Seattle Worldcon 2025 is more than just a convention—we are a community of members who come together to share our passion for genre fiction. As a community, we also have a duty to help protect one another and keep our community as healthy as possible. We are an in-person event being held while COVID-19 is still present. We cannot totally eliminate the risk this presents, but below is a description of measures that we are taking, which you can use to decide if attending Seattle Worldcon 2025 in person meets your risk tolerance.
We also are providing a virtual option for attendance if the measures described below do not meet your risk tolerance for attending in person.
Conventions like ours are high-risk because we are coming from all over the world and gathering together indoors in a large group across multiple days. Additionally, not everyone faces the same risk from COVID-19. We all have a responsibility, as members of our community, to keep each other safe and to respect the choices individuals make with respect to their health. As such, any harassment made towards another member who chooses to mask during our event will fall within our Code of Conduct.
Prospect of Future Changes
These policies may be updated to respond to new directives or recommendations from our local public health entities or due to local law. We will endeavor to only change these policies in order to increase protections. If we are required to loosen protections, we will send a message to all members informing you of the change.
Respiratory Illness Trends and Reports
In order to measure the trends of respiratory illness, including COVID-19, in our community particularly in the weeks leading up to your travel, we recommend the following pages. While some of this data may not be as robust as it was previously due to presidential actions and directives, it is still available.
- CDC Respiratory Illnesses Data Channel
- This page is updated weekly on Fridays. To find the snapshot for Seattle Worldcon 2025, choose Washington State. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not have more specific data for King County where Seattle is located.
- CDC National Wastewater Surveillance System
- This page shows current wastewater viral activity level for SARS-CoV-2. To find the snapshot for Seattle Worldcon 2025, choose Washington State. To refine that data further, select the ID areas that cover King County.
- Washington State Respiratory Illness Data Dashboard
- These dashboards show up at the top when they were last updated and provide information on COVID-19, RSV, and flu. It also has the wastewater data reported to the CDC but breakdowns are available by county. Seattle is in King County.
- King County Department of Public Health Covid-19 Dashboards
- These dashboards are updated either weekly or monthly depending on the dashboard and measure percentage of emergency department visits, vaccination rates among King County residents, and then a broad trend set of cumulative counts and hospitalizations.
Mask Wearing
We strongly recommend and encourage mask-wearing at our event. To that end, masks will be available throughout our convention for individual use. You will be able to pick them up at the information table, the exhibit hall desk, events office, and program operations office.
We especially recommend wearing a mask while in our smaller programming rooms.
Ventilation and Air Quality
Our main convention site, the Summit Building at the Seattle Convention Center, was constructed after 2020. During construction, ventilation was top of mind. All spaces are equipped with MERV 13 filtration (36 KB .pdf). In addition, the venue has a GBAC Star Accreditation, ensuring a high-performance cleaning regimen.
Worldcon After Dark is taking place in the Sheraton Grand Seattle, which is an older hotel building. The primary spaces we will be utilizing in this building for function space are ballrooms and medium-to -large-sized function rooms. Groups may use suites for in-room parties at this hotel. The HVAC filtration number is currently unknown at this venue. We will update this page if that information becomes available.
A MERV (Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value) rating reports a filter’s ability to capture larger particles between .3 and 10 microns. The higher the MERV rating, the better the filter is at trapping specific types of particles. The United States Environmental Protection Agency has a handy MERV rating chart detailing the efficiencies at different MERV ratings. The CDC recommends a MERV 13 or higher rating in HVAC systems as part of mitigation strategies for addressing respiratory viruses.
To supplement the MERV 13 filtration provided by the Summit building’s HVAC system, and to address the unknown nature of the filtration capabilities of the Sheraton’s HVAC system, Seattle Worldcon 2025 will be distributing HEPA filters in rooms at the following levels:
- We will provide HEPA filters for all Sheraton party suites and require their use.
