To the BostonFIG Community,
It is with a heavy heart that we are announcing that this year’s BostonFIG Fest will not be taking place in-person. We are currently working to create plans for hosting virtual events in which our community can discover and share indie games to support growth in this area. This decision was not easy to come to, but we believe that the public heath risk of running any event at a scale like our annual Fest is too great, and we cannot anticipate what the scenario will be a few months from now.
Running an event like BostonFIG Fest takes a massive amount of effort. Months of logistics, planning, curation, fundraising, and so much more that goes on behind the scenes—all of which is volunteer labor. Over the past 9 years, we’ve continuously improved our processes for this operation, and I am personally incredibly proud of what we have accomplished.
Now, we are facing the unknown. While many members of our team have technical skills, it is still a very different beast to host online conferences. Because of that, we are going to be working over the next several weeks to determine what is achievable and accomplishable, and valuable to our community. When that process is finished, we will make further announcements about what our plans are for virtual events and other initiatives like a BostonFIG Discord. Stay tuned to this newsletter, our Facebook and Twitter feeds, and our website for updates. If you’d like to help out, please do reach out to us.
Because of these changes, we will be refunding all ticket sales and submission fees for our 2020 events collected so far. However, maintaining our org still requires funding, and nearly all of that funding comes from event sponsors and ticket sales. Given the new paradigm, we are asking our community to consider a tax-deductible donation to BostonFIG, which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Our online events will be free to the public, and we encourage donations in amounts of pay-what-you-can as though you were getting a ticket to the Fest.
We want to hear from you! We want to know what you want BostonFIG to do to support indie game creation in this time. If you have video or streaming skills and want to help us plan and organize, let us know! Reach out to us at [email protected] or [email protected].
Thank you for your continuous support of the indie games community, and stay tuned for further announcements!