If crossed over, things will have to cancel. What’s that? A ‘breakpoint’. That is what German convention Eurofurence’s chairperson Cheetah said in his statement on Jan 25.
“We have a break point where we can cancel things – which we really do not want to do – and that is February 15th. To be able to run the event we need to have at least 1,500 registations until then.
By registering early, you are technically submitting a vote to make EF happen. And you are also making a promise that you will pay for your membership once the decision to go ahead with the con has been made.
This is important. Because if 500 out of 1500 furries decided to pull out again before having made a payment, that might very well damage the event beyond repair.”
Cheetah points out, venue price tags went up because of COVID-19. Eurofurence thus needs 1,500 more registered attendees before Feb 15 to sustain itself. They even say, if that target cannot be met, the convention could be damaged ‘beyond repair’.
Since 2014, Eurofurence has held its events every year at Estrel Berlin. Now, let’s look at some figures – here is a trend chart of Estrel Berlin’s standard room rates for two people.
We got this data from Hurga, a long time staff at Eurofurence. Eurofurence verified this with us.
Rates per night started off at 90.5 Euros in 2014. In five years, that slowly increased to 120 Euros in 2019. This is the trend before COVID-19.
In 2020, COVID-19 came. Preliminary figures from Eurofurence put 2020 room rates at 140 Euros per night. Since, room prices have increased by 20 Euros every year.
In 2021, the preliminary figures are 160 Euros per night. Now, 2022. The published room rates: 180 Euros per night.
If you pay attention, room rates increased faster after COVID-19 than before it. From 2014 to 2019, prices rose an average of 5.9 Euros per year. Since 2020? 20 Euros per year.
That is COVID-19’s footprint. Financial and health costs increased because of it.
That had hit furry fandom hard. In 2021 alone, 7 furry conventions closed because of the pandemic. For some of them, they blamed it on money problems.
2022’s coming also saw the COVID-19 Omicron (BA.1) variant having a sneakier younger brother. It is the so-called ‘stealth variant’ (BA.2).
Is it more severe than Omicron? According to Reuters, researchers in Denmark say the stealth variant could be more contagious and harder to detect. But initial results say it is no more severe than its brother BA.1. Studies are still continuing.
And according to NPR, the variant is now spreading in Germany, forming 5% of cases worldwide. As a reminder, Eurofurence is in Germany.
What will happen to Eurofurence, Europe’s biggest furry convention, if they cannot meet their goal? We will find out on Feb 15 – stay tuned.
Eurofurence主席：若越“断点”，情况不佳
如果越过了，东西就得取消。不能越过什么？一个‘断点’。这就是德国兽展Eurofurence的主席Cheetah在1月25日的声明中所说的话。
“我们有一个可以取消（兽展）的中断点。我们真的不想这么做——那就是2月15日。为了能够开展这项活动，我们需要在那之前至少有1500个注册者。
通过早期注册，你就算在提交一张使EF能举办的投票。而且（已注册的）你也承诺，一旦决定举办兽展，你将得支付你的会员费。
这很重要。因为如果1500个（想参展的）兽友中，有500个决定在付款前再次退出，这很可能会对兽展造成无法修复的损害。”
Cheetah指出，由于新冠病毒的缘故，处处场馆标价上涨了。因此，Eurofurence需要在2月15日之前增加1500名注册参会者，以维持自身。他们甚至说，如果不能达到这个目标，兽展可能会被破坏得 “无法修复”。
自2014年以来，Eurofurence每年都在柏林Estrel酒店举办活动。现在，让我们来看看一些数据——这里是柏林Estrel酒店的双人标准房费的趋势图。
我们从Eurofurence的长期工作人员Hurga那里得到这个数据。兽展与国际兽视核实了这一点。
2014年，每晚的房价开始于90.5欧元。五年后，慢慢增加到2019年的120欧元。这是COVID-19疫情之前的趋势。
2020年，疫情来了。来自Eurofurence的初步数据显示，2020年的房费为每晚140欧元。此后，房间价格每年都会增加20欧元。
2021年，初步数字是每晚160欧元。现在，2022年。公布的房费是每晚180欧元。
如果你注意的话，疫情发生之后的房价比之前增长得更快。从2014年到2019年，价格平均每年上涨5.9欧元。自2020年以来？每年20欧元。
这就是新冠疫情的足迹。财务和健康代价因此而增加。
这打击到了兽圈。仅在2021年，就有7个兽展因疫情而关闭。其中一些展子表示，他们把这归咎于资金问题。
2022年的到来也让奥密克戎（BA.1）变体有了一个更偷偷摸摸的弟弟。它就是奥密克戎的亚型变体BA.2。
它比奥密克戎变体更严重吗？据路透社报道，丹麦的研究人员说，BA.2可能更具传染性，而且更难被探测到；之所以得了‘隐形变体’这个外号。
但初步结果显示，它没有比最初奥密克戎变体BA.1更严重。研究仍在继续。
而据NPR报道，该变体目前正在德国蔓延，占了全世界奥密克戎病例的5%。作为提醒，Eurofurence兽展基于德国。
如果他们不能实现他们的目标，欧洲最大的兽展Eurofurence将会怎么做？答案将在2月15日揭晓——请继续关注。
GFTV NewsHub 
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