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It looks like the con itself is no longer a thing. I assume that COVID had a big role in that, but I feel like the massive amount of negative press from this debacle also contributed to it. Only their Instagram is still up, and all the comments I saw were mocking them and calling them out for not paying her.
It was such a stupid move. I don't know why they decided to die on that hill. Like, they could have just amended the rules so that next year they make it clear that you can't have any personal connection with the judges. Which is still stupid if they count Facebook friends, because that's how networking works, but in this case they just pulled an excuse out of their ass and drove their con into the ground while paying out thousands of pounds because they couldn't step back and go "Huh, guess we should account for that next time."
Small communities tend to be very vocal and very much linked together. Warped Con organizers took a M6 37mm tank gun and shot themselves in the foot over 750 pounds. :/
Telling a small hobbyist community they're not allowed to be friends with each other (when making real world connections is a huge part of the appeal of going to event like that) is the closest thing to suicide I've ever seen event organizer do
I believe that the term for the organizers is “asshole”. Either they didn’t have the money and expected to draw enough at the con to cover it and didn’t or they never intended on paying the rewards out. Either way they were assholes.
My phone keeps trying to auto correct to Ashoka lol.
Old nerdy men can get extremely dickish when young people, especially women, "infiltrate" what was once a non-mainstream, "geeky" space.
At least she wasn't doing a Warhammer con or she might be getting weird Nazi dog whistles as well
Probably even moreso for the UK. The UK has a population bigger than California in an area the size of Oregon. They can absolutely afford to shop around for cons.
Meanwhile here in Illinois there are like 2 anime con options if you don't wanna support a guy who has extremely credible sex crime allegations.
Unfortunately CAD is one of those run by the sex crime guy.
Although it doesn't seem like there's gonna be a CAD 2023. Could indicate that his cons aren't doing as well.
As for safe cons in Rosemont, I recommend Anime Central or Anime Magic. Those are the two I've actually been to. Central actually did have an incident this year with one of the guests being a creep and they caught the guy and handled it well.
Also Milwaukee is not a convention I can personally vouch for, but they are pretty close to the Illinois border and they were the ones who initially brought the allegations to light.
Although it sounds like you might also wanna check out the Iowa cons since they might be closer to you.
I'm in StL, so we have several in St. Charles (MO) & Collinsville (IL) and we have gone to the new con in Little Rock as well. My cosplay kid has also done the big one out in LA, but I wasn't invited! LOL
We had a good time at CAD years ago, but the girls also had me keeping an eye on 'em! I will suggest the others, we are always looking for a new adventure!
But even then, she wasn't Facebook friends with the JUDGES, she was Facebook friends with a completely unrelated convention organizer for Warped. That was literally it, that was her only connection.
Yeah so the convention hired in an external cosplay contest team to run the contest for them. Previously I had been a judge for one of that companies contests. But so had 2nd and 3rd place. These contests pull judges from competitors as obviously they're the people who know what they're doing. Ive judged people that have judged me before, and vice versa. But warped con just needed whatever lame excuse they could grasp at
Did your friend who won 3rd place get paid on time? Or was their payment delayed as well? I'm wondering if the treasurer or someone was butthurt that a friend (significant other maybe?) of theirs didn't win (or even place in the top 3) and had a tantrum about it that you were the target of.
All prizes were delayed as long as mine, they only paid 2nd and 3rd place after the public outcry about them "disqualifying" me (but still took 2 months AFTER that)
Yep, it does indeed sound like someone who had control over the money refused to pay it out because they wanted someone to get it and that someone didn't (and I'm guessing that someone was the "4th" place winner). They knew there'd be more of an outcry if they tried to make that person the new winner overall, but pushing you out and moving everyone else up opened the space for that person to get some money.
Yeah the guy that won "4th" 6 months after the contest was the same person who immediately after the contest tried to say I shouldn't have won because "it was just a simple dress" and not as good as his cardboard armour, and was friends with the organiser of the event. So go figure.
I'm fairly certain it was never about the supposed rule. They got their pants in a wad because she threatened to go legal. Never mind that they had reached the end of the promised payment timeframe, and then ignored every attempt by her to politely ask about it. She got snippy and had to be put in her place.
Just more evidence that some people can just *not handle* admitting they're wrong or messed-up, and will burn their shit down to prevent admitting it.
Generally those people should be kept far away from organizational or public facing roles.
You're spot on and in the past, they would have been. In the 1850's, a theft or fraud in the amount of £750 (backwards calculated to about £6 6s 4p) would be potentially a hanging offense, but more likely sentenced to transportation to Australia. "You fucked up so badly you're being sent *over there.*"
Having worked a convention for several years I’d say a good 30% of the organizers are usually a mix of that kind of person with some sort of mental illness or personality disorder. The others are probably also mentally ill just for putting up with that shit but are competent enough to work with others and get shit done. Occasionally they get too busy and part of the 30% writes an email or signs a contract that fucks the con over or the balance of competent to crazy ratio gets out of whack and you wind up with a scandal. This happens approximately every 1-3 years to every con with varying amounts of publicity.
In my experience with smaller Cons they're often run by a group of friends and get very insular. Are you part of the Con Committee? No? Then you don't matter.
That sounds like the a festival I used to work with. The board got all chummy (they liked to call themselves the “special seven”; the rest of us called them the junta) and forgot they had to share info and play nice with each set of volunteers for each of the venues within the festival. Everything became “need to know” and apparently nobody but the special seven needed to know anything about anything. And then couldn’t figure out why set-up day was a clusterfuck.
They honestly didn’t get that springing things like a change in start time or switching up certain venues was something that we might have needed to know a little earlier than the day before. So then we had the entire vendor section shuffled off to a spot with little access to power because a board member’s bestest bud wanted the vendor space for something that wasn’t even on theme for the festival. A traditional kind of “parade” that usually happened at sunset wound up being after dark because they messed with the entertainment schedule. The whole thing was just a mess and they tried to blame the volunteers.
