*So... is there any chance of a write up on DashCon happening? Because I am hearing rumours of it being spectacular, but have been completely unable to find much because Tumblr is terrible.

Thank you FW for coming through:

DashCon is a convention run by... possibly 17 year olds that was supposed to be a celebration of all things Tumblr Fandom. Unfortunately, things got sketchy quickly when con-goers were herded into the convention ballroom and told that they needed to raise $17,000 by 10 PM or the con would be shut down.

Donations poured in, though anons reporting from DashCon appear skeptical.

Questions arose. Skepticism continues to mount despite DashCon "response".

Popcorn continues to be consumed, as ONTD gets in on the action.

There's some positive word on the street from DashCon is a bit of a mixed bag. From the curt to the effusive.

More sources in the comments since I am having trouble keeping up reading and adding them all at the moment.

Edited to add:
A statement from Welcome To Night Vale about why they dropped out.
More on WTF is Wrong with DashCon in list format.

7/14/2014 - DashCon carnage continues (Sorry if I miss something but you guys are still awesome at bringing the links):
* Baker Street Babes (who were initially curt but polite about DashCon) reveal that DashCon did not in fact "take care of" their previously comped room that became a room they had to pay for that was a computer glitch that is now again having to be paid for by the Baker Street Babes.
* The Random Act - Misha Collins' charity has disavowed all knowledge of DashCon fundraising in their name.
* Mark Reads had a pretty good time, and debunks several of the rumours re: DashCon.
* DashCon stories have hit Jezebel and io9, though given current state of Gawker sites, they're basically Tumblr/meme curators by this point, so YMMV on relevance.
* DashCon organizer cries. I guess this is supposed to be guilt-inducing? Are these people too young to remember that we eat our young around here. Not linking because not 100% sure if the rumours that they are underaged are true.
* There was NO PUBLIC MASTURBATION at the BDSM panel. The fact that I even had to say this just tells you everything, doesn't it?
* The WTNV confirm they took in Noelle Stevenson. Dammit fandom_wank, I had to figure out how to direct link to tweets for you.
* Practically nobody believes DashCon's staff saying WTNV "just walked".
* Best "masterpost" of DashCon debacle I've seen on Tumblr. Now with corrections.
* Linkdump by mindset  
* DashCon staff AMA just venting on 4Chan

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to collapse.

Oh, how nice, someone's creating a little convention for the Supernatural fandom, and they're looking for staff members. Looks like the position of Event Director has already been filled, though, by one...

Andrew Blake. AKA thanfiction. AKA Victoria Bitter.

The event hasn't received much attention thus far, but everyone who's responded to the original post looks enthusiastic and willing to throw money at the idea.

Unsurprisingly, people from other corners of the fandom have begun to speak up, sharing stories of past exploits and linking to the book written by a previous VB/AB/TF victim.

Andy, aware of his reputation in fandom, has made several posts on his most recent Tumblr in the past few months, saying that the past is behind him and refuting the claims of people who are preemptively warning the SPN fandom about his exploits.

Only time will tell if he has really changed his ways, but all signs point to no.

One final note: misgendering is not cool. There are about 10 million reasons to mock Andrew Blake, but his gender identity is not one of them.

ETA: Now matured from "having just finished his 20s" to "30 with a lot of job experience", our hero has posted more details about the application process, explaining that everything might go wrong and that's just the way that cons work, and that pretty much all of the cool stuff mentioned thus far might be too expensive if they don't get enough participants. (thanks luxshine!)

I would like to thank the mousey over at wank_report for bringing this little nugget up. So lets revel in some actual funny here.

In Colorado the main anime convention has been Nan Desu Kan. In recent years another anime convention has been building up some steam, Animeland Wasabi.

Right after this year's Animeland Wasabi ended in the beginning of March anime company Funimation announced a lawsuit against Miller Timmons, and ten John Does for selling counterfeit items at Wasabi. (Anime News Network article) Timmons also manages the convention under his Think Art Media and Animeland businesses. There is also a nice breakdown of the lawsuit in this screencap.

A few days ago an announcement is made on the front page of Animeland Wasabi that basically decries that Funimation and Nan Desu Kan are trying to get rid of Animeland Wasabi because NDK totally got their people to find some bootleg merchandise at Wasabi to show to Funimation to get them to sue Wasabi.(Be warned of glaring green background.)

