Those guidelines expired a week ago, and have not been renewed.

https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/05/01/coronavirus-update

The new guidelines are coming from the White House.

"CDC would not extend the guidelines beyond April 30 because the White House last month issued new guidance for states that focuses on when and how they should begin reopening nonessential businesses and relaxing social distancing measures."

Look at this..Now, what if someone yelled "I HAVE THE VIRUS" .  It would cause a panic and a stampede that could kill dozens. There still is no vaccine. They are already talking about contact tracing everyone at the convention. You really need to look in detail what contact tracing really means.

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Gencon Online 2020 sounds like a lot more fun than trying to social distance con, or pretending it's going to be no problem even at (theoretical) 25% attendance.     

Okay folks you're all very passionate about your positions, but lets dial it back. Starting to border again on fear mongering that has no basis as no one knows what steps will be taken. Arguing about it is just fruitless at this point. 

Wait, be patient and dial it back.

Mike

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There's still mesure that be taken, if the virus goes down and the indiana 5-step plan goes accordingly
1: Mask for everyone
2: vendor hall extend to hall C and D
3: put curtains between hall B and C
4: Only allow event ticket owner in Hall B and A and all other events room
5: By extending the vendor hall to hall C and D you can make larger alley
6: Vendor hall only open the door near paizo and exit at the end of hall C or D
7: Traffic in vendor goes only one way (up alley 1, down alley 2, up alley 3... and you must browse them all in order to limit people that cross each other
8: All publishers can do a preorder system on BGG, so no rush for the latest games (that preorder system already exist)
9: Publishers can hand catalog of their products for you to keep in lieu of everybody grabbing everything, so by looking at the catalog, you'll have the same info as if you grabbed the box (catalog can be only sheets of paper)
10: ask the city to close more roads to spread the food truck
11: put tents outside with tent wall to install gaming table
12: put Hall C and D tables in LOS
13: Hand sanitizer on each demo and gaming table, so no need to wash the games after it's been played
14: Ship every event tickets and badges to USA resident, so the will call will only consist of foreign people
15: the convention center close at night, so workers can clean up everything
16: seating at event or lunch table are: 1 person per 2 chair and nobody in front of you
17: shuttle: 1 person per seat
18: try renting other big rooms for event in a 1 or 2 miles radius
19: more police control
20: no big crownd allowed, like the ones on tursday morning
21: transfer badges to 2021 from people who comes from countries still heavily impacted by the visrus (or refund them)
22: like with the vendor hall, only one entrance and one exit to the convention center (or maybe 2 each)
23: put gaming tables along the walls in alley
24: make all the convention alley a one way (people navigate following arrows
25: cancel badges if someone doesn't follow those rules

Those are just ideas. Some of them better than others. I just wanted to show that it is possible to have a convention by following strict guidelines, but before any guidelines, the covid numbers must be down by a lot (not only in indiana and usa), the 5-steps plan must work and publishers and attendees must show

Prefer no exhibit hall versus item 7.

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I'm also still wondering how gaming tables would work in order to maintain a 6 foot distance, for one, and to keep gaming pieces from being handled by multiple folks.  I suppose for RPG's, 'theater of the mind' would be one strategy.  What about board games, especially those that would have players use the same pieces at various points of the game?  

"May 11, 2020
The Indiana Convention Center & Lucas Oil Stadium are currently closed to the public, but we’re still hard at work to ensure the cleanliness of our facilities and develop new policies and procedures for the health of our staff and future visitors. Here are some of the changes* visitors can expect when we reopen:

• Temperature and health screenings required upon entry to the building
  
• Masks and gloves required in common areas and event spaces
  
• Built-in six-foot physical distancing measures added to floor plans, seating areas, and crowd management
  
• Limited and designated entry and exit doors
  
• One-way travel markers in hallways and corridors
  
• Additional hand-sanitizing stations
  
• Hospital-grade air filters and 24/7 air circulation
  
• Plexiglass shields at all service areas
  
• No food service (initially) with modified food service policies, including cashless and touchless point of sale, in subsequent stages
  
• Our staff also are receiving enhanced training on COVID-19 related practices and protocols."
  

Hi, all.  I'm semi-local (I live in Indiana, outside of Indy, but I live close enough that I'm in Indy fairly regularly.)  I proactively follow the science behind the outbreak, and I follow the Governor's briefings.  I wanted to offer some context and perspective. 

1.  I don't particularly agree with our Governor's politics, but for the most part he's been reacting well to the pandemic.  He closed us early, and his policies have mostly been based on sound advice and science.  He's cautious when it comes to COVID-19, and so far has been willing to do what is necessary.

2. He has commented on the plan that is so often quoted, and on how he intends to implement it.  He's said multiple times that the timetable is contingent on the numbers cooperating.  He has stated repeatedly that if we open up and we spike, he will pause or reverse the plan.  It's also notable that Marion County (Indy) is already on a 'delayed' version of the plan.

3.  While I agree with many of his policies in regards to COVID-19, we've been opening for ten days now, and we jumped the gun.  Indiana does not meet the Federal guidelines for reopening, even now. 

4.  The science is that our pulling throught this successfully depends on extensive 'smart actions' on the part of both the state and the public.  The state will have to provide extensive testing and contact tracing.  The public will need strong compliance with the various safety measures.   

5.  The state has stepped up both contact tracing and testing.  We've yet to see how effectively the tracing implementation will be, but the testing is at about 25% of what's needed to manage the outbreak.