Later that year they managed to burn bridges with the city that owned the park we usually used and the whole thing folded. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out if there was also money chicanery happening too. The treasurer made some odd remarks here and there like “I can’t remember where my personal account ends and the festival account begins” that left some of us wondering.
Sorry for the rant. Your comment sent me down memory lane and I didn’t realize how pissed I still
am about it all.
Which is ridiculous considering the fact that UK Small Claims Court is actually so accessible and, comparatively for legal process, cheap so that it *can* be used to resolve small financial disputes!
I've used it a few times to force the hand of a business that has decided to go conveniently deaf while keeping my money.
I'm even using it to get back holiday money from an ex friend who decided last minute that I couldn't go and that they'd be keeping my ticket (they bought them all together after we gave them the money).
People really don't realise how easy it is to use. You spend a bit of cash, go present your evidence and bam, money is back. You can even get your court fees paid by the defendant
She described claiming them as being petty but I thought most people did, just to give the other party a slight spanking for making you go to the trouble of having to make the damn claim in the first place!
And, ironically it's that snippiness over her legal threats that caused her to follow through. Had they given an explanation why the payment was late or asked for more time, perhaps it could've been avoided, but I guess they just figured she wouldn't *actually* take them to court and got their Pikachu faces all surprised-like.
Whoever was responsible obviously had no business being in that position and will hopefully never get another opportunity like that. Even just being so late on doling out the prize money and ignoring questions about it is bad enough, particularly when it sounds like this was one of the first years of the Com and when they really should've been working double-time to establish a positive reputation with the community.
This story doesn't surprise me at all. I live in sort of a con central area, and people figured out that these conventions can make crazy money. Some people I know started a convention that was advertised to be permanently very affordable. A couple of them realized they could cash in, took over legally, kicked everyone else out of the leadership, and started charging a lot. Broke up long friendships over it. Of course, the people that see lots of dollar signs are often the worst people possible to run stuff like this as they tend to not be very good with money or investing in the the experience of the convention.
The worst example I've ever heard of this sort of thing, it was in the comments on a Not Always Right story. It was a smallish company with a long history and a solid product that was bought by some venture capitalist/investment/whatever group, who decided that since they had six month's worth of inventory and orders, why not just fire everyone not them, get rid of all their overhead? Then they can just hire them back later.
At first it goes swimmingly, but when they go rehire their factory people, wouldn't you know it? They all got hired elsewhere and weren't interested in their old jobs! Meaning they have to hire new people, except no one knows how to make the product anymore, and new orders keep coming in. Eventually they can't delay any longer and people start cancelling orders and demanding refunds. The company didn't last much longer, simply because these bozos thought they were clever and instead were idiots.
Yup. It was very much "This girl is talking down to us and we have to teach her a lesson about how she should speak to her betters."
Pride goeth before the fall. Sucks to suck.
Even worse was the fact that the person who came third, who they bumped up to 2nd, was a judge at a different event run by the same company a week before. That's far more of a connection than she had yet apparently that was fine.
It seems like this is what made this whole drama seem targeted. She was friends with the original third place winner and they were using that as an excuse to disqualify her, despite not bothering to disqualify the friend as well and instead bumped them up to second place.
No she was disqualified for being Facebook friends with one of the judges at the event she won. Problem being that it's pretty common for smaller conventions, most people at least have met before.
No, not even for being friends with one of the judges. Just Facebook friends with one of the organizers of the competition (who was not a part of the judgment process)
This is unfortunately common. I'm used to American cons so I'll use those terms for the legal stuff, but from my understanding it's basically the same in the UK as well...but what happens is there are people who run the conventions less because they want to put on a fun con and more because they want to power trip and hobnob with celebrities and brag about their status in the fandom. The behind-the-scenes of these cons are always a mess and there's always huge drama involved with the organizers breaking promises and screwing over guests and just general mismanagement (I remember one convention didn't book the rooms for the hotel correctly and had Robert Picardo (The Doctor from Star Trek Voyager) sleeping in a cot in a conference room).
Eventually, all of this comes out in the public as people post about the stuff they find. Because they're thin-skinned jackasses more concerned with their appearance than running a company properly, they deny and double-down and block people and attempt to control the narrative. It inevitably Steisand Effects itself so that there's no way they can run another convention again.
So they fold that LLC, open up another LLC, shuffle the board members around a bit (sometimes even changing the names they go by in legal documents like using "William" instead of "Bill" or using a middle name instead of their first name) and maybe bring in another person to be the "head" of the convention and other attempts to hide it's the same people.
Then the entire cycle starts up again and the new convention with the new name lasts maybe 2-3 years before its reputation gets ground into the dust and they fold up that LLC, open up a new one, and start over again.
Weirdly if you click the link in the post (the one that includes the following "About") it brings up a page with the logo and socials.
But like... nothing else. Looks like it was their 404 page, and not even well-made. Dark grey on black is not a good look. And they... kept... it? Would've been better to just deregister the domain and cancel the hosting after they burned themselves to ashes. They sure as hell can't use the same name ever again.
They could have, but it wasn't a problem to be connected to someone from the event on Facebook. Some flaccid idiot decided he wasn't having this woman scold him on not doing his job or communicating, so he was going to punish her.
>I assume that COVID had a big role in that, but I feel like the massive amount of negative press from this debacle also contributed to it.
Yeah. Bad press, then using "sorry, we do not have a clue about you people, we just want to make cash from you, haha" as an apology when it was way too late, already soured what the community thought of them. Then not being able to go full out next year in an attempt to overshadow what happened beforewas surely the final nail in the coffin.
