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QAnon John has had a difficult week. First he was kicked out of QAnon’s biggest influencer group for calling on U.S. soldiers to take part in a “military mutiny,” and on Tuesday the high-profile QAnon event he’s organizing in Las Vegas next month was kicked out of its venue.
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The event, called “For God & Country Patriot Double Down,” was scheduled to take place at the Caesars Forum convention space near the Las Vegas Strip over three days in October. But on Tuesday, the venue confirmed that it had cancelled the event.
“We can confirm that the Patriot Double Down will no longer be held at Caesars Entertainment properties,” Caesars’ spokeswoman Kate Whiteley told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Caesars did not give a reason for the cancellation and didn’t respond to follow-up questions from VICE News. But the news of the cancellation likely came as a surprise to QAnon John, whose real name is John Sabal.
On a podcast hosted by QAnon promoter Ron Watkins earlier this week, Sabal said that organizing the event with the venue had been “smooth sailing.” He added that the owner of Caesars Entertainment knew about the event and was “totally OK” with it. He even claimed a Caesars rep said the company was “proud” of what Sabal’s organization was doing.
The event is supposed to be a follow-up to the “For God & County Patriot’s Roundup” conference that took place in Dallas at the end of May and attracted hundreds of attendees and some of the biggest stars in the QAnon firmament.
Many of the same speakers are scheduled to appear in Las Vegas next month, including headline act Michael Flynn, the disgraced former national security adviser who used the first conference to call for a Myanmar-style military coup in the U.S.
Due to join Flynn on stage are a number of sitting Republican lawmakers, including what Sabal called a “trifecta” of representatives from Arizona who have been vocal supporters of the bogus recount taking place in the state.
Watkins is also scheduled to appear alongside his father Jim Watkins, who facilitated the rise of QAnon on his website 8chan (now called 8kun).
Sabal has not publicly responded to the cancellation by the venue but setbacks like this are something he has had to deal with in the past. Just weeks before the Dallas conference happened, one of the main venues pulled out following media scrutiny.
In the end, Sabal found a new venue but didn’t announce where it was until hours before the conference began, to prevent further media scrutiny and another possible cancellation.
On the Las Vegas event website, where tickets are being sold for between $650 and $3,000, the itinerary now says the conference will take place at a “location to be announced prior to event.”
It is unclear what prompted Caesars to pull the plug on the conference—it was first announced as the venue back in July—but it may have had something to do with Sabal’s recent comments about a “military mutiny.”
“As a US Veteran, I have had ENOUGH, and I am officially calling for a TOTAL MILITARY MUTINY from the top ranks, and brass, all the way down to the E1s against this ROGUE ADMINISTRATION,” Sabal wrote on his Telegram channel last Thursday.
The comments were not well received by many of his followers and Sabal was soon removed as an admin in the “We The Media” channel, which is run by many of the highest profile QAnon influencers—a number of whom are scheduled to appear in Las Vegas.
“We apologize for the comments made by QAnonJohn regarding ANY type of rebellion or mutiny or coup, etc, against the current Biden administration,” the “We The Media” group said.
Just as Flynn tried to walk back his comments about a Myanmar-style coup in May, Sabal sought to diffuse the situation by claiming he never meant to advocate for any sort of violent rebellion, claiming he was talking specifically about a “peaceful“ mutiny.
