Welcome aboard the Torchtanic!
(Be warned: long wank report is LONG. Continuation of this clairvoyantwank post. ETAs are under the third cut.)

This weekend, Torchwood fans flocked to Chicago for TorchSong, a John Barrowman-centric convention with a website that looks like it was modeled after a Geocities page circa 1997, a half-assed commercial that aired on BBC America, and some awfully expensive tickets.

When the con was first announced, the only guests were John, his sister Carole, and Mark Sheppard. When people started emailing the organizers about possible other guests, they were emphatically told while more guests would be coming, there would be no other Torchwood guests because it was a John Barrowman event, not a Torchwood event.

Ticket sales apparently convinced them this was not a good strategy, so over the following months they added Kai Owen, Tom Price, and Gareth David Lloyd. Fans squeed, and despite being not particularly impressed with the organizers' behavior, they willingly plonked down as much as $500 to see John and friends and to see John perform. (Later, 'special' auction packages went for up to $1,410.)

Then things start to go wrong.

On Wednesday, Kai Owen was forced to drop out due to a family emergency. Thursday, the day before the con began, they announced that John Barrowman had torn ligaments in his ankle and he would not be attending.

Aaaaand we're off.



Fans are extremely disappointed, but most are understanding about about John's injury and wished him well. Elsewhere, honky_kong calls Barrowman a douche and gets attacked by anonymice.

Without the headlining attraction, people begin to wonder about partial refunds, because they had paid extra money for photo ops, autographs, and John's cabaret performance. coolwhipdiva emails the organizers, and got back this polite and courteous reply that she posted on the fan community, torchsong_09:

WE CAN NOT GIVE YOU A REFUND SINCE WE HAVE TO PAY for other things. Please do come and be surprised.

MaryLee

Comm members "WTF" over the rudeness of the message.

Then ailurophile6 emails asking for a refund for the cabaret performance and gets another rude reply, now with bonus spelling errors.

joesther reflects on everyone's attitudes, and there is speculation regarding whether or not the convention is insured. (I don't know if it was ever confirmed or not, but the general consensus was "no.")

Meanwhile, the organizers let everyone know that John will be communicating from home via live video feed so he can still participate, and that they have added actor Peter Wingfield of Highlander fame as a last-minute guest.

They also send out a message to attendees regarding the situation that basically boils down to "You'll take what we give you and like it, and if you don't, tough cookies!" They're magnanimous enough to offer TorchSong attendees discounts to their next Barrowman event, though.

Commenters are frustrated. helena14_99 encourages people to file a compaint with the Better Business Bureau. The Doctor Who anonmeme discusses the situation at length, and there's some bitching in the comments here. Most people are trying to remain optimistic.

Things have gotten as bad as they're going to get, right?


On Friday, reports trickle in from fans that Tom Price was hit by a cyclist and broke his wrist (earlier reports were that he broke his arm after being hit by a car; thankfully this did not turn out to be true). People speculate that this con is cursed. (As Gareth David-Lloyd is at this point the only Torchwood cast member left standing, people begin to suspect strange things are afoot.)

At the end of Day 1, convention reports start to trickle in.

condani is not pleased with the behavior of the organizers or the con itself so far. People take issue with her dragging John Barrowman's manager into the fray.

beckster6701 is having fun, but euphrosyne2u thinks that the whole thing is bullshit.

Day 2, more con reports are posted, including lots of information about the Q&A John participated in that day from his home. According to [Screencap of post; comments available upon request] reports [Screencap of post; same deal with comments], John was quite raunchy, with antics including:

- a story of John's sister thinking that John and his partner were having sex in another room while she was staying over when in reality he was having acid reflux
- dry-humping his partner, Scott
- simulating tree sex with Scott
- Scott coming onscreen in a pink Speedo
- ripping off his shirt and "gyrating for the camera"

Elsewhere, more fail from the organizers ensues (such as not having the promised free photographs for premier members, forcing them to buy them in the dealer's room for autograph sessions).

