part of the community despite this situation.

Thank you all for your support over the years, your critiques both fair and unfair have helped me steer the con a little better than before they were levied. I will miss working with and for you all. I am happy my team was able to bring you good memories and fun times over the years.

All My Best,
Michael Meade
Former Con Chair
SaikouCon

08/02/2021

Welcome to our first Musical Guest for SaikouCon 2021, Hollis! Hollis is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist, she has performed and crafted music in New York City, Los Angeles, across the world in London, England. Originally from Scranton, PA this Hollis' first anime convention appearance, and is a longtime friend of SaikouCon's chair, let's make her feel welcome and a part of the SaikouCon family! Hollis will be performing at our Cosplay Concert on SaikouCon Saturday and will also be MCing our Cosplay Contest earlier in the night. Hollis will also have a merch table in our Merchant Hall so you can pick up some of her music, grab a photo and autograph too! Get excited!

Also, congratulations to Christina R. from Hazleton, PA on being picked by blind drawing as the winner of our Bandai Heroes One Piece Figure Giveaway! Christina will be receiving her prize pack of all three figures from the One Piece wave of Bandai Heroes figures! And a note on our Transformers: Earth Wars SaikouBots Alliance Member Drive: July's member drive did not yield new members to the official alliance of SaikouCon, so we are going to try another one in October. If we fill the convention's alliance in October, we will have a Transformers themed giveaway for those alliance members through the game in November concurrent to our annual Mangagiving Contest through SaikouCon.com. The Transformers Giveaway to alliance members will be a Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy figure. Stay tuned for further details in September following the conclusion of SaikouCon 2021, August 20-22.

07/30/2021

Ready for another Guest of Honor announcement? We thought you might be! Welcome back to SaikouCon, your friend and ours, Greg Houser! Greg has been a Voice Actor Guest of Honor at SaikouCon several times since our first show back in 2013, but Greg always brings the fun to our show in all that he does at SaikouCon... panels? Fun. Autograph sessions? Fun. VIP Meet and Greet? Fun. ust hanging out around the show floor? Fun. Greg will be with for all three days of SaikouCon 2021, presenting several panels throughout the weekend, doing a couple of general autograph sessions, of course the VIP Meet and Greet on SaikouCon Saturday, and maybe a few surprises...

Keep an eye out for our full programming schedule to be released on August 5, 2021 at 8 PM ET to see everything at SaikouCon 2021 that Greg will be presenting and taking part in! And make sure to be on the look out tonight, July 30, 2021 for the announcement of our first Musical Guest for SaikouCon 2021 on SaikouCon.com and then here on Facebook tomorrow afternoon July 31, 2021! This Post Apocalypse Party is going to rock the roof off Mount Laurel Resort.

Please also note that General Admission Pre-Registration has been extended to August 15, 2021 at 10 PM ET on both 3 Day and Single Day Badges, and VIP Registration has been extended to August 5, 2021 at 10 PM ET.

07/26/2021

Final extension for Panel Submissions for SaikouCon 2021, submissions have been extended until tomorrow, July 26 at 8 PM ET! Visit www.saikoucon.com/panels.html for the details on paneling with SaikouCon and to su MIT your panels! Apologies for the last minute extension, the previous extension was meant to be until the final Monday of July, I misread the dates when last extension was announced. - Mike

SaikouCon Anime Convention's one stop page for all things Panel related! Panel Submissions, Panel Schedule, Panel Submission Parameters... it's all here! | SaikouCon is a three day, anime and cosplay convention located in the heart of the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. SaikouCon, which means &...

07/21/2021

We thought the announcement of Aaron Roberts was posted here, but it isn't showing up on our wall anymore, so here we are posting again... We are happy to announce that Aaron Roberts' schedule was open for our dates allowing him to accept our invitation to be a Guest of Honor once more (and actually get to come to the show this time, F*** YOU COVID)! Please welcome Aaron to SaikouCon again... for the first time... Aaron has provided voice work in over 200 anime series that have received English language dubs in North America including My Hero Academia, Black Clover, Tokyo Ghoul, Toriko, Fairy Tail, One Piece, and Black Butler just to name a few. Be on the look out later this evening, around 8 PM ET, for our next Guest of Honor announcement and tomorrow, July 22 our first Musical Guest of the year will be announced!

