Update as of 4pm Monday January 20, 2020 -- We made our first goal of raising $40k!! Thank you to all the Arisia fans who donated to help us make this goal! Special thanks go to Elizabeth Leggett, 2019's Artist GOH, who donated one of her extraordinary pieces for us to auction off as her contribution to the fund.
We've started a fundraising campaign -- see https://corp.arisia.org/donations to contribute to this effort.
If you'd rather donate while attending Arisia, just drop by our table in the area outside the Dealers Room. We're trying to staff the table during Dealers Room hours. Please email @email if you’d like to volunteer to help with this.
For those of you who need backstory: In late 2018, staff at the Westin (and other local hotels) went on strike. Arisia Corporate voted to move the Arisia 2019 convention to another hotel under the force majeure clause of our contract rather than take the chance of being forced to cross picket lines (we support unions!).
After a year of talking to lawyers and others, Arisia recently signed agreements with the Westin Boston Waterfront and Aloft Boston Seaport District hotels to settle the charges from our cancellation of the hotel contracts for Arisia 2019. In addition to the $45,000 already paid, we need to raise another $40,000 to settle the matter, and we have until March 2020 to come up with that amount. See https://corp.arisia.org/Arisia-settles-cancellation-fees for details.