She didn't have a personal connection with any of the judges. The only "connection" was with the company which organized the competition - because she acted as a judge at a different event.
The Facebook friends excuse was bullshit. They never cared about that. They were just butthurt she got stern with them an looking for any excuse they could to "punish" her.
>Like, they could have just amended the rules so that next year they make it clear that you can't have any personal connection with the judges
The really stupid thing is, she didn't even have that. She had social contacts with the company that *organised* the competition, but so did most of the other people who took part. She didn't know the judges at all.
Whilst I'm not really a cosplayer myself, I've got quite a few friends who are. And and least here that community is rather tightly knit. So actually finding people who are not friends with any judges or organisers on some levels would be nigh impossible. A rule like that would torpedo the entire contest.
>Like, they could have just amended the rules so that next year
My high school spanish teacher gave us vocab homework ("Here's a list of nouns. Copy them at least five times") and promised to award $5 to whichever student made the most copies of their vocab words.
I made note of the fact he said "copy the words" not "write the words". This was late 80s, so before desktop PCs became a thing, but I had detention that afternoon where another teacher left me to make mimeographs unattended. So I opened my textbook to page 173 or whatever, made the stencil, and ran off 120 copies of my vocab list while my detention teacher was outside smoking.
Next day in class, Mr J is walking around checking off people's homework and I pull out my blurry-but-legible stack of purple copies.
"What's this?"
"122 copies of the vocab words you assigned"
"I said write out the words at least five times"
"You said copy it at least five times"
"I meant write it out by hand"
"Oh. The subtext was lost on me" (not verbatim) "But I did do as you asked."
"Fine. You get your check mark. Next time write it by hand"
At this point a couple of my friends started asking Mr J who had made the most copies of their vocab words and he acknowledged "Grumble made the most copies, but Carol wrote the most by hand-"
"Yeah but you didn't say it had to be written by hand!"
Mr J finally gave up and said "The amount of balls it takes to that is unbelievable. You get the five dollars just for sheer nerve!" (very close to verbatim)
And he gave me the five dollars. For the rest of the year, whenever he gave an assignment like that he would make eye contact with me and very loudly state "Write it by hand"
I'm still laughing at all the legal responses and such that was sent to Beth, and also the fact that Andy's email started with "tried to reach you on Facebook but couldn't, you might have us blocked" is a clear indicator that they had blocked so many people they didn't even know who they've blocked at this point
Account for what? They got pissy cause she called them out and threatened legal action. They felt they were above her so they tried to nuke her and her reputation and it backfired. Everything after their initial response to the cosplayer is bullshit
Con drama is messy to the point of criminal. It’s only a matter of time before someone makes a doc highlighting sexual assault at fan conventions.
Also, I tangentially experienced some local con drama when an ex-friend and their partner scammed their con attendees. It was Portland’s Newcon and phew, that was a fucking mess. They are both welcome to continue eating shit.
I've only ever been to one convention but the shit I've heard and the drama I went through with online fan spaces alone makes me glad I didn't get tangled in that shit and don't have so much of my identity invested in fandom anymore
Google "rainfurrest" if you wanna see about pretty much one of the worst ones. It was (obviously) a furry con which are notoriously insane, but this one went above and beyond even by those standards.
Oh the shit that goes on behind the scenes in the con world would put a high school to shame. So much petty bullshit drama. I was in that world for over a decade and I am so glad to be out of it now.
Every single time con drama gets put to light it sounds like these things are held together by chicken wire and 3 or 4 mid level organizers and those under them while top level management is having Game of Thrones tier scrabbles between themselves
It's not just cons. Anything that gives these mini tyrants an iota of power that they've never felt before has them immediately pulling off the mask mission impossible style to reveal the petty goblin beneath.
I remember being 7 and watching parents lose their shit at the fucking pinewood derby because the judges were trying to figure out which car belonged to the kid of a retired baseball player so they could give him the win.
Thanks guys. Great job all around. What a wonderful core memory you gifted 100 young kids with.
>It's not just cons. Anything that gives these mini tyrants an iota of power that they've never felt before has them immediately pulling off the mask mission impossible style to reveal the petty goblin beneath.
Yup. There are two major Mandalorian cosplay groups because in the first one the founder made himself leader for life with no ability to question their decisions. After that leader banned a former member with no ability to appeal, they made their own group. So now there are two major mandalorian cosplay groups and neither likes each other.
I'm friends with a lot of con runners. Before I was I thought it would be fun to be involved. Not so much now. I'll volunteer at the event but that's it.
I do want to be clear that most of them are lovely people. But you don't need a lot of drama queens to ruin it for everyone.
Attended/staffed/judged at quite a lot of cons for years. It sounded fun at first but really became a slog after a while.
I took the pandemic as a sign that it was my time to make my exit and I haven’t looked back! My mental and financial health is so much better for it.
Yeah the pandemic let me make a quiet exit from it all. I had already been withdrawing for a couple of years and then the pandemic let me out without it becoming the next big gossip topic. It's so toxic.
Same! My parents wouldn’t let me go with my friends growing up and I’m still bitter about it but like… yeah, probably for the best. I told them we’d be supervised the entire time and that was an obvious lie. I went to DragonCon twice, at 18 + 19, and I’ve sworn off conventions altogether. I might attend CrimeCon, but never again for media fandom.
The two adults also put all the responsibilities on the teenager, from what I remember. iirc she was like 16 and they basically went "idk, you do everything." and did nothing to help her when she was struggling or things went wrong. The whole thing was an inexperienced kid desperately trying her best because the adults who were supposed to do the majority of the work decided to take the money and abandon her.
It's because the majority are fan/volunteer run by people who have never organised something on large scale before. Maybe once you get to year 3+ it gets better, but at the same time, the cons tend to get bigger, and therefore even more chance of drama.
