FEDCON USA: Making Flanvention look Good
Fedcon USA has set a new bar for convention self destruction stupidity. Cancelling events in the middle of Saturday afternoon!

For convience here's a timeline of ill omens that lead up to yesterday's Britney Spears moment.

FEDCON GMBH a German group that puts on Trek Cons in Europe decides to work with Tim Brazeal at Trek United

Wait! The same Trek United that was supposed to be raising funds for another season of Enterprise? Yep the very same...

Despite this, everything seems to be going along fine, they even have Jonathan Frakes on as their headliner. Actually, No

Well, they'll have Adam Baldwin! Ummm...

This,and several other line up changes start making some of the forum members thinking something hinky is going on. Barbra, one of the Volunteers, even goes to say theres no conspiracy going on here.

A few days before the event they announce Aaron Douglas (Cheif Tyrol from New BSG) is joining the show! Only Aaron can't seem to get any of the organizers to get him his plane tickets Tom, the Security Chief, is playing damage control trying to keep everyting calm on the boards, but it's already getting out of hand. A very pissed off Aaron Douglas returns calling out the organizers on their lies. Tim Brazeal finally shows up with several half assed explinations Over the next few pages. Including the fact that he has back problems witch will all too conviently put him in the hospital for the next 24 hours! Aaron doesn't buy it. And the echange just gets more heated as things go on.

The con finally arrives, and the first day is small but fun for those who attend (most estimates put the number in the 200 range, far below their thousand or so they were hoping for) All of the Gold Ticket holders are thinking they are getting the shaft for putting up all that money before and and getting no real perks.

Then Saturday comes, and the show gets shut down at 11:00 am.

Wow, what a shocker, who thought anyone could make Flanvention look good...

ETA: Over at the Omega Sector we have a little comment by Virogen about how Tim Brazeal has been pulling crap like this for a while now...

ETA II: Scott Merritt of Pegasus Publishing has just announced: Because I can do it (and partially to mitigate my losses for the weekend) we will be producing a limited edition commemorative t-shirt that says “I got FRAKKED at F(crossed out)DedCon USA! anyone interested in obtaining one of these needs to contact me by Thur 6/19/08 as I’ll be printing and mailing them next weekend. My email is pegasushelp@gmail.com. Heck, I wasn't even there and I'm ordering one!

ETA III Trek United is starting to worry about it's future due to Tim Brazeal being the owner of the site. Amazingly there are people taht still want to believe in Tim.

ETA IV: Oh, Scott Merrit points out in the Con News comments this intersting tidbit about the downed forums:
As of this afternoon the Forums over at the FedConUSA site have been shut down. I find it suspicious that this occurred less than an hour after I posted the contact information for the Texas Attorney General’s Office with encouragement for fans who feel that they were ripped off to contact them.