The Greater Columbia Fantasy Costumers Guild, owing a staggering attrition penalty after failing to meet the hotel room block commitment for Costume-Con 40 in 2022, has announced they will dissolve.

Jamie Peddicord, the group’s representative on the International Costumers’ Guild Board of Directors, made the announcement on Facebook.

I unfortunately have some difficult news to share. You might be aware that Greater Columbia Fantasy Costumers Guild (GCFCG) did not have the attendance we needed at Costume-Con 40 to meet the room block for the hotel, which is in large part because of complications due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

One thing that worked against us is that the hotel penalized the convention heavily for not reaching a room block practically doubling the bill to $200,000. Since the con the guild has worked hard to come up with some means of paying the hotel to be able to continue the chapter and unfortunately we have exhausted our options.

The chapter board of directors, after looking at every option possible, had to come to the extremely difficult decision, due to the unmanageable debt, to dissolve the GCFCG. This is definitely not something we are doing lightly and to quote Sarah [Richardson] “It is painful and it hurts, but it has to be done.”

The GoFundMe appeal Richardson set up for the group last year only raised $1130. As she explained at the time:

…Many of our attendees, especially our international members, were unable to attend due to Covid travel restrictions were levied right before the convention. Because of this, over a fourth of our registered members (100+ people) were not able to attend. This led to our not meeting the room night obligations in our contract, and so we must pay a hefty “attrition” penalty….

Formed in 1982, the GCFCG was the founding chapter of the International Costumers’ Guild. Plans are being made for a new ICG chapter in Maryland.