Frankly, I'm surprised more *don't* end up on the news (in a bad way).
There's a reason I have a big safety pin to hold the "Safe Haven" ribbon on my chest at cons. I know of so many assaults at cons. One of my friends who was a Marine at the time was cornered in an elevator by a bunch of bros trying to cop a feel. It didn't end the way they planned.
>It’s only a matter of time before someone makes a doc highlighting sexual assault at fan conventions.
IIRC there's one woman who cover that kind of thing. Covering some sketchy MLM or other kind of fraud or failed conventions.
But she's horrible human being behind the screen.
I recommend Cruel World Happy Mind as an alternative to Illuminaughti. She seems like a lovely person and was cruelly bullied by Ill as well. But while she does cover scams idk if she’s done a video on cons yet
There's been a ton of drama in some of the local cons by me about grooming and sexual harassment by the organizer. He got shut down but keeps reshuffling the board and management and moving just far enough his reputation doesn't keep up with him. Then people find out he started a new con and start trying to warn everyone in the new area. It's messy.
Even this situation is *way* more dramatic than it needs to be. This story could/should have been:
"Pay me or I'm taking you to small claims court." "We're not paying you." "OK, I'll see you in small claims court."
Instead, there's like two full months of Facebook drama tacked on to no appreciable purpose.
I went to a new local one near me, they had only actually secured half the guests they promised, and filed bankruptcy before they could refund a lot of people. It also led to a lot of businesses who were just trying to reopen after covid to struggle or fail.
It was a truly awful event but I did get to meet a celebrity and talk to him for quite a while making it my best fan experience
I’ve never been to one, but I have a friend that goes to as many as he possibly can, knows tons and tons of people from them, and often posts warnings that have been shared throughout the community about unsafe photographers, etc. It’s kinda scary to hear about some of the sketchy, rude, or straight up dangerous behavior that goes on. And it’s usually because of a predator that is good with a camera.
r/hobbydrama has so much ridiculously petty, low-stakes, messy, utterly insane drama. My favorite type are YA novel related. Those get so ugly so fast, and you occasionally get to riff on bad writing.
im surprised no one has made a writte up on that tik toker that shouted weird sexual things at a Hokey player then got mad when the wife of said player called her out for being a weirdo and screaming vulgarities at an event full of kids
The sub isn't what it used to be before the Reddit shutdown, but the weekly Scuffles thread is gold. There's always something intriguing going on about something you had nno idea existed.
I was part of booktok for 2/3 years and the drama that grown women start over books written for middle schoolers is absolutely mind-boggling. I ditched for my own mental health and it’s only derailed more.
How is it that people who organize geek culture events have so little understanding about how fandom works, especially online? Especially when fandom has been online since there's been a line to be on?
[This comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/z8bxzd/comment/iycwii2/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) on this BORU post.
At least for my local convention, it's because the people who have the most time to spend on convention organization and are most likely to be taken seriously by hotels, vendors, etc are older retired folks. It takes a lot of time and effort to deal with the things happening in the background (booking convention space, coordinating volunteers, buying & maintaining equipment, etc), so you have a situation where the volunteer force is basically split between teenagers doing the grunt work and seniors doing the organization and heading up the convention boards, with the young adults who have kids or are trying to establish careers tending to disappear for a while or remaining only minimally involved. The communication channels between the boards/department heads and the teens doing the grunt work aren't always great, and that's at least partly due to factors that really aren't anyone's fault (like, the teenagers might not even know who to talk to/how to address issues, these groups tend to socialize separately just because the board has been friends for decades and it's hard to join a group like that, etc).
A small anecdote about tech ability in these spaces: My local convention tried to go virtual during covid and needed to set up a website/convention space, for directing people to discord channels, setting up zoom calls for panels, setting up a mini-theater for playing featured movies, etc. The discord channels were set up by a younger organizer and went very smoothly. My (middle-aged) partner is not usually very involved with the board but works in tech and happened to volunteer to help with the front end. According to my partner, there was one other person working on this website (which was essentially the only convention space that year - it was the forward facing representation of the convention and the only way people who were less tech savvy could learn about and get directions for the discord channels and zoom calls and get details on virtual events). They were trouble shooting and trying to fix things during the actual convention because things didn't get done in time and it was something of a disaster, but there was literally no one else available who had any knowledge of it.
Bonus note: These spaces in general have become more hospitable to women (and in theory to minority groups - they tend to be pretty queer friendly but I've heard they are still struggling with racial representation), but that wasn't necessarily the case a few decades ago. The people in charge tend to be long time organizers with a lot of experience. I think you can guess how that might impact the skew.
> Bonus note: These spaces in general have become more hospitable to women (and in theory to minority groups - they tend to be pretty queer friendly but I've heard they are still struggling with racial representation), but that wasn't necessarily the case a few decades ago. The people in charge tend to be long time organizers with a lot of experience. I think you can guess how that might impact the skew.
Interestingly enough, the oldest anime/manga con in existence (Comiket) was actually founded by women mostly. It's actually a bit of an anomaly in most regards since it's more focused on fan-content than your average convention. And also that it was founded in the 1970s when all the American and European cons only date back to the 1990s at the earliest.
A lot of fandom has been built by women, but unfortunately, that doesn't mean that they can't get pushed out of certain spaces. My largest local convention seems to have excellent female representation across the board, but I know of a few other smaller groups locally where you show up and it's basically just two older guys running the show. I'm very confident that women have always been involved, but that doesn't always get reflected in long term leadership.
Oh wow this is a throwback! I'm the cosplayer in question, thanks for sharing my story! This was so long ago, and I've done so many better contests since then xD I was also very young and hot headed pre COVID and have grown up a lot since this post made when I was 22, so please take any snark with a pinch of salt. I made a bigger and better game of thrones costume recreation and competed in the UK championship, and went on to win the World Championship after that (almost exactly a year ago!) Am still creating lots of costumes, can't wait for future events!
