Yyyaaaooo!!!
I've been on vacation (flying home today actually), so didn't get a chance to chime in sooner but wanted to say some things.
Obvious this is a major bummer, the NA TF2 community has been craving a LAN comparable to Insomnia or Copenhagen for years. It's quite sad that we got our hopes up once more only to watch them crash again. We are used to that as a community, and we are undettered.
I am biased as I have a professional relationship with DreamHack, but I wanted to urge the community to maintain faith in the company and their ability to facilitate TF2 events. They're not going to hand anything to us on a silver platter. We have to put in the work, but there have been a lot of foundations laid over the years for us to build off of. I've witnessed other community driven non top tier esports thrive at dream hack like Rocket League and Halo. If we can bring the bodies and staff, DreamHack can provide the venue, PC rentals, network, and broadcast support.
DreamHack is a huge festival, so their risk is different than what RGL or another small community run LAN would face. COVID is still troublesome but it won't be forever. Get your vaccine and booster PLEASE. There have been many stories in esports about younger people passing from COVID, don't be stubborn, go pick up a "health pack" so the Medics can focus their heals elsewhere.
On a more personal note, I'm sad that the Burnsiders team we assembled won't be able to compete in Anaheim. I was amazed that RoL was able to assemble a great squad where only one of our players hadn't played with us before. Shout-out to RoL, LeCrum, Cerby, AvoidingJoker, Lorgon, and trxz. Also shout-out to Failwizard and Zaboomafoo who were going to drive down as well.