6.  The Indiana populace is absolutely flaunting, ignoring, or outright acting contrary to safety measures as a means of protest.  At the height of the lockdown we had, perhaps, 50% mask compliance.  As soon as the recovery plan was announced, that dropped.  I was in Indianapolis just a few days ago, and was in a couple of stores while I was there.  I'd say mask compliance was - at best - 30%.  Social distancing rules are outright ignored.  Stores aren't enforcing their own policies, including masks.  My wife works in the state park system here in the state and regularly sees very large groups (some 100+) packed close together in small spaces.

7.  Marion County (Indianapolis) is one of the Midwest's hotspots, currently with 7,600+ cases and 420+ deaths.  Only Detroit and Chicago have it worse.  And the cases in both Marion County and Indiana as a whole are currently rising.  The graph has reversed course and is creeping back up.  Given that COVID-19 reporting trends at 10-14 days after exposure, and the state started opening back up 10 days ago, that's not a good sign.

8.  If the Governor follows his pattern, the reopening plan is almost guaranteed to be delayed, and I would not be surprised at all if strict guidelines are still in place when GenCon is scheduled.  Currently, GenCon takes place only four weeks after the final phase of the reopening plan begins.  It won't take much of a hiccup for it to overlap the con.

No number here, because this bit isn't purely a local's perspective, but I love GenCon, and as a resident I recognize how important it is to the local economy.  I really hope GenCon is able to go on and do so safely.  But I'd be very, very cautious with my expectations.  There are a lot of factors in play that are out of either GenCon's or Indiana's control, and the penalties to the die roll are adding up awfully fast.  And it isn't just a question of whether GenCon is legally going to be allowed.  It's also a question of whether companies and individuals from all over the world are going to be willing to gather in a COVID-19 hotspot just days after the restrictions are lifted.  A lot simply will not risk it.  A lot of individuals are not going to be able to afford it, given the economic impact of the past few months.  They just won't risk thousand-dollar hotel reservations and time off work.  And some companies may be from countries whose restrictions, including travel, may still be in place. 

I hope there is a GenCon, and that it's safe, and I hope to be there.  But there are a lot of factors, and there is a lot of risk.  And while tabletop gaming (in all its forms) is who I am, I'm not willing place a hobby above human lives.  And if things haven't settled down before the end of July, that's exactly what I'd be doing.  So I'll keep my dice in their bags and ready to go, but I'm keeping my plans fluid and my investment minimal.

For others, the obvious solution (to me) would be to have an arrangement where the person running the demo is the only person that touches the pieces, with the players giving instructions. I run a co-op dungeon crawler for friends on Zoom this way. If there were, say, a paper that could be given to players to let them keep (as a memento of the experience, marketing, and avoiding it being passed between players, that would be great).

Now, of course, this wouldn't work for every style of game. Hell, it might even be kind of a narrow solution, but if we're still at a point where nobody should be within 6 feet of anyone else (even if masked) for extended periods of time, the answer is probably "we shouldn't be demo'ing anything, barring fringe cases where it's somehow possible due to the nature of the game". The risk of a card or playing piece not being properly disinfected and spreading the virus seems way too big. Even if people are attentive and dutiful about it, all it takes is one little area missed for it to cause problems. Even with the somewhat jokingly shared 'okay so we all sit far apart at a big table and shout instructions at each other', well, even masked, shouting to be heard is just going to heighten how much that mask is supposed to be catching, and probably only makes things worse in the vicinity over the course of a session.

But it's good to hash this out now. Even if it just means improvements to conventions in the future, the more time and minds we throw at the problem, the broader and better the solutions might end up being.

Deleted posts related to fear mongering. bans will come next. Follow directions please. Enough about about people yelling things in the middle of the Con.

Mike

Two additional thoughts to throw out there to the masses:

1. Use the seating area in the Lucas Oil Stadium. Let me set up a dry erase board with magnetic figures and clip boards for character sheets and I could run a D&D game in the stands. I'm sure others could do something even more clever. I'm surprised none of the seminars are ever held there (legal reasons?).

2. No matter what happens I think we should consider virtual gaming. I just finished a D&D campaign through Skype and Photoshop. While I'm a Photoshop guru there are other programs (sponsorships?) that could be used.

Keep throwing out clever ideas people. If anyone is ever clever, it's attendees of a gaming convention! (Maybe we should start a brainstorming session on the forums.)

Cleaning one set of board game pieces between sessions wouldn't be practical.  Having a number of sets you rotate through would be more likely, with someone assigned to clean used sets between demos.  Say, one demo team, three copies of the game.  Demo with #1, set it aside.  Demo with #2 while #1 is disinfected.  Demo with #3 while #2 is disinfected.  Demo with #1...  Perhaps single-use decks.  One demo every 30 minutes for eight hours for four days = 64 decks.  Doable for some companies who print in huge volumes, an issue for others who don't.  Or they could do  observation-only demos, where staff plays the games and talk out the moves.

Or there could be a hybrid system, where players move plastic pieces, but cards are handled by staff.

Then again, solutions can always be found, a hundred for every problem.  Practical solutions that aren't so wild that they'd be unwieldy on the floor are few and far between.

A UV-C box would solve the problem of cleaning game pieces.  You would only need 2 sets of game pieces to make it work.  2 min in the box and they are safe.

Given the slow pace of reopening mentioned in this article, I've got a a bad feeling about Gen Con:

"On Friday, May 15 Indianapolis will begin implementing parts of phase two of the state's plan to reopen."

...

"If these measures are successful, officials say, the city will continue with other parts of phase two by June 1."

For comparison, the rest of the state started Phase Two in its entirety on May 4.

Yeah, suddenly not feeling so great about our chances.