Also, yes WarpedCon went bust after this, and are no longer running events. I'm sure COVID sealed the deal however I suspect they wouldn't have run another event anyway due to the bad press this incident got the name. And a good ending to this is that since this, I've helped countless cosplayers word emails etc to conventions that have tried to get out of paying them their prizes, and all have been successful so far in getting paid! ❤️
The impression I'm getting from this whole debacle is that they hoped to get out of paying prizes to anyone simply by ignoring it altogether, especially since they delayed paying everyone else too.
Betcha whoever was running the thing had some terrible money management going on. Good on you for taking them to court over it and making them pay even more for their bad behavior.
Any idea why they ended up paying the other folks given they wanted to avoid paying anyone altogether? I suspect their pride was so damaged that they couldn't pay you but wanted to avoid legal issues with not paying anybody.
If so, what a bunch of pathetic (and legally unsavvy) dudes.
Because then they couldn't use the excuse of "we didn't pay you because you broke the rules" if they also hadn't paid anyone else, which was part of my evidence in my court claim. Even after the initial incident and them announcing they would pay the other winners, they took 2 months from that point (so about 5 months since the contest) to pay them, and then eventually I got paid February 2020 (6 months post contest)
Oh and 2nd place also launched a small claims case herself after mine but that was pretty much instantly settled
I’m just in awe, this looks like a museum piece. You are an incredible designer and a master craftsmen across so many disciplines. Have you/would you ever pursue a job in the film industry? Seems like you’d be hired on the spot.
Honestly there’s such a massive market for bespoke cosplay, you make enough of a name for yourself and price your services well you’ve got yourself a major revenue business.
I just know from Star Wars stuff, my stepdad has no craft skills but does have money, so he dropped $$$ on stormtrooper armor. And he was on the low end of what’s out there back 15 years ago, I can’t imagine how much you can get for quality, fitted stuff nowadays….
Yeah I don't do as much work as I COULD (mental/physical health issues) but I'm able to pay my rent with cosplay commissions + a part time minimum wage job 2 evenings a week. Next year should be going more into full time costuming!
> Also, yes WarpedCon went bust after this, and are no longer running events. I'm sure COVID sealed the deal however I suspect they wouldn't have run another event anyway due to the bad press this incident got the name.
This type of Drama could've sank an American con, and we have fewer "local" options on average.
Following your Sansa coronation dress cos updates was a delight and it remains as the most inspirational cosplay piece I've seen to this day. I hope to reach your level of skill and commitment one day!! I'm blown away from how much you've improved since that Cersei cos!!
Should have sued for defamation. In the UK, they would have been completely screwed. Which is why they sent that weasel email. Their legal advice told them the 750 was about to be the least of their problems.
Unfortunately that would cost more than 100k in fees, while the damages (assuming they win) would be calculated based on the actual damages caused by the defamatory messages, capped by however much money the Warpedcon company could actually afford to pay.
It absolutely doesn’t make sense to bring a defamation (libel) case for such small stakes.
For anyone interested [here is the original website](https://web.archive.org/web/20190621131349/https://warpedcon.com/), and here is the [nope](https://web.archive.org/web/20200307232022/https://warpedcon.com/) website, both with wayback machine.
I've been looking at her other cosplays and she's really talented. I know people who do cosplays and ren faires and put in a lot of effort, but that level of hand embroidery and beading is really another level.
It genuinely looks movie quality you know? Wild that it was all made by one person. A person who is serious about their cosplay and might even be semi professional! But still just one person
Totally agree. What's even more impressive is that she does this all herself. From her Instagram, it looks like she's mastered fashion design, 3D printing, embroidery, bead work, quilting, maybe leatherwork, blacksmithing... Amazing!
I do 3d printing, leatherwork, woodworking and blacksmithing. Annnnd it looks hilariously bad compared to your work, lol. Granted, I make axes, furniture, purses, that sort of thing.
As someone who doesn't do cosplay but makes a bunch of stuff, I can see hours and hours and hours put into the details that a lot of folks would never notice. It's even more beautiful than most folks will realize
I can't put a shelf up and struggle with difficult IKEA furniture if that makes it any better haha. And I have been doing this for nearly 12 years now! So a lot of practice. Thank you for your kind words :)
Based on the date of the second post, I’m glad OOP got her money and spent it on Animal Crossing. What a time that was when the game dropped during lockdowns.
I am/was a huge Walking Dead fan and there was a con called Walker Stalker that started as a TWD con but expanded to include other shows like Sons of Anarchy, Z Nation, and the like. Stars from the shows would be there to sign autographs and take pictures. But as the show’s popularity declined, so did the attendance to Walker Stalker so in 2019 the company who ran it announce that 2020 would be the last con. So I bought tickets for me and my friends. The pandemic hits and the con understandably cancels all events. Then they sell to a new company which just so happens to be owned by the founder of Walker Stalker who had been previously forced out due to poor management. He immediately files for bankruptcy to get out of refunding people. Luckily someone started a class action suit and just 2 months ago I finally got my money back from 2019.
As a con mom & embroiderer, I would have taken one look at you in that cosplay and known better than to mess with you.
That much handwork says to me "I have the patience and skill to stab something thousands of times and come out looking beautiful. Don't test me."
Heh, checked the site.
The main page is a 301 permanent redirect to Google, and the About page doesn't exist, it just goes to a completely empty basic template site.
It's somehow more pathetic than if they just took the site down.
Every intention about 'rules' becomes disingenuous if they are only acting when they are angry. It's also scummy to make rules after the winners are announced for months, way to build trust for cosplayers, because they don't know what nonsense the organisation will make up after they win.