And who would doubt these claims after such strong opening statements like these:

To our anime community, Animeland would like to give details about the lawsuit between Funimation vs. Miller Timmons. The framework of this lawsuit that is pending in the Denver court system is an attempt for Funimation, Nan Desu Kan and Wasabi Anime to drive Animeland, Miller Timmons, and their fans out of the anime community in Denver because we have grown over the past six years.


At the end of that tl;dr there is a screencap of a reply from ThatGuyInTheHat who manages to Godwin himself, in German no less, to a poster on the forums.

Also in the comments to the ANN article the CEO of the site says that they did try to contact Timmons before they posted the article, which goes against Animeland Wasabi's claim that they have not been contacted for a statement. There also seems to have been some wanky comments that have been since deleted in that thread without being screen capped unfortunately.

There is a discussion on the forum (which seems to now no longer be, but there are screen caps) about the announcement where we learn that the screed went through lawyers before being posted. ThatGuyInTheHat believes that anyone who is sticking up for NDK is NDK staff. That he can only give vague hints of NDK's wrongdoings because they could be spying on their forum and use what is said against Wasabi.

Nan Desu Kan has released their own press release on the matter, where they avoid saying much of anything outside that they are not making any anime company to anything for them and are too busy with their own con to care about anyone else's.

With all this popping up shortly after the hearing to figure out the scheduling for the case one can only assume that this may be the beginning.

And in case anything else appears to go poof here are the screen caps collected so far.

( Read more... )

Edit: The consensus was that this wasn't funny. Sorry about that. I obviously made an error in judgment yesterday. Also, some people said this was triggering/upsetting with regards to bi/homophobia, so be warned.

Edit 2: holy shit. That's a nice painting.

Short version: Some bronies try to run a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fan convention in Las Vegas. They do an extremely bad job of it. Guests aren’t paid; people are left out of pocket, kicked out of hotels and left stranded; and cheques have bounced, including one to voice actor Tara Strong. And they pissed off John de Lancie. Of course, it’s totally not their fault and they want fans to bail them out by giving them money for some as yet unspecified amount. Plus they totally witnessed an agent of one of the actors taking money from the con cashbox! More than once! Really! Oh, and they made up this fake money, told vendors they’d be paid with it during the convention and would be able to exchange it for real money at the end. And so much more.

Many thanks to Amatyultare on lj for providing links and updates on wank_report. I’ve made some minor adjustments but otherwise pretty much used all your wording in this post. Detailed version under the cut.

( Las Pegasus Unicon )


In conclusion, lol bronies.

ETA: Fixed a link and typo. Another vendor has come forward with their experience and hopsandbarley has created a far superior pony currency for us to enjoy.

Rick Olney is a comics producer, comics convention organizer, and comics con-artist. I haven’t heard of this guy until today, but he’s been up to no good since the mid-2000s by not paying artists for their work or for making appearances, including big names as the dearly departed [I don't know why I thought that] Chuck Dixon and Gail Simone, and then threatens anyone who DARE speak out for what he did to them! You can read more about him here (2009) and here (2006) and witness his assholery in the comments on both links (he’s “orcafresh” in the Gail Simone Forum thread on CBR)! Oh and Sep pointed out to me that he was featured here in 2007! i.e. He implied that “Gail Simone” (quotation marks Olney’s, not mine) slept her way into the industry. Seriously.

( Some people like to dig their own grave. A few will not stop until they reach China. )
( ETA 1, 2, and 3 )
ETA5: wankismyfandom has pointed out that we've been spotted. Let's give him a round of unenthusiastic golf claps!

I have three close friends inside this hobby and business of comics, as well as outside the realm of imagination mediums for each other of them!

HE HAS THREE FRIENDS. THREE. THAT'S MORE THAN ONE AND TWO. IT IS ONE PLUS TWO!

(And WHY HELLO THAR, GAIL SIMONE FORUM! :D)

ETA5: It's official. Lucasfilm is sending Rick Olney a Cease and Desist. He is to return both the remaining maps and any monies (haha- Rick's fave word) that he collected back to me. Shazam. All the maps must be accounted for and any missing from the number I sent shall be paid for. - Matt Busch

The background: Last year, after the giant trainwreck of the Katsucon Artists' Alley, artists were promised better & more transparent communication. The old Alley head Tex was replaced with Jasen, one of the old security people. Jasen seemed pretty open, the Alley applications went up on September 12th, and on November 10th Jasen sent out a non-BCC'd email which stated, "You will shortly be receiving instructions about payment and any further registration information we need."

