Progress Report A25 - PR3 | Arisia 2025 • January 17 - 20, 2025 • Hyatt Regency Boston/Cambridge

Welcome to the Third Progress Report for Arisia 2025!

Arisia 2025 is taking place at the Hyatt Regency Boston/Cambridge, January 17-20, 2025. In this issue, we are bringing you the news about our overflow hotel, volunteer opportunities, and an update about accommodation requests.

Overflow Hotel: Boston Marriott Cambridge

The room block in our main hotel is sold out for Saturday night. If your desired room nights are not available, you can complete the Special Request Form to get on the waitlist and/or consider our overflow hotel in Kendall Square.

We have an overflow block at the Boston Cambridge Marriott, located at 50 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02142.

To reserve a room, please call the hotel directly at 617-494-6600 and request the Arisia Overflow Room Block.These rates are available for the nights of January 17, 18, and 19, 2025. Please note these rates expire on December 17. Don’t delay if you want a room.

Room types available include:

Standard King: $199.00
Standard Double: $219.00

(plus applicable state and local taxes, currently 15.95%)

Get Your Arisia 2025 Membership

Registration is Open for Arisia 2025. Weekend Rates are:

$65* through 12/31/2024 for full memberships
$75 for Turtle Track (professional childcare for children ages [18 months to 5 years]. Space is limited, sign up now!
$30 for students (age 9-25 with a valid student ID)
Free for Kids-in-Tow (must be with a paying attendee at all times)

One-day memberships will be available for sale during the convention.

Card to Culture

Arisia is once again participating in the Massachusetts Card to Culture program. Card holders can register to attend Arisia 2025 at no cost to them. This includes all levels of membership and Turtle Track (professional child care for children ages 2-6), but space is limited! Email registration@arisia.org with a photo (front and back) of a participating card (SNAP/WIC/MassHealth) and your name, email address, phone, and mailing address.

Call for Volunteers!

At our December Convention Committee meeting, several divisions requested volunteers. Some highlights include:

Tech: Seeking AV volunteers, especially someone comfortable running a soundboard. Also seeking a ballroom liaison for Saturday afternoon.

Sign Shop: Volunteers to hang signs. This involves a lot of walking, but no heavy lifting.

Registration: More volunteers needed to work the registration desk. This is a sitting job with lots of interacting with our members. Registration is a fantastic place to people watch.

Programming: Seeking volunteers to staff Program Nexus. Nexus has both sitting jobs, greeting Panelists and helping folx with questions and walking jobs counting attendees in Panels on the first and second floors of the hotel.

Exhibits: Seeking a Dealer Liaison to be a friendly face for our dealers, keep an eye on the room, and make sure folx are happy.

There are lots of other volunteer opportunities. We especially welcome new volunteers and we have some roles that will earn volunteer hours before the con. This means that you can help us out, get rewards for your volunteer hours, and spend the entire con just having fun!

Choose your volunteer adventure by visiting arisia.org/Volunteer!

Access at Arisia

The Accessibility Division wants to hear from you. We are working diligently to bring more access-related services and function to Arisia as a convention and for Arisia 2025 in particular. CART and assistive listening devices will return, as will limited braille programs and large-print maps. To request or suggest new accommodations please email access@arisia.org by Friday, December 27.

Con Chair Corner: etana

Greetings and Salutations! My name is etana and I am so happy to be a part of this year’s con chair team. Arisia has been my home convention for years, and it is a privilege and honor to serve the community in this way. We have been working hard all through 2024 with a team of dedicated volunteer staff to bring all of us together in January 2025 for an adventurous Arisia, and I can’t wait for you to join us!

I came to fandom later in life, not realizing my abiding love of fantasy, paranormal romances, and horror could be considered geeky. When I heard about Arisia from friends, I could see the overlap between my interests and was intrigued. What I found was a whole bunch of people who showed up as their whole selves, whether that included nerdy t-shirts or a full cosplay. I found fellow Broadway nerds, panels that inspired lists of books to read, and vendors that I would never have found on my own. This year, we have a whole track for horror which is something teenage me would have screamed to attend.

Arisia is my favorite place to unwind, wear my fanciest dress, pull out those geeky t-shirts, and cover my face in glitter. I hope that you will join me and the rest of the con chair team in choosing an Arisia adventure amongst the events, art show, panels, game room, vendors, and more!

COVID Policy Reminder

Arisia 2025 will require masks in all convention spaces unless they are otherwise marked as mask-optional. The hotel does not have a mask mandate, which means there are likely to be unmasked individuals in public areas of the hotel. Masks in Arisia spaces must be a minimum of a medical mask with a filter. We encourage use of higher filtration masks such as N/KN 95 or KF94. Additional information regarding COVID-related policies for Arisia 2025 will be announced in an upcoming Progress Report.

Progress Report A25 - PR3