Hi everyone! Your friendly vid show committee—alpheratz, cinco, corbae, and salvamisandwich—is looking for suggestions for CON.TXT's 2021 vid show! Tell us about the vids you love in new and old fandoms, and definitely tell us if you're thinking about submitting a premiere to the show! This year's vid show will be the evening of Saturday, June 26th (Eastern time)

VID NOMINATIONS AND PREMIERE SUBMISSIONS

To nominate a vid for inclusion in the show, head on over to our vid nomination form. Please don't be shy: self-nominate as much as you like! The deadline for vid nominations is May 30th, 2021, at 11:59 EDT.

If you're thinking of submitting a premiere, please fill out the premiere interest form. This does not commit you to anything! This poll will remain open through May 30th, 2021 as well, but note that the deadline to submit final premiere drafts is later. Read below for more details on submitting premieres.

PREMIERE GUIDELINES

We accept premieres for any fandom and with any type of content, but if it would be helpful to you to get a sense of the typical tone of CON.TXT vid shows, you can check out last year's playlist.

Drafts are due Sunday, May 30th, 2021 (as long as it is May 30th anywhere in the world). For this purpose, a draft is a vid with at least an 80% completed timeline and a beginning, middle, and end.

To submit your draft vid, email us a link at vids@con-txt.net or contxtcon@gmail.com. The link can be to Gdrive, Dropbox, an unlisted YouTube or Vimeo video, your own website—whatever!

Final vids are due Friday, June 11th (as long as it is June 11th anywhere in the world). We can work with you if you want to make tweaks after that date, though—just email us.

Final vids should be uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo as unlisted videos. They should not be password protected. This year, we are asking that you also submit subtitles alongside your premiere. Festivids has some great information on creating subtitles for your vid.

To submit your final vid, email a link to the unlisted video to vids@con-txt.net or contxtcon@gmail.com.

This year we will be using an updated content notes policy. Last year's, for reference, is located on our website. An updated policy will be released in the coming months—we anticipate revising our old one based on the excellent improvements and additions made by Fanworks. We will add content notes to your vid according to our policy, but you are welcome to provide any additional notes you feel are appropriate.

QUESTIONS?

If we’ve left anything out, or if you’d like to know more about the con or the vid show, please ask! You can reach us at vids@con-txt.net or comment on our Dreamwidth post. You do not need a Dreamwidth account to comment.

If you have a Yahoo or Netscape account, please email us at contxtcon@gmail.com.

We are now taking panel suggestions for CON.TXT 2021! Please read this post and comment on our Dreamwidth using the template provided there.

We are making several changes to the panel proposal process this year:

1. Open versus closed panels. This year, you will have a choice between submitting a panel proposal as Open or Closed. A Closed panel is a panel for which you are submitting the idea as well as the full lineup of mods. If the panel is accepted, the panels committee will not find you any additional co-mods.

An Open panel is a panel you are asking the panels committee to put together—you propose the idea, and we assemble a panel out of the potential mods who volunteer. Every mod selected will be able to opt in or out of the final panel, but no mod will have veto power over co-mod assignment.*

If you would like to have control over the mod lineup of the panel you are proposing to mod, we invite you to use the comments on this post to find co-mods and submit your panel as Closed. (Feel free to edit your proposal post if you fill up a panel before the deadline!)

(*Just to be clear—if we assign you to a panel with someone you do not trust to adhere to the Code of Conduct, please let us know! Our goal is to streamline the panel selection process and simplify communication with mods, not to force you to work with anyone you don’t feel safe around.)

2. Prerecorded versus live content. While most panels will still be conducted live, we are offering two kinds of pre-recorded panels this year!

• Full-length prerecorded panels. What it says on the tin! This format is best-suited for How-to panels or other information-heavy panels involving a lot of screensharing, but we will consider proposals for prerecorded programming in all categories.
• Minipanels! We’re hoping to do at least one block of short (3–10 minute) prerecorded presentations—basically a big fannish knowledge party! This is a great place to pimp your fandom, share your favorite nifty facts, or rant about your pet peeve.

