Welcome back to Legal Geek. This week, we take a look at how GenCon taking a political stand last week could significantly change the future of the country's largest gaming convention.
https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp39
GenCon has been a summer convention staple in Indianapolis since 2003, when it moved from Milwaukee after outgrowing all available convention spaces in Wisconsin. The relationship has been very good for Indianapolis, which holds a lot of conventions and major sporting events but none so big as GenCon. Indianapolis has been estimated to receive over $50 Million in revenue annually from attendees of this four day convention. Indeed, Indianapolis expanded the convention center a few years ago at a cost of $275 Million primarily to accommodate the crowds of GenCon, but also to lure some other big conventions such as the NRA convention in future years.
But last week, the future of GenCon in Indy became foggy as GenCon's CEO sent an open letter to Indiana governor Mike Pence demanding his veto of religious freedom legislation passed by the Indiana legislature a week ago. The letter was also circulated on social media sites. Quoting from the letter, GenCon writes:
"Gen Con proudly welcomes a diverse attendee base, made up of different ethnicities, cultures, beliefs, sexual orientations, gender identities, abilities, and socio-economic backgrounds. We are happy to provide an environment that welcomes all, and the wide-ranging diversity of our attendees has become a key element to the success and growth of our convention. Legislation that could allow for refusal of service or discrimination against our attendees will have a direct negative impact on the state's economy"
Clearly, GenCon is drawing a line in the sand and threatening to leave Indianapolis over the legislation.
The legislation itself is Indiana Senate Bill 101, which would prevent state and local governments from "substantially burdening" a person's exercise of religion unless the government can prove it has a compelling interest and is doing so in the least restrictive means. Proponents of the law note that this is in compliance with the 22-year old federal religious freedom laws. Opponents of the law deem this a potential loophole license for all private companies to discriminate, particularly against gays and lesbians.
Pence signed the bill into law despite the protests from GenCon, making a statement indicating that he does not believe this law authorizes discrimination in any way. However, the opposing economic and political pressure from GenCon, other companies like engine maker Cummins, and the mayor of Indianapolis have apparently been enough to collectively make Pence consider revising or repealing the law to avoid the potential discrimination effect. GenCon released a further letter this week indicating that the governor has reached out to begin figuring out whether an amendment to the bill or enforcement of a current city rule prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation will be enough to avoid having the religious freedom act twisted against its intended purpose.
USA Today reports that 19 other states have similar laws in effect already. Thus, even if GenCon's threat to move is serious, it's unclear what, if any good alternative options are available for GenCon to move to. Should the convention move to a city and state with smaller convention center space, that would likely lead to caps on attendees and ridiculous overcrowding problems. Furthermore, the best alternatives may already have generally competing conventions like San Diego with Comic Con and Atlanta with Dragoncon. If Indiana is bad news for GenCon, the alternatives could be much less preferable. Who knows, if GenCon stays on the same week as Nerdtacular, maybe they could move it to Salt Lake City to appease those few of us who go to both!
Bottom line - GenCon going political to protect all of its diverse gamer attendees is a bold move that should be appreciated by nerd world, but the move could lead to an undesirable relocation that would negatively impact the very gamers who love to attend this convention annually. Even with that relocation risk seeming to be less this week, it would still pose some interesting questions for one of the biggest conventions in America.
For more on this from a sports-related slant instead of geek-related, check out my longer article on Talking10.com about the subject.
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Thanks for reading. Please provide feedback and legal-themed questions as segment suggestions to me on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy
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