What happened next? You guessed it: Nothing. So people started questioning what was up on the forums. The con chair popped up on page two to say they're really really really gonna work on their communication for next year, honestly this time you guys, and by the way, here's what artists should really be doing instead of waiting around.

Possible attendees were, as you might've guessed, somewhat unimpressed. Katsu's con chair responded by first pointing the proverbial finger at Jasen--then his wife followed suit by throwing Jasen under their bus, claiming he'd been actively ignoring absolutely everyone's emails. ETA: And the second post's been deleted, though there's mentions of its contents in later posts. :(

At this point user Studio Kitsu decided she was fed up with the inaction and took matters into her own hands. Since Jasen'd not BCC'd the artists in his first "Be with you soon!" email, she snagged their addresses and sent this:

( And for the tl;dr portion of our show! )

The next morning, Jasen crawls out from under the bus to point the finger in return . . . in an email sent to absolutely everyone.

( Oh, by the way, fanart is now banned in the Alley. )

User Dashi, though, has had enough, and goes from passive-aggressive to aggressive-aggressive faster than you can say IP law--and once again, sends their grievances to the entire list of artists.

( IP Law: It's like magnets, in a way. )

And for bonus giggles: Despite addressing the email to "Katsucon staff," the only staff member she actually sent the thing to is Jasen.

But this is the end, right? People who've worked with grouchy customers know there's a time to step back and look for a higher ground and . . . Oh, who am I kidding. I preserved the formatting and colors because I love you guys.

From Jasen: ( There's no fanart ban except for where there is! )


And finally! . . . Finally? Irony tastes like apples!

From: Poisoned Apple (email redacted)
Subject: RE: Attn: Katsucon Marketplace Artists
To: Everyone!
Date: Thursday, January 6, 2011, 7:52 PM

Stop mass e-mailing. No one wants to read this.

I almost snorted hot coffee out my nose while listening to this week's This American Life. Because lo, I bring you tidings of great joy. There was wank and it involved Santas. Santas breaking into factions and invoking Godwin's. Online drama. Real life drama. Santa against Santa.

I never considered Santa or Christmas a fandom before, but now I know. They cosplay. They have conventions. They live and breathe Santa year round. And they are as dramatic as any wankers we've ever seen.

If you click the link above, click "play episode" and ff to 22:00 you can listen to the segment. It's 27 minutes of wanky Santa hijinks and infighting.

Background reading:

AORBS website and history.
Santa flounces.
No, this is the real history and archives.

I know there is more, but I figured this was a good start.

Nobody expects the Santa Inquisition?

Courtesy of the anons on wank_report, I present to you:

The Woeful Tale of VividCon's Silencing and Shaming of its Members; or How niqaeli the Special Snowflake Was Epically Disingenuous

( Follow the trail of the horseshit... )

Lost: Tunnel of Fail: The Meetup Thread has been unlocked. Sit back for a tale of con wank, including drug induced comas, and an oranizer who single handedly pulled off doing all the electricity for the Superbowl:

Yanked from several wank reports:


Carrie, one of the assistant organizers of the NYC Lost meet up had "big plans" for the Lost series finale on May 23. A "huge event guaranteed to get worldwide press," and take all kinds of planning, as per the e-mails she sent the group's organizer.

The big huge event turns out to be a BYOB in the Atlantic Avenue tunnel in Brooklyn, an abandoned subway tunnel. $40.00 for regular people, and $60.00 for VIP access. There will be a red carpet and paparazzi. Tickets are sold quickly because Carrie convinces the group that these are going to go like a concert on ticketmaster, and the group is encouraged to buy tickets now, worry about the questions later. What kind of questions might people have? Um, who will the "paparazzi" be? How will she get electricity into the tunnel? Stream lost into the tunnel? Permits from the fire department?

