Welcome to OrcaCon 2025!

It’s that time again when we start making announcements for the next convention. We know you are excited to find out the dates and details for OrcaCon 2025. We have a lot of changes coming and hope you’ll like them. Please give this a careful read, so you’ll have answers to any questions you might have for OrcaCon 2025.

Dates: January 10-12, 2025 

Folks have been hoping for a return to more mid-January than the first weekend, so we’re excited about this change, so everyone gets a breather after the major holidays.

Location: Doubletree Sea-Tac:

Yes, we are moving locations! We are extremely grateful to the Bellevue Hilton for hosting us for many years. It’s clear, however, that we have outgrown the space. There are a lot of upcoming changes with construction at the Red Lion, the parking garage, and support of the Light Rail stop. We have decided it would be easiest to make the move on our own, so we are not stuck like the issue we had in Year 3, when the Everett hotel was not going to open. For those who are newer to us, we had 3 months to pick up and move OrcaCon to Bellevue, and we consider the move as a success over time, even if it was so stressful back then! 

You can read more about the hotel prices, policies, and such here: https://www.orcacon.org/hotel-info/

OrcaCon 2025 Room Rates:

• 1 King Bed Wing – $115 per night
• 1 King Bed Tower – $135 per night
• 2 Queen Beds Wing – $125 per night
• 2 Queen Beds Tower – $145 per night

Click here to book your hotel room for OrcaCon 2025.

Why did the hotel venue change? 

It’s clear that we need much more space than we can get at the Bellevue Hilton. We have had trouble with completely full tables on Saturday and we’ve had so many requests for more content (miniatures, more RPGs, social deduction games, dexterity games) and plan on supporting our programming track with better space and tools. 

There are a few transportation options for you, including the Light Rail, the RapidRide bus service, and there is a shuttle from the Sea-Tac airport. Alas, there will be a parking fee, as a 3rd party owns that space. Hotel parking will be discounted to $16 per day.

Food Trucks:

I know you are all asking, “What about Food Trucks?”. Sadly, even if we stayed in Bellevue, we would no longer have the food truck area. That said, the Doubletree Sea-Tac has more flexibility on designing a menu to support the dietary needs of our attendees and volunteer staff. They will also have more staff to be sure everyone can get service, even during busy times. As we get closer to the convention, we will share more specifics on the menus. 

If you are not interested in hotel food, right outside of the hotel are the following options: 

• Taco Bell
• Jack In The Box
• Mango Thai Cuisine & Bar
• L&L Hawaiian Barbecue
• Subway
• Sharps RoastHouse
• Denny’s

Merchant Hall: 

We are growing our Merchant Hall! We have always had way more folks apply to vend at OrcaCon than we’ve had space for, so this is pretty darn exciting for us all. Especially with all the Merchant Hall space combined into one larger room. Click here if you are interested in vending in the 2025 OrcaCon Merchant Hall. Our Merchant Hall Team will reach out to you when we take the applications live.

More Space, More Games:

It will be amazing to have bigger rooms for tournaments and programming, plus we’ll be able to support smaller RPG rooms so they’re not in a loud ballroom. We have been listening to your feedback on this for a while, and now we can put those in place. 

The Health & Safety Policy:

The OrcaCon board has had months of discussions about this policy, going back and forth. We did not make the below decisions lightly. 

Some of the changes, such as the name change from Covid policy, were easy. We want people to be aware of the spaces and how they are used, and how people will interact with them. It’s cold & flu season, plus the uptick of RSV. The name change encompasses all of these things and more. 

Vaccination Proof & Masks:

We have lifted the policies of requiring proof of vaccination and requirements of masks in all OrcaCon spaces. We dearly hope that you all will still get your vax and boosters before OrcaCon and we very much support all attendees wearing masks. We will have extra masks available if you lose yours or you decide you do wish to wear a mask. 

While we are not requiring masks, we also do not want anyone who chooses to wear a mask to be bullied and harassed about their choices. We expect many will still wear masks when they are playing with other attendees and we absolutely support this. 

In our surveys and casual discussions with attendees and volunteers, it’s about half for and half against lifting restrictions. There are accessibility issues no matter what we decide. We can only hope this change will support as many attendees and volunteers as we grow OrcaCon. 

And that’s it! We hope that you are as excited as we are with our new location and the possibilities for growing OrcaCon. If you are ready to register for OrcaCon 2025, you can do so right here: https://tabletop.events/conventions/orcacon-2025