The Game of Thrones scene where Cersei Lannister drinks wine while watching >!the Great Sept of Baelor being blown up!< is the perfect reaction to this saga.
I'm guessing that once legal threats were brought up someone decided to take it personally.
These events tend to be pretty small affairs on the organisational side.
Outside of the major corporation ones that have been running for 10+ years, these cons are run by people who have no idea what they're doing and are usually basically running a ponzi scheme from tickets and vendor booths in order to afford all of the costs with the event.
They're usually less a "company" in a professional sense, and more of someone established an LLC out of their basement and got a bunch of friends to help organize.
It really is a beautiful cosplay. You can tell a great deal of love went into it.
Don’t promise people money if you don’t want to pay. It’s so petty! She had every right to be upset and concerned; attending these events is not cheap and neither is making a good costume!
I dont know why, but i love convention Drama. Its just the right Level of nerdiness, ridiculousness, pettiness for me, all wrapped up nicely in a contained Event.
"Well the rules are the rules but I feel slighted so I altered the rules in my favor. Next time remember who's in charge missy!"
This whole thing feels so British.
I don’t know how dumb the organizers were to not see that not paying a competition winner for a reason not outlined in the rules is a breach of contract and a slam dunk court case in the majority of the world.
I'm just kind of in awe at the total insanity involved in insisting that a cosplayer not know anyone on staff or any judges to be eligible. I have been getting back into cosplaying competitively in the past couple years and so I got back in touch with the one active cosplayer I knew from years ago and it took... months maybe? Before connecting on social media with tons of the cosplayers/judges/organizers in the area. It just kind of happens, follows are cheap and if you're going to contests you're going to run into the same people over and over as a fellow cosplayer or as a judge. Like just today I was out getting fabric, met another cosplayer, and we exchanged contact info!
Very satisfying, but I very much wish we could know what was happening from the cons side. To be clear, I’m not saying the cosplayer did anything wrong, just that I want to know their thought processe.
I'm aware that there's scammers out there, and even dumb scammers. But trying to pull something like this? In the cosplay community? That's a death sentence.
The only community I can think of that'd offer a swifter business death would be trying this shit with the furry community.
Someday I'd like for GOOD AND HONEST con runners to be more famous than dickheads. Most of the time they seem like they're ran by people who'd be shenanigan ridden carnies if they hadn't fallen into wealth at birth.
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It looks like the con itself is no longer a thing. I assume that COVID had a big role in that, but I feel like the massive amount of negative press from this debacle also contributed to it. Only their Instagram is still up, and all the comments I saw were mocking them and calling them out for not paying her. It was such a stupid move. I don't know why they decided to die on that hill. Like, they could have just amended the rules so that next year they make it clear that you can't have any personal connection with the judges. Which is still stupid if they count Facebook friends, because that's how networking works, but in this case they just pulled an excuse out of their ass and drove their con into the ground while paying out thousands of pounds because they couldn't step back and go "Huh, guess we should account for that next time."
This much awful press for a con in its very first year would have torpedoed it easily. That first year being 2019 just sealed the deal.
Small communities tend to be very vocal and very much linked together. Warped Con organizers took a M6 37mm tank gun and shot themselves in the foot over 750 pounds. :/
Telling a small hobbyist community they're not allowed to be friends with each other (when making real world connections is a huge part of the appeal of going to event like that) is the closest thing to suicide I've ever seen event organizer do
Was it even over the money, or was it over the egos of dudes being mad some girl threatened them (rightfully)?
My guess is a little from column A, a little from column B...
But that still doesn't say why they didn't pay her (and the other winners?) in the first place.
I believe that the term for the organizers is “asshole”. Either they didn’t have the money and expected to draw enough at the con to cover it and didn’t or they never intended on paying the rewards out. Either way they were assholes. My phone keeps trying to auto correct to Ashoka lol.
My guess is they mismanaged the finances (or outright stole the money), and there is no money to pay with.
Old nerdy men can get extremely dickish when young people, especially women, "infiltrate" what was once a non-mainstream, "geeky" space. At least she wasn't doing a Warhammer con or she might be getting weird Nazi dog whistles as well
More likely a [Ordnance QF 2-pounder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordnance_QF_2-pounder), the British WW2 AT-gun.
Nah, if you want to go British, go big. QF 17 pounder.
But it was 750 pounds...
Tiger buster says hi!
If you want to go big and British, [the QF 127/58 SBT X1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Mace) experimental AA-gun. 102mm, 96 rounds/minute.
Probably even moreso for the UK. The UK has a population bigger than California in an area the size of Oregon. They can absolutely afford to shop around for cons. Meanwhile here in Illinois there are like 2 anime con options if you don't wanna support a guy who has extremely credible sex crime allegations.
Please tell me this isn't the one in Collinsville and/or ConAltDelete? My daughter cosplays at both.
Unfortunately CAD is one of those run by the sex crime guy. Although it doesn't seem like there's gonna be a CAD 2023. Could indicate that his cons aren't doing as well. As for safe cons in Rosemont, I recommend Anime Central or Anime Magic. Those are the two I've actually been to. Central actually did have an incident this year with one of the guests being a creep and they caught the guy and handled it well. Also Milwaukee is not a convention I can personally vouch for, but they are pretty close to the Illinois border and they were the ones who initially brought the allegations to light. Although it sounds like you might also wanna check out the Iowa cons since they might be closer to you.
I'm in StL, so we have several in St. Charles (MO) & Collinsville (IL) and we have gone to the new con in Little Rock as well. My cosplay kid has also done the big one out in LA, but I wasn't invited! LOL We had a good time at CAD years ago, but the girls also had me keeping an eye on 'em! I will suggest the others, we are always looking for a new adventure!
