MIR Announcements

Hotel Reservations for MIR28 - the 28th International Rubber Contest Weekend are now open! This year’s hotel block will include three key changes: We’ve secured 40 additional rooms for MIR28, bringing our block to 85% of the total hotel rooms. This is as close to a total buyout as we can achieve at this hotel. The remaining rooms are reserved to meet the hotel’s other contractual obligations. A two-night minimum stay (Friday and Saturday) will be required for all reservations. A non-refundable deposit, equal to one night's room fees, will be charged at the time of reservation. Room rates for MIR28, at the Double Tree by Hilton, will be as follows: 1 King Bed - $219.00 2 Queen Beds - $239.00 Click here to reserve your room!

REMINDER - GENERAL HOTEL RESERVATIONS OPEN TODAY General hotel reservations for MIR28 will open at Noon (CST) TODAY, Thursday January 18, 2024. You will find the link to make your reservation in an email blast (for subscribers) and on the hotel page of our website, beginning at Noon (CST). Please take this time to confer with your potential room mates to ensure that ONE person is designated to reserve the room. All reservations will be charged a non-refundable deposit at the time of reservation. Any room reserved, and then cancelled, will forfeit their deposit.

REMINDER - 4 NIGHT HOTEL RESERVATIONS OPEN TODAY Individuals who have indicated they plan to reserve a room for four or more nights will receive an email in their inbox around Noon (CST) TODAY, Tuesday January 16, 2024. You will find the link to make your reservation of 4 or more nights in that email. Please take this time to confer with your potential room mates to ensure that ONE person is designated to reserve the room. All reservations will be charged a non-refundable deposit at the time of reservation. Any room reserved, and then cancelled, will forfeit their deposit. MIR will be monitoring the reservations during this 48 hour window of time, and individuals making reservations for less that 4 night may find this effects their ability to make first round reservations in future years. Individuals who plan to reserve a room for less than 4 nights will be able to do so via a link sent to your inbox and on the hotel page of the MIR website at Noon (CST) on Thursday January 18, 2024.

We regret that we were unable to launch hotel reservations, earlier today, due to a technical issue on the part of the hotel. We worked with the hotel throughout the day and are happy to report that the technical issue has now been resolved. Taking into account international time zones, anticipated travel to events over the holiday weekend here in the United States, and wanting to give folks ample time to plan for when reservations will open - our new launch dates for the MIR28 Hotel Block are as follows: Tuesday January 16, 2024 at Noon (CST) Individuals who have indicated they plan to reserve a room for four or more nights will receive an email in their inbox around Noon (CST) on Tuesday January 16, 2024. If you plan to reserve a room for four nights or more, you may sign up for the email via the google form here. [Please note the Google form will close on Wednesday January 10. 2024 at Noon (CST)] Thursday January 18, 2024 at Noon (CST) Individuals who plan to reserve a room for less than 4 nights will be able to do so via a link sent to your inbox and on the hotel page of the MIR website at Noon (CST) on Thursday January 18, 2024. Additional information about our hotel and about reservations may be found on the Hotel page at MIRubber.com. We apologize for any confusion this delay may have caused this morning. We also apologize to anyone in other time-zones who may have woken up in the wee hours of the evening/morning in order to make their reservations today. We look forward to opening reservations next week, and thank you for your understanding. MIR Contest, NPO Board of Directors and Executive Team

We regret that we are unable to launch hotel reservations today due to a technical issue on the part of the hotel. We have been on the phone all morning trying to revolve this with the hotel, but as of now, the technical issue persists. We will announce the new launch date and time for MIR28 Hotel Reservations later this evening. For the moment the google form will stay open for those wishing to make reservations of 4 or more days. We thank you for your patience

MIR28 HOTEL INFORMATION (Updated January 2, 2024) For MIR28, we are pleased to be returning to the DoubleTree by Hilton in Skokie. Both the hotel and the MIR organization learned valuable lessons from our first year as a hotel-based event, and as a result we will be making changes to our hotel process for MIR28. In order to ensure that all of our attendees have an understanding of our process and timeline for the MIR28 room block, we’re outlining the critical information and timing for your benefit. This year’s hotel block will include three key changes: ~We’ve secured 40 additional rooms for MIR28, bringing our block to 85% of the total hotel rooms. This is as close to a total buyout as we can achieve at this hotel. The remaining rooms are reserved to meet the hotel’s other contractual obligations. ~A two-night minimum stay (Friday and Saturday) will be required for all reservations. ~A non-refundable deposit, equal to one night's room fees, will be charged at the time of reservation. Room rates for MIR28, at the Double Tree by Hilton, will be as follows: ~1 King Bed - $219.00 ~ 2 Queen Beds - $239.00 Key Dates for MIR28 Hotel Reservations MONDAY, JANUARY 8, 2024 Priority Full Weekend Reservations Reservations will open at noon (CST) on Monday, January 8, 2024, for attendees who plan to reserve a room for at least four nights (arrival on Thursday, October 17 - checkout on Monday, October 21). Please complete this simple Google form to be emailed the reservation link on Monday, January 8. MIR will be monitoring reservations made during this period. Individuals found to have booked for less than 4 nights may find this affects their future access to priority booking. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 2024 General Reservations Reservations for all other attendees will open at noon (CST) on Wednesday, January 10, 2024. An email blast will go out that morning, and the reservation link will be available on this page beginning at noon (CST). This information is now available on the hotel page of MIRubber.com, has been shared via email blast, and social media accounts.