07/21/2021

Panel Submissions for SaikouCon 2021 have been extended until July 25, 2021; so get your panels submitted before the extended deadline arrives! Let's make some amazing programming together! Full schedule will now be announced on August 5, 2021 at 8 PM ET, we know we haven't cut announcing the program this close to showtime since our first show back in 2013. We apologize for this, but this is a recovery year for everyone the world over and we need some more submissions to weigh and choose from to make a fun year for us with more variety than we have to work at this moment. Not that there is anything wrong with the panel submissions we have received, but wwe're running into what we did back in 2014, many nearly identical submissions from highly popular fandoms; which, again, is awesome, but we need some more variety to put together something that is truly for everyone. Thank you for bearing with us and continuing to support SaikouCon, the anime convention no one thought would make it. Hit www.saikoucon.com/panels.html for the panel submission form and submission guidelines for 2021.

07/20/2021

07/14/2021

Event spam incoming! Update post will be coming later tonight after I get all the event pages up here for the contest we have going now, our 2021 cosplay events, and a few other things. I'm sorry for the lack of communication on social media and the massive delays on emails, our email has been locked for spam reports twice since postponing SaikouCon 2020, then it was inaccessible from March until a few days days ago due to our web host conducting another system upgrade that did nothing I can see for our email system (the web host never notified us that the password had to be changed post update, so no incoming emails were lost, I just had to find the access solution on my own). Between tomorrow and Sunday I will have everyone's registration rollover sent out to attendees and merchants that bought passes to 2020 as well as everyone that has bought passes to the 2021 since pre-reg opened back in December. I apologize for all the seeming excuses, I want everyone to know why there has been so much radio silence this year. SaikouCon 2021 is locked in and happening. Guest announcements are coming tonight, Aaron Roberts has already been announced on the con website and will be here with a full announcement later tonight. More voice actor guests coming before the weekend, and our first musical guest by Sunday, middle of next week at the latest. Now prepare for event spam!!! We think you'll like what we've got planned for this year even with our Covid-19 protocols still in place (you can review them on the Convention Info page of SaikouCon.com). - Mike

12/01/2020

After The Year that wasn't, the year that shall not be named, the year of the Apocal... you get what we're saying... SaikouCon is back for its true eighth year. How does that song go? Better, harder, faster, stronger. The year off has given the SaikouSquad time to think up new activities, improve existing events, and continue to prioritize safety and health in the post Covid-19 world. SaikouCon is still a big party, but now we're a Post Apocalypse Party and together with you we are going to celebrate life and the human will to overcome adversity, no matter how challenging that adversity is. Celebrate at Saikoucon 2021 with fun, some learning, music, cosplay, and the comradery that can only be found at fan conventions. Let's rebuild the in-person con scene together and make it better than it ever was before! SaikouCon 2021 is happening August 20, 21, and 22 of 2021. Get hyped, we're back.

We are happy to be back, and ready to roll out a better show than 2020 could have ever been. We hope you're excited too! Open now is our annual Cyber Monday BOGO sale on General Admission tickets to the show, we are sorry we're starting at 8 PM on Cyber Monday, but we just got the contract with Mountain Laurel Resort finalized earlier today after a comedy of errors that only 2020 could deliver... the first few times the resort sent our contract they disappeared in the cyber ether, and then for the past few months our email was shut down again as spam. After a lengthy battle to get [email protected] (our web host hosts the email through Yahoo) reinstated as a legitimate business email and not a spam bot, we were able to get the rental contract with the resort sorted today. To celebrate, and to make up for starting the ticket so late in the day, we are extending the Cyber Monday BOGO into a Cyber Week BOGO, all General Admission SaikouCon 2021 badges will be buy one get free until Friday, December 4, 2020 at 12 AM (the 12 AM going into Saturday, December 5 to be precise)! Remember, the extra ticket will not be seen in your Shopping Cart at check out, PayPal always freaks out when we try to set it up that way for our two annual BOGO sales, but your Registration Confirmation message that you receive 24-72 hours after purchase (the confirmation messages will never be automated, they always come direct from our con chair, only the e-receipt from PayPal itself is automated), will have free free tickets listed. Visit www.saikoucon.com/registration.html for all the details!