Prerecorded panels and minipanels will be reviewed by the concom for usability and content in violation of the code of conduct, but they won’t go through the voting process. If you would like to submit a prerecorded panel or minipanel, please comment here to let us know. Then, submit your video to the programming committee by May 25. (We’ll make another post soon letting you know how!)

Also—not a change from last year, but a thing you may not have known—you can suggest vid shows! If you would like to VJ a vid show panel—or you think someone else should—suggest it here!

All attendees and those considering attending are welcome to suggest panels, regardless of whether or not you want to moderate. Most full-length panels are 50 minutes long but we have had panels run for a longer duration, so please note if you think your panel suggestion needs more time.

If you have an idea for a panel but don’t want to moderate it, no problem—suggest it as an Open panel! If you see an Open panel suggestion and would like to moderate it, drop a comment and volunteer.

Timeline

Now: Panel submissions are open!

Sunday, April 18 (11:59 pm EST): Panel submissions close.

Thursday, April 22: Panel voting opens!

Friday, May 7: Panel voting closes.

Early May: Notification of panel assignments.

May 25: Prerecorded panels and minipanels due.

Beginning of June: CON.TXT 2020 programming schedule posted on our website.

Mid-June: Virtual con instructions go out.

June 25-27: CON WEEKEND!

Please proceed to the Dreamwidth post to read the FAQ. You can suggest panels in the comments of that post. You do not need a Dreamwidth account to comment!

Belated Happy New Year, everyone! 

We're in the throes of planning CON.TXT 2021—our second all-virtual con—and details will be coming in the next month or two. 

We are also looking ahead to our next in-person con. As you know *gestures around* times are uncertain and we are unsure when an in-person CON.TXT will be feasible. The last in-person CON.TXT was held in July 2018, and many people pre-registered for CON.TXT 2020 at the con. We also opened registration for CON.TXT 2020 in the fall of 2019. Right now, the earliest possible in-person con would be in summer 2022. 

Additionally, as we announced in August, the hotel that was our home for the last two cons has closed its doors. At the time, we offered refunds to everyone who wanted one, and rolled over in-person con registrations for everyone else.

Since then, we've given the issue a lot of thought and decided that we need to refund everybody and start fresh when we hold the next con. There are multiple factors that went into this decision. First and foremost, we don't feel right holding on to your money for years. Secondly, there are tax implications to having the registration revenue sitting in our accounts with no expenses to offset it. And lastly, with the hotel industry in flux right now, we don't know what rates and availability we might be looking at in summer 2022 and the rates we set in 2018 and 2019 may need to change. 

Here is our plan to issue refunds:

• If you registered through Eventbrite, your refund will be issued through Eventbrite as well.
• If you registered through Paypal, we will email you to confirm your PayPal email account, and you will have a chance to ask for alternate arrangements.
• If you registered via cash or check, we will email you at the email address you registered under to work out arrangements.

Please look for an email from us or Eventbrite, whichever applies, by February 26th. 

Lastly, we recognize that those of you who preregistered in 2018 did so at a preferential rate. When we open registration for the next in-person CON.TXT, we intend to honor those preregistrations in some way. Things are too uncertain at the moment for us to have a concrete plan, but we will do our best to work out something fair. 

Thank you for reading this long post and for your understanding. We are really looking forward to CON.TXT 2021 and to seeing you all in person again someday!

As you know, we had to cancel the 2021 in-person convention we had previously planned due to hotel availability. However, we're excited to announce that we will hold another virtual con next summer instead! That's CON.TXT two years in a row!

CON.TXT 2021 will be held online June 26-27, 2021, with pre-con events on the evening of June 25 (EDT). 

We would usually poll you about con dates, and we're sorry for not doing so this year—we chose this weekend based on our schedules and other scheduled conventions. We hope this date will work for most of you!