As there are ongoing questions, we want to make it official that MIR will not be sponsoring or hosting a rubber meet and greet social at MAL2024. We are hopeful that we can return to hosting this event in coming years.

171 additional photos added to the MIR27 galleries last night.

PHOTO UPDATE - We've uploaded 550+ photos to the MIR27 Galleries on MIRubber.com! This reflects photos from 2 of our 3 photographers, and means that we will be uploading additional photos in the near future. As a reminder - photos are the property of MIR Contest, watermarks may not be removed or cropped out. Personal, non commercial use, by individuals pictured in the photos is permitted. Do no post or share photos of others on social media without their permission first. Please review our media usage guidelines at https://mirubber.com/about/media-usage-guidelines/

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MIR27 CONTEST VIDEO NOW AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING The MIR27 Contest is now available for your viewing in the MIR27 Galleries on our website. This recording of our Live-stream is only possible due to our team of dedicated video production team and the enormous amount of time and energy they put into sharing this event with the world. Additionally, MIR rents a significant amount of professional video production equipment and pays for live-streaming capabilities and hosting to ensure the feed goes out uninterrupted. View the MIR27 Contest Videos (in 4 separate acts) here: https://mirubber.com/galleries/mir27/ While we offer this service to viewers free, it is not free to produce. If you've enjoyed the live-stream or watched our videos in the past, we encourage you to make a donation in support of the live stream if you have the means. Every donation helps ensure we can continue this live-stream moving forward. You may make a donation to the MIR Operating Fund to support this year's live-stream. And thank you for your support of this initiative of MIR Contest, a federally recognized 501(c)4 non-profit social welfare organization. While donations are greatly appreciated, we regret donations are not tax deductible. Donate here: https://mirubber.com/donate/operating-fund/

RUBBER CLUB SUMMIT TELEGRAM CHAT At the conclusion of the MIR27 Rubber Club Summit, the attendees agreed that a Telegram Chat for club leaders, where they could discuss issues, share ideas, and help further mutual goals, would be helpful. A short sign-up form has been created in Google Forms to manage the start-up process. If you are a member of leadership in a fledgling or established rubber club, feel free to sign up for the Rubber Club Summit Telegram Chat here: https://forms.gle/oaM4bcXph24AvvVy5

This CRC gear sale is closing if you have things to claim now is the time otherwise it becomes a donation to the club.

T-Shirts from Previous Year's MIR Weekend are available at Registration in Berlin! Registration closes at 5. MIR Kink Market also Closes at 5pm today! Make your final shiny Purchases!

Gummi Gaymes and gabbing is ongoing in the Athens room and will continue until 5 PM. Come up play card and board games or join in on Jackbox games. Bar still open.

The Rubber Club Summit will begin at 3:30 in the Vienna Room and will be moderated by Felix Fig of the Mexico Rubbermen. Join other rubber and kink club leaders and those looking to start their own local/regional/national clubs, to discuss topics of mutual interest, network and share during this annual meeting. ASL will be provided.

THE WINNERS RECEPTION Holders of Universe Packages are invited to the winners reception from Noon - 1:30 in the Monaco Ballroom on the 12th Floor of the DoubleTree. There will be brunch buffet, and complimentary bloody mary's and mimosas. Mix and mingle with the contestants, judges and with our new MIR AJ Huff!

Release Date October 21, 2023 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE International Rubber Contest Announces Changes CHICAGO, IL - At the conclusion of the 27th Mr. International Rubber contest, the Board of Directors for MIR Contest, NPO announced that beginning with their 2024 event, the contest would become gender inclusive. Additionally they announced the weekend would no longer be known as Mr. International Rubber, and would simply be known as “MIR” moving forward. In reviewing the intention of the organization, a decision was made to eliminate the gender barrier of the contest and welcome all interested contestants regardless of gender identity. Beginning with MIR28, all contestants will compete on the same stage in one gender inclusive contest. The winner of the contest will then be able to choose the honorific that best represents them as the MIR titleholder. This may include one of the following: Mr. International Rubber; Ms. International Rubber; Mx. International Rubber; or MIR International Rubber Ambassador. Many local and regional rubber and fetish titles have been addressing gender inclusion in their own way. Several contests have added additional gender and non binary contest tracks, while others have removed all gender barriers and produce a single contest with one winner of any gender identity. Removing the gender barrier at MIR will help ensure that all rubber titleholders and independent contestants will have an international stage to shine on, regardless of their gender identity. MIR has been gender inclusive for the past several years in all areas but the contestant pool. There have been judges of all genders, vendors of all genders, the staff is gender diverse, as is the executive leadership of the organization. The weekend schedule has included womens parties, mens parties, and gender inclusive parties. Scholarships have been open to all genders, and our audience has steadily grown more diverse as well. The Board of MIR Contest see this announcement as the next logical step to their ongoing work of making the event weekend more inclusive. For many years the organizers have said “Though we are a contest to select a Mister, if you are interested in rubber you are welcome here.” And while many attendees did feel welcome at the event, there were others who still did not. William “Rubberwilli” Schendel, Mr. International Rubber 2003 and Secretary of MIR Contest said “It is our hope that by eliminating the gender barrier on our contestant pool, more people will feel welcomed at our event, and confident to make their own dash for the sash on our international stage.” MIR28 - The 28th International Rubber Contest Weekend will be held October 17-20, 2024 at the DoubleTree by Hilton and North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, Illinois.