Two inquire about this, and they are accused of of being "out of control," "EXTREMELY JEALOUS OF MY 100+ SUCCESSFUL EVENTS THAT I RAN LAST YEAR."She goes on to say that she will be talking to her "lawyer about getting restraining orders against both of them." And that they have to prove that they are fans of Lost by:

...writing a thesis on what their personal beliefs are regarding the show and all of it's main characters. The thesis will be run through my high-tech "plagarism" software that was developed at M.I.T. in which I am requested to use on my student's papers.

Bit of an over reaction don't you think? And would any attorney take this one on? Or would it get laughed out of court? If an organizer acts like this two months before the con, ( Imagine the Fun They are in For )

ETA Here is a screencap of the google cache of the NYC Lost Finale Webpage

ETA 2 Another Carrie Update:
This whole problem started because of two PSYCHO women that were fighting with other members in another group (which they had to get restraining orders against). I removed them and they retaliated by joing the group and causing trouble. Also the tunnel needs the money and the press, Mayor Bloomberg is involved! Guys the problem is not because this is implausible, it is because of two psycho women!

ETA 3: As per onyxnoir Obvious Sock is Obvious

So there's this video about Bleach voice actors who were at Kawaii-Kon, an anime convention hosted in Hawaii, where they were questioned about possible romantic preferences for the young man they provide voices for. Johnny Yong Bosch (JYB) is the voice behind Kurosaki Ichigo for the English dub, while Morita Masakazu (MM) is the Japanese seiyū for the dashing hero. No, he's not really dashing. More like cranky.

the toobs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQfkhEK04jE

Then someone dared to ask the million-dollar question: do they prefer RUKIA or ORIHIME for Ichigo?

In summation, JYB & MM both said "Orihime." So there!
( OH. HELL. NO. Voice actors aren't allowed opinions! )
( But this series isn't about ROMANCE!!! )

Bonus references to Avatar: the Last Airbender wank here.

This has been a busy, busy week for Bleach fandom! I have some caps, but tinypic keeps re-sizing the images.

Finally, a friendly reminder to my fellow wankas: don't feed the trolls.

:throws cheese to mousey for collecting links:

( Aww, ETA's for breakfast? You're too kind! )
( We have contact! )

Edit 3: Fandom Wank's name was dropped like it's hott. jaseroque got a special mention for the translation.

Edit 4:( The wank levels up! Or uh... Bankai. )

I've revised the post with screen caps now that the Partners have shut down the Ning site. I've saved as much of the Becky Scoggins Thread as I could and you can find all of it here

Not that it is that surprising, but Twicon has canceled both it's shows. With a big announcement on it's website:

In hind sight, it was pretty obvious things were going downhill for these guys. In February, they had to move their Toronto show to Ottawa due to the G20 Conference happening that weekend. This set off a flurry of cancellations and some grumblings on the message board about the Partners dragging their feet on refunds

There is confusion on the forum, especially about how they get refunds since the announcement didn't bother to mention how you go about this. Becky Scoggins, one of the Twilight Partners, posts a personal apology that states it's not an official statement from Twicon. Noneya calls bullshit on Becky's apology pointing out the discrepancies in her statements and her post gets deleted . Some people notice this , but Becky is claiming the threads were deleted by the users.

Later we have the second Twicon Partner Bailey Gauthier responding. And she's saying she doesn't know what's happened either!

The Wednesday after the closing announcement, the letters got sent out, and it was a simple form letter telling people to send their claims with appropriate paperwork to an address and nothing more. A week after that the forum got shut down and all that's left are the screen caps.

Meanwhile, a mousie has informed me that Becky is already hard at work on another Twilight fandom event! No wank just yet, and you can read about it over at Clairvoyant Wank

Before I get started, a disclaimer: The closest connection I have to Irish fandom is that I've flown over bits of Ireland from time to time. And, when I was a kid, I saw a lot of commercials for Lucky Charms. So I'm probably going to be missing a few subtleties. Also, this is something that happened recently, and recently . . . recently isn't really the decade that I'm best at.

With that said, it seems that there's a guy named Pádraig Ó Méalóid. Who's active in Irish con-going fandom. Or at least, he's active in large parts of Irish con-going fandom. But not Octocon, the Irish National Convention, which is going to be held next weekend. You see Pádraig got a letter the other day, that went a little something like this:

Hello,

I'm writing on behalf of the 2009 Octocon Committee. I am the Co-Chair.