- We will provide HEPA filters for the function rooms in the Sheraton that we are utilizing.
- We hope to be able to provide HEPA filters for the Sheraton ballroom, but due to its size and tall ceilings, it may not be possible for us to effectively provide a HEPA filter that would work in that space.
- Funds permitting, we will also provide HEPA filters for programming rooms at the Summit building. If we do not have sufficient funds to provide a HEPA filter for each room, we will allocate the filters first to safer spaces and lounge rooms, then to our smallest programming rooms, and to our largest programming rooms last.
- We do not plan to provide any HEPA filters for the Exhibit Hall or Ballrooms in the Summit Building due to their tall ceilings and large square footage.
Illness
We expect members to not attend Seattle Worldcon 2025 in person if their presence would create an increased risk of exposure to communicable diseases to their fellow members.
Increased risk factors include:
- Experiencing known COVID-19 or flu-like symptoms in ways that are unusual for you;
- Testing positive for COVID-19 during the convention;
- Testing positive for COVID-19 less than 10 days prior to the convention; and
- Any other significant risk factor identified by the State of Washington or U.S. public health authorities.
Please do not attend Seattle Worldcon 2025 if you are feeling ill, have symptoms of illness, or have tested positive for COVID-19. You should stay home (or isolate in your hotel room) until you have been fever free without meds for 24 hours and your symptoms have improved. In case you feel ill once you have arrived in Seattle, we will have a limited supply of tests available at the convention and information about where to purchase tests nearby.
Even if you do not feel sick, if you have tested positive for COVID-19, please do not attend Seattle Worldcon 2025. You can still spread the virus to others.
Refund Policy for Illness
If you are testing positive for COVID-19 or are displaying symptoms of illness that make you unable to attend, we will refund your membership at a prorated rate for the days you were unable to attend (including a full refund if you are unable to attend any part of the convention) upon request. As a nonprofit, we would gratefully accept your donation of your membership in these circumstances, but we absolutely do not want membership cost to be a barrier towards staying home or isolating in your hotel room if you are ill.
Vaccination
Because vaccination regimes vary widely globally, we have no specific mandate for vaccination. However, we encourage members to be up-to-date with COVID-19 vaccines according to their country’s schedule for vaccination. Vaccines are the best way to reduce the impact of COVID-19 should you be infected.
Testing and Treatment
We strongly recommend that all members perform a rapid antigen test prior to the first day of the convention. To facilitate this type of testing, we will provide information about how to purchase tests nearby to the convention center. We also are working on obtaining a bulk supply of tests for this purpose, and will update this page if those tests become available.
Similarly, we will provide information about how to access treatment near the convention center. We will have a dedicated person available at health@seattlein2025.org to field questions from members who may need to access treatment about how to find nearby providers.
Outdoor Dining Options
We will have a restaurant guide available at our information table, website, and online schedule app that includes guides to outdoor dining near the convention center. Because restaurants change frequently, this information will be gathered close to the start of the convention in order to be as up-to-date as possible. However, there are several locations within a half mile from our venue with outdoor seating, notably on the Harbor Steps and at Pike Place Market. If you are looking for outdoor dining around the entire city of Seattle and not just downtown, this list of 23 outdoor dining options from The Infatuation has some really nice spots.
Additionally, we have an entire outdoor terrace garden at the Summit Building available for use, where you will be able to take food purchased elsewhere in the convention center to this outdoor space to eat. This garden will only be available to members of our event, and can be seen in our venue tour video.
Hygiene
Wash your hands often with soap and water. Hand sanitizer will be available throughout the convention. Neither of these steps is sufficient in and of themselves at preventing the spread of respiratory illnesses, so please also wear a mask if you have respiratory symptoms that do not rise to the level of staying home, and sneeze into your elbow.
Reporting
At this stage, we are still developing what reporting guidelines we may employ. This section will be updated by July 2025.
Reference Policies