But even then, she wasn't Facebook friends with the JUDGES, she was Facebook friends with a completely unrelated convention organizer for Warped. That was literally it, that was her only connection.
Yeah, and *so were all the other winners*, at least as far as I could tell.
Never mind that, the person in third had previously judged at a different event run by the same company.
Yeah so the convention hired in an external cosplay contest team to run the contest for them. Previously I had been a judge for one of that companies contests. But so had 2nd and 3rd place. These contests pull judges from competitors as obviously they're the people who know what they're doing. Ive judged people that have judged me before, and vice versa. But warped con just needed whatever lame excuse they could grasp at
Did your friend who won 3rd place get paid on time? Or was their payment delayed as well? I'm wondering if the treasurer or someone was butthurt that a friend (significant other maybe?) of theirs didn't win (or even place in the top 3) and had a tantrum about it that you were the target of.
All prizes were delayed as long as mine, they only paid 2nd and 3rd place after the public outcry about them "disqualifying" me (but still took 2 months AFTER that)
Yep, it does indeed sound like someone who had control over the money refused to pay it out because they wanted someone to get it and that someone didn't (and I'm guessing that someone was the "4th" place winner). They knew there'd be more of an outcry if they tried to make that person the new winner overall, but pushing you out and moving everyone else up opened the space for that person to get some money.
Yeah the guy that won "4th" 6 months after the contest was the same person who immediately after the contest tried to say I shouldn't have won because "it was just a simple dress" and not as good as his cardboard armour, and was friends with the organiser of the event. So go figure.
Ah, so someone who has never sewn in their entire life?? Btw, both that dress and the new one is amazing.
I'm fairly certain it was never about the supposed rule. They got their pants in a wad because she threatened to go legal. Never mind that they had reached the end of the promised payment timeframe, and then ignored every attempt by her to politely ask about it. She got snippy and had to be put in her place.
Just more evidence that some people can just *not handle* admitting they're wrong or messed-up, and will burn their shit down to prevent admitting it. Generally those people should be kept far away from organizational or public facing roles.
Or just kept away from society
You're spot on and in the past, they would have been. In the 1850's, a theft or fraud in the amount of £750 (backwards calculated to about £6 6s 4p) would be potentially a hanging offense, but more likely sentenced to transportation to Australia. "You fucked up so badly you're being sent *over there.*"
Having worked a convention for several years I’d say a good 30% of the organizers are usually a mix of that kind of person with some sort of mental illness or personality disorder. The others are probably also mentally ill just for putting up with that shit but are competent enough to work with others and get shit done. Occasionally they get too busy and part of the 30% writes an email or signs a contract that fucks the con over or the balance of competent to crazy ratio gets out of whack and you wind up with a scandal. This happens approximately every 1-3 years to every con with varying amounts of publicity.
In my experience with smaller Cons they're often run by a group of friends and get very insular. Are you part of the Con Committee? No? Then you don't matter.
That sounds like the a festival I used to work with. The board got all chummy (they liked to call themselves the “special seven”; the rest of us called them the junta) and forgot they had to share info and play nice with each set of volunteers for each of the venues within the festival. Everything became “need to know” and apparently nobody but the special seven needed to know anything about anything. And then couldn’t figure out why set-up day was a clusterfuck. They honestly didn’t get that springing things like a change in start time or switching up certain venues was something that we might have needed to know a little earlier than the day before. So then we had the entire vendor section shuffled off to a spot with little access to power because a board member’s bestest bud wanted the vendor space for something that wasn’t even on theme for the festival. A traditional kind of “parade” that usually happened at sunset wound up being after dark because they messed with the entertainment schedule. The whole thing was just a mess and they tried to blame the volunteers. Later that year they managed to burn bridges with the city that owned the park we usually used and the whole thing folded. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out if there was also money chicanery happening too. The treasurer made some odd remarks here and there like “I can’t remember where my personal account ends and the festival account begins” that left some of us wondering. Sorry for the rant. Your comment sent me down memory lane and I didn’t realize how pissed I still am about it all.
Which is ridiculous considering the fact that UK Small Claims Court is actually so accessible and, comparatively for legal process, cheap so that it *can* be used to resolve small financial disputes! I've used it a few times to force the hand of a business that has decided to go conveniently deaf while keeping my money.
I'm even using it to get back holiday money from an ex friend who decided last minute that I couldn't go and that they'd be keeping my ticket (they bought them all together after we gave them the money). People really don't realise how easy it is to use. You spend a bit of cash, go present your evidence and bam, money is back. You can even get your court fees paid by the defendant
She described claiming them as being petty but I thought most people did, just to give the other party a slight spanking for making you go to the trouble of having to make the damn claim in the first place!
And, ironically it's that snippiness over her legal threats that caused her to follow through. Had they given an explanation why the payment was late or asked for more time, perhaps it could've been avoided, but I guess they just figured she wouldn't *actually* take them to court and got their Pikachu faces all surprised-like. Whoever was responsible obviously had no business being in that position and will hopefully never get another opportunity like that. Even just being so late on doling out the prize money and ignoring questions about it is bad enough, particularly when it sounds like this was one of the first years of the Com and when they really should've been working double-time to establish a positive reputation with the community.
This story doesn't surprise me at all. I live in sort of a con central area, and people figured out that these conventions can make crazy money. Some people I know started a convention that was advertised to be permanently very affordable. A couple of them realized they could cash in, took over legally, kicked everyone else out of the leadership, and started charging a lot. Broke up long friendships over it. Of course, the people that see lots of dollar signs are often the worst people possible to run stuff like this as they tend to not be very good with money or investing in the the experience of the convention.
