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Rewind Con is a convention that celebrates the 80’s, 90’s and beyond. This isn’t your standard comic or superhero convention, it’s something a little different. This year they plan to bring in the Backstreet Boys, N’Sync, the cast of the original 90210 and a lot of soap opera stars.

This convention was originally scheduled for Sept 23-25 in Chicago. However, they recently informed the world that they were changing locations and dates.

This is their original notification to the public:

Our main goal at REwind Con is to give our attendees the most epic fan experience possible. An experience filled with memories as wonderful as the nostalgia of the era we are representing. Due to the popularity of our convention, and the expanding guest list based on your requests, the only way to bring you that best experience possible, is to change the location of the convention to a much larger venue. With this change of venue, we have no choice, unfortunately, but to also change the dates of REwind Con Chicago to November 11-13, 2016. We understand that this comes as an inconvenience to some of you. We sincerely apologize for that. However, these changes are absolutely necessary in order to bring you, the fans, the experience that you deserve. We are working tirelessly to confirm the venue and date changes with all of our guests to ensure their attendance. Any further updates will be posted as soon as we have the full details. Make no mistake, the show will go on, and it will be TOTALLY TUBULAR!

So they didn’t just move the convention by one week which isn’t too uncommon this far in advance, they moved the convention by two months and it is now in a new location.

The date now also corresponds with two other conventions in Chicago, Eyecon which features the cast of One Tree Hill, and Ramencon which is a very popular anime convention.

There is a very direct conflict between Eyecon and Rewind, as they attract a similar crowd, but many who attend these also attend Ramencon.

This change caused a lot of problems for many who had already booked reservations and the initial reaction by people has been severe. People were calling them out and comparing them to the recently disaster Space City Comic Con.

On their website, they have posted:

The change in date for our upcoming convention in September was due to multiple factors with the original venue. We sent our staff to walk the property and we were ensured our guests as well as attendees would be accommodated for the size we planned.

Recently we were informed that it was not the case which was a huge blow to us and we tried to find solutions to fix the issue. This was not a decision that was made lightly or in haste, as we know the impact it would sustain to everyone involved. We have and will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that everyone in attendance will get what was promised, the way it was promised. We only want what is best for out attendees and guests.

We would rather move our location and be able to give everyone the experience they expect, rather than be told they cannot attend at all, because the venue made promises regarding capacity that they couldn’t accommodate.

All prior ticket purchases will be honored. There’s nothing you need to do for that. For those that have purchased tickets prior to today, 6/21/16, we will be offering a goody bag that will include swag and con bucks, amount will vary depending on your ticket tier. Please refer to our terms and conditions on purchases for the refund policy. Anyone who has further questions or needs to further discuss their situation can email rewindconinfo@gmail.com.

Thank you all. We truly do appreciate each and every one of you.

By all accounts, they had no choice but to change the venue, which unfortunately meant they also had to change dates based off of availability.

The part that everyone is having difficulty with is regarding tickets already purchased. According to their website, “ we will be offering a goody bag that will include swag and con bucks, amount will vary depending on your ticket tier. Please refer to our terms and conditions on purchases for the refund policy.” It says nothing about refunds, which isn’t really fair to those who can’t change their schedule by two months, or those who are already obligated to attend the other two conventions that are occurring that weekend.

I reached out to REwind and this was their response:

Thank you for reaching out regarding the decision for REwind Con to move their date and location. Just to clarify, REwind is just pushing the event 2 months back, not several months so we don’t think it is a drastic change. From their previous experience working with Cons they gaged [sic] the amount of fans that would attend based on the other Cons they’ve worked with, but due to staff changes at the original venue they were misled on what they could allow on capacity from the beginning. To avoid the change, they initially tried to work out a way with the original venue to accommodate all the fans confirmed to attend. They would much rather move the location, and unfortunately the new location did not have open availability for the September 23rd-25th dates, so the dates needed to be moved to November. They will be offering refunds to all of those that cannot attend, all within the cancellation terms, which is within 90 days from notice of the attendees’ cancellation, not purchase.

Those who bought tickets who can no longer attend the new dates can contact rewindconinfo@gmail.com. REwind will be sure to respond to every email, but due to the large amount of inquiries they must respond to each one as they come in. REwind Con is excited to bring a great event in November and look forward to seeing the fans in Chicago.

According to the email they sent me, Rewind is offering refunds.

Their Facebook page also says they are offering refunds and alternative options. I haven’t seen what the alternatives are. They have promised to respond to emails but they admit it is a slow process.

I can’t see that issuing refunds is going to be an easy or fast process either. If they operate like half of the other cons out there, they’ve already spent the ticket money and have little in their coffer.

I have been watching their Facebook page and other areas to see what happens, but I haven’t seen any comments yet about anyone walking away satisfied with the results.

It will be interesting to see how well the changes actually carry through and if the pre-purchased tickets are actually refunded, I haven’t seen confirmation yet about anyone getting their refund.