Specifics, including details on registration, will be coming in early 2021, but we can share a few preliminary details with you now:

• Based on your feedback, con panels and activities will be spread out over two days with more breaks throughout
• There will be a registration fee, with scholarships available. We haven't finalized the price but it is unlikely to be more than $20
• We're looking into offering some recorded panels (to allow for asynchronous viewing) and improved accessibility features (such as live captioning)
• Platform decisions have not been finalized, but we expect the modes of interaction to be a mix of text and video/voice

We look forward to seeing you all again next summer! In the meantime, we'll keep you posted here, on Dreamwidth, and on Twitter. You can also join our mailing list to get updates.

CON.TXT 2020 starts tonight at 8PM EDT with informal Zoom hangs and Small Fandom Speed Dating! Some reminders: 

Registration

Are you registered on Conline? If not, you have until midnight tonight (EDT) to do so! But please don't wait that long, because ur friendly neighborhood concom would prefer not to send out emails at 1am. Also, you'll also miss out on Friday night hangs! 

To join, sign up here and join CON.TXT here (click Join in upper right) Joining CON.TXT is not the same thing as being registered for CON.TXT 2020 specifically - that will happen once a concom member manually processes your registration. 

Discord

Discord server invites went out last night to everyone registered on Conline, and they will continue to go out as part of the confirmation email to all new registrations as they are processed. 

If you didn't receive your invite, check your Conline account to check or edit the email you registered with (also check your spam). You can also email registration@con-txt.net (or contxtcon@gmail.com if you're writing from a Yahoo or AOL email address). 

You don't have to join the Discord server if you don't want to! All activities can be accessed from the schedule page on Conline. But if you'd like to chat with fellow attendees, we encourage it! 

Badge Names

Are your Conline and Discord badge names set the way you want? On Conline, click your username on the right side of the Conline menu bar and go to Account to change your display name (or email!)! On Discord, right click on any of your messages and select "Change nickname."

Is your Zoom name set the way you want? If you're concerned about the separation of your wallet name and fannish identity, please set your Zoom display name on the Zoom website or through the Zoom app before clicking the link to join any of the CON.TXT panel tracks. If you go directly to the Zoom meeting, you won't be able to change your display name until after you join. Zoom sometimes defaults to your original account name even if you set it differently, so please check your display name immediately on joining a Zoom meeting just in case!

Yay, see you tonight!

With CON.TXT just a few days away, here's a quick checklist to see if you're ready!

• Are you signed up for the con on Conline? If not, you have until midnight (EDT) Friday, June 24th to do so! But please don't wait that long because ur friendly neighborhood concom would prefer not to send out emails at 1am. Also, you'll also miss out on Friday night hangs!

  To join, sign up here and join CON.TXT here. You will receive an email when your registration is processed.

• Is your Conline badge name set the way you want? Click your username on the right side of the Conline menu bar and go to Account to change your display name! 

• Is your Zoom name set the way you want? If you're concerned about the separation of your wallet name and fannish identity, please set your Zoom display name on the Zoom website or through the Zoom app before clicking the link to join any of the CON.TXT panel tracks. If you go directly to the Zoom meeting, you won't be able to change your display name until after you join.

• Do you want to play Small Fandom Speed Dating? If so, sign up! 

• Discord server invites will be going out Thursday, July 23rd to those signed up on Conline. If you're not signed up on Conline by the time that email goes out, you'll receive the invite with your registration confirmation. You don't have to join the Discord server if you don't want to - all activities can be accessed from the schedule page - but if you'd like to chat with fellow attendees, we encourage it! 

We're so excited to see you on Friday and Saturday!

Unfortunately, in-person CON.TXT 2021 has been cancelled. 

Residence Inn Pentagon City, the hotel that has hosted CON.TXT since 2016, is closing permanently in September 2020. An in-person event in summer 2021 was already an uncertain proposition, and having to scout for a new hotel this fall sadly makes it impossible.

If you have already paid your registration for 2021 or had your 2020 in-person registration rolled over to 2021, you are welcome to request a refund through Eventbrite.

