The KansasFest committee has announced that this year’s Apple II convention will be held July 15–20, 2025, at Wichita State University, marking the first time in KansasFest’s 37-year history that the event will actually be held in the eponymous state of Kansas.
Wichita is a three-hour drive from Kansas City, the event’s ancestral home. Wichita State University’s nearest regional airport is Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (ICT), which offers direct flights from 16 cities. (To compare with airports that served previous KansasFest venues: 3 destinations fly direct to Springfield, Illinois; 60 to Kansas City, Missouri; and 74 to St. Louis, Missouri.)
Several KansasFest alumni have taken to Discord, Slack, Facebook, Mastodon, and email to point out that Kansas legislation SB 180 makes the state an unwelcoming environment for many members of the Apple II community.
This year’s event will have no requirements regarding COVID vaccines, negative tests, or masks, mirroring KansasFest 2023, which the committee acknowledged had a “substantial outbreak” of COVID. That outbreak led to KansasFest 2024 requiring a negative test upon arrival, which contributed to no known cases of COVID that year.
Registration for the onsite event is scheduled to open on Tuesday, April 1, with costs expected to be $450 for a single room and most meals. Session submissions are now open. It remains to be seen if a separate online event (“A24eVR”) will also be held.
Last year’s venue, the University of Illinois Springfield, becomes the first time KansasFest has been held fewer than sixteen times at any given venue. Previous hosts of the annual event include Avila University (1989–2004) and Rockhurst University (2005–2019, 2022–2023), both in Kansas City, Missouri.
UPDATE (March 11, 2025): KansasFest 2025 has pivoted to a wholly virtual format.