AudioCon LA Says Show's Postponement Could Extend a Year

AudioCon Los Angeles show producers spent Christmas weekend “in crisis mode,” analyzing all possible options before realizing “it would be impossible to guarantee a safe environment” at its inaugural show Jan. 14-16, at the Hyatt Regency Newport Beach, Executive Producer Michel Plante emailed Wednesday. AudioCon LA was a “totally new show, presented under the umbrella of the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society,” he said. The postponement could extend to January 2023, Plante said: “Being an event organizer during a pandemic is like playing Russian Roulette: You might be lucky with your dates, or you might not. Any date you plan could be canceled at the last minute.” Organizers don’t plan to disturb the established audio show calendar, Plante said: “The last thing we will do is to choose a date in 2022 that will interfere with any other show in North America. If there is an opportunity and this is a date that satisfies the industry, including the other shows, we will consider it.” The make-up show will also have to wait for availability at the Hyatt Regency, “a very busy hotel all year round,” he said. Twenty-four hours after producers announced the event in June, it had 50 reservations from exhibitors, with a target of 100 -- before the omicron surge began, he said. Presold tickets numbered under 1,000, with most attendees expected to buy tickets a week or two before the event. Producers had hoped to sell 5,000 tickets, “but we already knew in mid-November that with the Omicron, we would do like most events in 2021 and sell only 50% of it,” he said. All exhibitors received full refunds within 30 minutes of the show’s postponement announcement, he said; all tickets were refunded 18 hours later. Plante and Executive Producer Sarah Tremblay have had three of their last four shows in Canada canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.