Due to your behaviour at the convention some time ago and your online behaviour earlier this year we have come to the unfortunate decision to ban you from this convention. We believe that your attitude towards us has been far to aggressive both online and in the past at the convention.

This matter is not open for discussion and we will not enter into any online discussion regarding this nor will we discuss this with any other persons. This decision is final.

We are deeply saddened by this as this is the first time a committee has had to ban someone. We will of course will refund your money; if you reply to me with your address I will forward this onto you as soon as possible.

Regards,

Nichola Hannigan

Now, if you're like me, you look at a letter like that, and think "she probably meant 'far too aggressive'." Also, you'd find that third paragraph amusingly repetitive. (I have to warn you, if that was actually your reaction, you're going to want to lay some tarp around your work area, as one of the links that comes later is going to make your head explode. And that's hard to clean up.)

And, if you're someone like Pádraig, you'll go ahead and post the letter to your livejournal. I mean, I'd have done that as well, but with far more mockery.

But Pádraig wasn't the only place in which this news was broken. Cheryl Morgan happened to mention it as well. To quote the seemingly innocuous paragraph:

In less good news my email is currently buzzing with the news that my good friend Pádraig Ó Méalóid has apparently been banned from the convention. I know that Pádraig has been rather critical of the Octocon committee this year, and perhaps rather more aggressive about it than he should have been, but I know my fan history well enough to remember that banning people from conventions rarely ends well. The right way to deal with one’s critics is to prove them wrong by running a great event.

Comment 3 is by one James Brophy, who was, at that point, on the Octocon committee. And he's there to link to the convention's Code of Conduct, and defend the committee's decision. Against all challengers.

The first one he takes on is Pádraig. To his protestations of "I don't know what the hell they're talking about," James replies with "You turned your ignorance of your own actions into a press release." Zing!

Then there's another challenger. Gary Farber replies in his own, inimitable fashion. And at great length. And other people agree with him. Also, Chris O'Shea points out that the code of conduct in question wasn't actually put up on the web last week, which is apparently after whatever happened that made them kick Pádraig out of the convention. It also is in the realm of possibility that the code went up after they sent the letter.

Chris concludes with:

Octocon’s PR has the ears of the world at the moment, it would be a good time to explain what is going on, because in the absence of such, things will only get worse.

James isn't going to take that lying down! In the next comment, he announces his resignation from the con committee, and comprehensively flips his shit. This is where the grammar induced head-explosions are going to start, by the way, as his language skills seem to go at the same time as his temper.

I'm not a hundred percent capable of parsing the claims in the post, but as I understand them, they more or less go as follows: a) Pádraig is a mean guy. b) Also, he says mean things, both to people, and about people. c) One time, he took some prints from a photographer that he shouldn't have.

Rather than do a play-by-play for the rest of the thread, I'll summarize. Gary makes fun of James's difficulties both with the English language and with logic. James explains that one of the lurkers who supports him isn't speaking up, because he's a writer, and fears that Cheryl Morgan will ruin his career. Cheryl gets upset at that, and bans James from her blog, until she's contacted by the guy in question. Which, rather surprisingly, she is, so she un-bans him. Various other members of the committee show up, not so much to explain their actions, as to explain that they wanted this to be kept private, and they are saddened that Pádraig has put his own interests above those of a convention which he's not allowed to attend.

As one might expect, there's some discussion about there elsewhere on the internet; the one bit that jumped out at me as providing useful data was a comment on lj which suggested that one of Pádraig's major sins was founding a convention that's been more successful than Octocon over the last decade or so.

And that's all I've got.

As predicted, Twicon's performance was less than stellar to quite a few fans. Heck, heatherdallas starts off pointing out her disappointment with the con Friday afternoon before a lot of events even got underway. Some are saying they had fun, but none of it seems very emphatic. sunray16 points out what a disaster the Celebrity Q&A session was, complete with WTF? photo of Peter Facinelli! When talk of next year's show comes up, Kiley 1231 suggests that everyone should go to one of Creation Entertainment's shows. Plus further down in the thread she talks about how the volunteers got royally screwed by management. Meanwhile, the one attempt at a positive thread about the con has gotten shot down with the second post.

