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PHOENIX —  After hoping they’d be able to resume their annual gathering celebrating sneezing and the various subcultures surrounding it, the organizers of SneezeCon 2021 have once again cancelled the event. 

“We pushed this thing as far back into the year as we could,” said Marley Cunningham, founder of SneezeCon, who also cancelled last year’s iteration as the coronavirus swept the world. “And it looks like we’re gonna do the safe thing and just have it online again this year. Of course this isn’t anybody’s idea of an ideal way to do this, but we just have to protect all of our community. We’ll try again next year. Anyone that purchased sneeze-and-greet tickets for Norman Reedus will receive a full refund in the mail. I just hope this stupid pandemic doesn’t screw up SpitInEachOthersMouthsCon 2022.” 

The event, like many others, had hastily rescheduled this year’s event during an apparent lull in new COVID-19 cases this fall, but with the Omicron variant’s presence and case numbers surging, the call was made to postpone it again. 

“Yeah, I’m really sad, but I guess I understand,” said Ty Garner, a long-time attendee of SneezeCon. “I understand why it’s not great for us to run around sneezing into stranger’s open mouths with everything going on right now, but like, we’re gonna be sneezing anyway. People are gonna be getting together for the holidays and whatnot. Just let us have our convention, you bastards. It’s the one thing I look forward too all year. Well, that and cold season.” 

Though many felt the convention should be able to go on anyway, many high profile figures in the sneezing community urged potential attendees to consider the bigger picture. 

“Look, this sucks and there’s no way around it,” said Lee Wheezer, “The Tennessee Sneezer,” who was scheduled to headline the first night of the event. “I look forward to the big show every year as much as you guys, but we want there to be a SneezeCon 2022 don’t we? We want Sneeze Cruise to come back, don’t we? I for one don’t want to see Sneezing Man cancelled again next year. We all just really need to think about the long haul, and sit around and sneeze inside for a little while longer. And may god bless every one of you that does so.”

As of press time, it was rumored that SneezeCon might just move their thing to Florida.