That evening, what was supposed to be John's cabaret was replaced with him being briefly there (since it was 4:30am his time), Gareth David-Lloyd performing karaoke to his own music (they hooked up a con goer's ipod) and singing a song called "Take it Like a Bitch" on the piano, and Peter Wingfield playing his guitar.

While John was there, more raunch ensued, though, including John mooning the camera and telling a story about Gareth David-Lloyd's recreational Viagra use leading to him showing up to work with a massive hard-on.

When these stories start to leak out, the meme gets wanking!

It was skeevy! vs No it wasn't!

People should have known that Barrowman has no boundaries before they went into it! vs It was open to the public! (Barrowman concern troll, party of one?)


Day 3, John apparently realizes that he did some things he probably should not have done, and notsofunnywhen wants us all to know:

FIRST a brief explanation. Some of you may have noticed that some of the pics from my LJ have vanished into the ether. That was at the request of JB. He's concerned about some of the photos being picked up by British media and blown out of proportion, likewise with some of the more colorful episodes. When he chatted with us today via SkyChat he BEGGED people NOT to post that information, that some of it in the wrong hands could hurt him or his family and he wouldn't want to do that. Said he wants to be himself with us, his fans when we're together and he doesn't want to censor his words or actions wants to be himself and hopes we will appreciate and respect that and not share the crazier stuff outside the semi-private forum of the con. He is my Liege, his wish is my command and so, you will see some of my previous posts have been edited. Sorry if this disappoints you, but I'm sure you understand.

Something similar happened at an earlier convention when cast members did a skit that was basically a sendup of their show. They asked people not to film it, photo it, or even talk about it out of fear that it would get back to the BBC and they would get in trouble.

The meme reacts with BITCH, PLEASE:

Give me a fucking break! If he's that worried about his rep, he needs to fucking learn to reign it in and censor himself. He's the only one to blame if people take the pics and stories out of context. It's called being a responsible adult and not counting on the fans to protect your now sullied reputation.


Didn't we get the same old crap from Barrowman at the Hub last year? I'm sick of him wanting to have his cake and eat it. If he doesn't want anyone to publish stories that could get him into trouble with the BBC or his family, HE needs to learn to dial back on the tacky fanservice and not put that kind of material into the public domain in the first place. No sympathy here if any of this comes back to bite him in the ass.


Oh, here we go again. And now all the attendees will be policing each other and wanking all over the web about how special they are and how JOHN ASKED THEM NOT TO SAY ANYTHING!!!

And so on and so forth.

Since that happened, though, people are starting to do as the above mousie predicted and edit reports or put them into lockdown (such as this one, screencapped from a now-locked entry; a cross-posting on barrowmanfans was deleted.) and ask people not to post images from the video feed (the first commenter wants everyone to know that "If someone is a REAL fan of John Barrowman, and RESPECTS him, they will not post any photos they illegally obtained from the Skype video transmission").

John also apparently told the con goers some sort of secret they are not allowed to say anything about. Stay tuned for more wank on that.

Hatred towards the organizers continues to be uniform, from what I can tell. Still no word on them getting their money back, but the answer is still most likely "NO."

Oh, and euphrosyne2u is still really pissed.

ETA: Screengrabs of notsofunnywhen's two now-edited posts (via Google cache) here and here. (Shamelessly stolen from a mousie on who_anon)

ETA2: Mousies bring song parodies. For lulz.

Bonus "I know something you don't know!" quote from a now-deleted post on torchsong_09. If you know who it was, let me know and I'll edit.

Turns out John has quite a few exciting things in line for us. Some of which he asked us not to mention over the internet. I can't recall which ones he wanted us to keep confidential so I guess I'll be safe and not name any. I will say that the most different thing he has planned will benefit his American fans.

ETA3: "UR JUST JELUS!!"

ETA4: Con-goers have now created their own special clubhouse: torch_tanic (torchsong_09 post announcing it. Commenters are not amused, but you'd never know it because she deleted all the wholly negative ones. Raise your hand if you've got a screencap.) (Thank you kaylamds for the heads-up.)