I do wonder when Skylarkdevlin is going to show up, since she has been the main apologist for Twicon throughout the various trials the con has gone through. I'm sure once she hops on, all hell is going to break loose...


ETA: The blogoshpere is beginning to buzz about the negative reviews Twicon is getting. Rob My World's review of Twicon is scathing. And Convention Fans is telling a similar story.

ETA II: Twicon's Facebook page: TwiCon would like to thank everyone who attended the event. We welcome your feedback, both positive and constructive. Please stay tuned to the official web site for an important statement from the TwiCon partners regarding the Dallas event. Thank you. Which is met with skepticism on the forum

ETA III Bailey Gauthier of the Twicon partners actually apologizes to the fans, while Becky Scoggins just makes a half-assed attempt at defending the con.

ETA IV: Now Bailey is taking her butthurt to Tweeter, and her friends are busy soothing her ego.

ETA V kryptongirl has some interesting personal insights in Twicon Partner Bekca Graspy who apparently has had some wank involving ONTD_Twatlight

Meta wank of the sweetest kind. 2010 Readercon is being advertised as "This IS your father's con". Needless to say, this is not met with huzzahs. Catherynne M. Valente proposes an alternative to the 2010 Readercon--a gathering of fans at her island place. The man who has singlehandedly run programming for Readercon for 20 years immediately responds with you are wrong and escalates from there, with you are very young or possibly foreign, and my personal favorite, you have to have a score of at least 790 on the analytical section of the GRE to do programming for Readercon. Many people laugh at him. Eric Van says he is no longer responding to stupid comments, and then copy&pastes his everyone IMPORTANT loved us comment everywhere he can find.

Meanwhile, Readercon backtracks quickly.

And for your tasting pleasure, now with added name-calling and objectification of the young, female fans!

eta: Obviously Eric Van could not delegate programming decisions, because no one else gets a 790 on the analytical section of the GRE. But why not use a computer program, someone suggests. Eric gently explains that the "combinatorics problem" is far too complicated for a simple computer program.

This is an offshoot of a post I made on clairvoyantwank

Twicon is being billed as the biggest and best Twilight convention in the country. Well, I had my doubts, and now it looks like some of the sparkle is rubbing off for the Twihards.

You see, Yesterday the con finally announced it's autograph policy (it's on their main page):

Autographs for each attending cast member will be available for reservation on Friday, June 19, at 11:59pm EST. Each attendee can sign up for one free autograph at that time. To reserve your free autograph, login to your registration account and go to the Agenda section. You will only be given the option of selecting one cast member. Don’t worry; once everyone has had time to select their free autograph, we’ll be offering autographs for sale for those cast members who have more time and autographs available.

Okay, these people are paying $255 for this weekend (at least). Which is only $14 cheaper than Creation's Gold Package which includes free autographs from everybody.

To say the least, the fans are not happy...

This is going to be a fun con :)

ETA: I was wrong about the podcast thing, so I removed it.

ETA II: I also notice quite a few attempts at registration sell-offs have popped up in the last 24 hours...

ETA III: On that registration sell off page I noticed one post seems to have gone missing. User lennire had flung her hands up in disgust and wanted to sell off her ticket. Now her posts are gone and her account non-existent, though some of the threads she has started still exist without her. Nobody else seems to have caught wind of this, but I bet the shit will hit the fan when everyone realizes this.

ETA IV: Here's a handy dandy link to all the coverage...

The Twicon Saga:

Part 1 (Clarivoyant Wank Post)

Part 2-(You are Here)

Part 3 FW Followup

Part 4 CW Twicon 2010 coming fail

Part 5 FW Final Post

(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.

( Act I: Pre-Con )

( Act II: The Convention )


( Act III: The Ongoing Aftermath )
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.)

Dearest, beloved, Fandom Wank.

I know you were looking forward to great excitement today. Some of you said words to me that indicated you anticipated fiery 'judgement' upon those who remained fresh and dewey white, those you call n00bs.

Anyway, you got today instead.

Stop anticipating things, we'll just break your hearts.

Sincerely,

Sepia P. Magpie, Esq.



PS: Use this post to reflect on how you could be better people. Or just fuck around in the comments.

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.

Here's another of those slightly aged wanks. But this one is only from 1997. That's practically ripped from today's headlines, people:

( Mercedes Lackey and the Invisible Ninjas )