Yikes. Middle Tennessee Anime Convention has announced a change of venue within three months of showtime, according to Anime News Network.

The convention I help run did something like this its third year. However, we (actually, they - I was on the outs that year, and was sulking in my tent for the planning and such) made that change with about nine or ten months to go. It was just before the Web was becoming a serious advertising source, and a single run of flyers were distributed at our then-rival convention, a New Jersey affair which died soon thereafter. A second run of flyers were run off with the new Baltimore-area location and dates, and all remaining copies of the original flyer were destroyed or removed from circulation. The move out of the mountainous backhollows of central Pennsylvania turned out to be an organization-saving move, and started the long march towards national dominance of the con scene.

Nevertheless, on the weekend that the phantom Pennsylvanian con would have run if the change hadn't been made, we got a mournful, confused call from a solitary fan in the abandoned hotel: "I'm here. Where is the con?" No-one picked up; it went to the answering machine. That anonymous woman disappeared into the mists of fandom, forever betrayed by the fecklessness of conrunner sons-of-bitches.

I wish Anime News Network would use article permalinks. It kind of sucks, having to link to the site instead of the item.