We are currently focusing on CON.TXT 2020, and we're not yet sure how we will proceed for 2021 or 2022. We will be looking at our options and asking for your feedback after CON.TXT 2020--which is next Saturday, July 25th, and we hope you'll join us! 

Please look for another update about 2021 toward the end of August.

It's officially eight days until the start of CON.TXT! You may have seen on Twitter that we've added a Friday evening event on the 24th that will be held on Zoom at 8pm EDT. It'll be an informal hangout, so bring a meal, a drink, or your pets (or all three!). We'll give you a brief rundown of what to expect on Saturday, you'll have a chance to ask questions, and then we'll play Small Fandom Speed Dating. 

If you haven't encountered Small Fandom Speed Dating before, it's basically The Dating Game with small fandoms instead of bachelors. You get to drag people into your small fandoms or find the new small fandom of your heart! It's great. 

If that sounds like your jam, please help us by filling out this sign-up form. It's non-binding! If it doesn't sound like your jam, you're welcome to stay and observe or log off early.

A few housekeeping items

• If you are not yet registered on Conline and want to attend the con, please do so ASAP! Go to  https://conline.club/login/ and log in with your Google, Twitter, or Facebook account. Then go to https://contxt.conline.club/ and click the "Join" link on the top right. More info here.
• We haven't yet resolved the issue of bouncing Yahoo and AOL emails with our web host--we're so sorry, and we'll definitely get it fixed before the next con. If you use Yahoo or AOL, you can email us at contxtcon@gmail.com.

This year's schedule of panels and activities is ready and you can see it on CON.TXT Conline now! You can also see the list of panels, minus the schedule grid, at con-txt.net. Thanks to all our fantastic volunteer panel mods! We'd like to highlight a few things that are different this year:

• There will be no DIY panel time slots - but we'll have general chat channels in Discord where you can organize your own!
• All panels will be 50 minutes long

We are still working out some small details like adding co-mods, but this schedule is basically final - so go take a look! 

As a reminder, you will have to register on Conline if you want to attend the con: more info here. Moreover, if you're a panel mod but have not signed up on Conline, your name won't be listed on your panels until you have done so. 

We're also excited to announce that the CON.TXT 2020 vid show will feature 10 premieres! 

Registration is still open (and free!) and will be through July 24th, so sign up if you're mulling it over!

---

Note on email bouncing: we're aware that emails to @con-txt.net from yahoo and aol email addresses are bouncing. We're in the process of resolving the issue with our host. In the meantime, please email us from a different email service, @ us on twitter, or comment on our Dreamwidth.

Here are some technical details on how it's going to work.

First, you will need to create an account on Conline, a new online convention platform. Conline is where the schedule, vidshows, and links to panels will live. After creating your account, you will need to join CON.TXT on Conline even if you're already registered for the con. This is a totally new platform and there's no automatic transfer of your registration. 

If you are not registered for the con and would like to register, follow the steps in this post as well! 

Please create your Conline account at least a few days before the con and ideally sooner. 

To create a Conline account and join CON.TXT:

1. Go to https://conline.club/login/ and click on the social network of your choice. Yes, you must connect a Google, Twitter, or Facebook account to use Conline.
2. Go to https://contxt.conline.club/ and click the "Join" link on the top right.

Please make sure to enter your CON.TXT badge name so everyone knows what to call you, and confirm your email address so we know where to send your Discord invite!

That's it! You're done!

Conline is still in development, so please let us know if you run into any issues and we'll help you troubleshoot. 🙂

Other stuff you'll need

CON.TXT will be centralized around a new Discord server. Invitations will go out in the week prior to the con. Discord has a browser version, but you may want to install the app ahead of time. 

Panel discussions will be held via Zoom meetings. You may want to install the Zoom app ahead of time as well, but again this is not necessary. We will use Jitsi Meet as a backup option in case Zoom collapses on the day of the con. 

That's it for now! Stay tuned for other developments!