Now, with us being labeled spam and having our messaging privileges suspended for nearly three months, it is going to take us a few days to get caught up with messages we couldn't access as well as sending out updated Registration Confirmation messages for everyone that bought tickets for 2020 and are getting their tickets rolled over to SaikouCon 2021 and then complimentary tickets to SaikouCon 2022 to make up for having postpone so close to our planned showtime for 2020. Don't worry, your updated messages are coming this week, we're just limiting how many messages with identical subject lines we're sending in a day to about 20 so we don't get flagged as spam again now that registration for 2021 is open.
Merchants you will be receiving your updated Registration emails this week as well for your roll over to 2021 and complimentary 2022 merchant registrations. As stated when we were forced to postpone 2020, we do not have dates for 2022 yet, for attendees or merchants, you will receive your 2022 messages once we have our 2022 contract and dates in place following SaikouCon 2021.

Also make sure to visit www.saikoucon.com/convention-info.html for our Covid-19 Safety Protocols and Rules.

All Our Best,
The SaikouSquad

07/16/2020

With heavy hearts we are forced to announce that SaikouCon 2020 has been postponed until 2021. The Mountain Laurel Resort and Spa was forced by the latest mandate from the state of Pennsylvania released yesterday evening to cancel our 2020 contract to host SaikouCon in their facility late in the day yesterday, July 15, as all events statewide have been cut back to having no more than 25 people in the face of the massive increase in Covid-19 infections in Pennsylvania since July 1. Within the next week to two weeks the resort will be issuing us a new contract for August of 2021 after they have confirmed which of our requested weekends are clear and have no other events at the resort at the same time. To make up for being forced to postpone the 2020 convention so close to what was supposed to be showtime, all pre-registered attendee tickets will roll over to SaikouCon 2021 and SaikouCon 2022, two years for the price of one, as will as tickets that were prizes from our 2019 cosplay contests and the couple of giveaways earlier this year that were hosted on SaikouCon.com. Free SaikouCon 2021 t-shirts will also be given to all those that pre-registered for SaikouCon 2020; t-shirts will be given at Badge Pick Up at SaikouCon 2021 so you can pick out the shirt design/shirt color you want, one t-shirt per badge holder. Registered Merchants for 2020 will also have their registrations honored for both SaikouCon 2021 and SaikouCon 2022, no need to apply again, no rejurying process, just two years of vending with us for the price of one. Registered Merchants will also be included in a SaikouCon hosted Cyber Merchant Hall in September of this year (working on how we will facilitate this over the rest of this week, once we work it out our con chair will be sending emails to our merchants to get them set up) and Cyber Holiday Otaku Market the first weekend of December 2020.
Volunteer Staff Applicants, Press Applicants, and Panelists will have to apply again when applications and panel submissions for SaikouCon 2021 and SaikouCon 2022 open respectively to be assessed as normal for those years. We are truly sorry this has happened so close to showtime, we were looking forward to seeing everyone in 2020 and showing people how to have fun while being safe in the face of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Once our dates for SaikouCon 2021 are confirmed, new registration confirmation messages will go out to all pre-registered attendees and registered merchants; following SaikouCon 2021 the SaikouCon 2022 registration confirmation letters will go out to all as well. We will not have our 2022 dates until after the conclusion of SaikouCon 2021 as any other normal year would roll out. Normal pre-registration has now been closed and will open for SaikouCon 2021 this October so there is no confusion that SaikouCon 2020 has been postponed.

Again, we are sorry this is happening, we really thought we would still be able to party this year, but the state is correct in rolling back the Green Phase rules to Yellow Phase rules as numbers continue to climb higher and higher in Pennsylvania. Please wear your masks, wash your hands regularly with soap, maintain your six foot social distance from people you don't live with. Stay safe, stay healthy and we'll be in touch with everyone in the coming days with all of the above info.

All Our Love,
The Staff of SaikouCon

07/06/2020

Panel Submission status notices will be going out this evening through the night into tomorrow (July 7) morning. I am sorry for the delay, both my wifi and 4G access went down yesterday afternoon and is still cutting in and out now. I have been assured by both providers that interruption to my service will be restored between 7 and 8 PM tonight. I am sorry for this delay, I am only able to post this now using a gas station's wifi a few minutes away from SaikouBase. Full programming schedule will be released this Saturday, July 11 now instead of July 10. - Mike