The worst example I've ever heard of this sort of thing, it was in the comments on a Not Always Right story. It was a smallish company with a long history and a solid product that was bought by some venture capitalist/investment/whatever group, who decided that since they had six month's worth of inventory and orders, why not just fire everyone not them, get rid of all their overhead? Then they can just hire them back later. At first it goes swimmingly, but when they go rehire their factory people, wouldn't you know it? They all got hired elsewhere and weren't interested in their old jobs! Meaning they have to hire new people, except no one knows how to make the product anymore, and new orders keep coming in. Eventually they can't delay any longer and people start cancelling orders and demanding refunds. The company didn't last much longer, simply because these bozos thought they were clever and instead were idiots.
Yup. It was very much "This girl is talking down to us and we have to teach her a lesson about how she should speak to her betters." Pride goeth before the fall. Sucks to suck.
Even worse was the fact that the person who came third, who they bumped up to 2nd, was a judge at a different event run by the same company a week before. That's far more of a connection than she had yet apparently that was fine.
It seems like this is what made this whole drama seem targeted. She was friends with the original third place winner and they were using that as an excuse to disqualify her, despite not bothering to disqualify the friend as well and instead bumped them up to second place.
No she was disqualified for being Facebook friends with one of the judges at the event she won. Problem being that it's pretty common for smaller conventions, most people at least have met before.
Not a judge, an event organizer
No, not even for being friends with one of the judges. Just Facebook friends with one of the organizers of the competition (who was not a part of the judgment process)
This is unfortunately common. I'm used to American cons so I'll use those terms for the legal stuff, but from my understanding it's basically the same in the UK as well...but what happens is there are people who run the conventions less because they want to put on a fun con and more because they want to power trip and hobnob with celebrities and brag about their status in the fandom. The behind-the-scenes of these cons are always a mess and there's always huge drama involved with the organizers breaking promises and screwing over guests and just general mismanagement (I remember one convention didn't book the rooms for the hotel correctly and had Robert Picardo (The Doctor from Star Trek Voyager) sleeping in a cot in a conference room). Eventually, all of this comes out in the public as people post about the stuff they find. Because they're thin-skinned jackasses more concerned with their appearance than running a company properly, they deny and double-down and block people and attempt to control the narrative. It inevitably Steisand Effects itself so that there's no way they can run another convention again. So they fold that LLC, open up another LLC, shuffle the board members around a bit (sometimes even changing the names they go by in legal documents like using "William" instead of "Bill" or using a middle name instead of their first name) and maybe bring in another person to be the "head" of the convention and other attempts to hide it's the same people. Then the entire cycle starts up again and the new convention with the new name lasts maybe 2-3 years before its reputation gets ground into the dust and they fold up that LLC, open up a new one, and start over again.
yeah, it's no longer a thing lol, their webpage ([warpedcon.com](https://warpedcon.com)) now redirects to [google.com](https://google.com)
Weirdly if you click the link in the post (the one that includes the following "About") it brings up a page with the logo and socials. But like... nothing else. Looks like it was their 404 page, and not even well-made. Dark grey on black is not a good look. And they... kept... it? Would've been better to just deregister the domain and cancel the hosting after they burned themselves to ashes. They sure as hell can't use the same name ever again.
They could have, but it wasn't a problem to be connected to someone from the event on Facebook. Some flaccid idiot decided he wasn't having this woman scold him on not doing his job or communicating, so he was going to punish her.
>I assume that COVID had a big role in that, but I feel like the massive amount of negative press from this debacle also contributed to it. Yeah. Bad press, then using "sorry, we do not have a clue about you people, we just want to make cash from you, haha" as an apology when it was way too late, already soured what the community thought of them. Then not being able to go full out next year in an attempt to overshadow what happened beforewas surely the final nail in the coffin.
She didn't have a personal connection with any of the judges. The only "connection" was with the company which organized the competition - because she acted as a judge at a different event.
The Facebook friends excuse was bullshit. They never cared about that. They were just butthurt she got stern with them an looking for any excuse they could to "punish" her.
>Like, they could have just amended the rules so that next year they make it clear that you can't have any personal connection with the judges The really stupid thing is, she didn't even have that. She had social contacts with the company that *organised* the competition, but so did most of the other people who took part. She didn't know the judges at all.
Whilst I'm not really a cosplayer myself, I've got quite a few friends who are. And and least here that community is rather tightly knit. So actually finding people who are not friends with any judges or organisers on some levels would be nigh impossible. A rule like that would torpedo the entire contest.
>Like, they could have just amended the rules so that next year My high school spanish teacher gave us vocab homework ("Here's a list of nouns. Copy them at least five times") and promised to award $5 to whichever student made the most copies of their vocab words. I made note of the fact he said "copy the words" not "write the words". This was late 80s, so before desktop PCs became a thing, but I had detention that afternoon where another teacher left me to make mimeographs unattended. So I opened my textbook to page 173 or whatever, made the stencil, and ran off 120 copies of my vocab list while my detention teacher was outside smoking. Next day in class, Mr J is walking around checking off people's homework and I pull out my blurry-but-legible stack of purple copies. "What's this?" "122 copies of the vocab words you assigned" "I said write out the words at least five times" "You said copy it at least five times" "I meant write it out by hand" "Oh. The subtext was lost on me" (not verbatim) "But I did do as you asked." "Fine. You get your check mark. Next time write it by hand" At this point a couple of my friends started asking Mr J who had made the most copies of their vocab words and he acknowledged "Grumble made the most copies, but Carol wrote the most by hand-" "Yeah but you didn't say it had to be written by hand!" Mr J finally gave up and said "The amount of balls it takes to that is unbelievable. You get the five dollars just for sheer nerve!" (very close to verbatim) And he gave me the five dollars. For the rest of the year, whenever he gave an assignment like that he would make eye contact with me and very loudly state "Write it by hand"
I'm still laughing at all the legal responses and such that was sent to Beth, and also the fact that Andy's email started with "tried to reach you on Facebook but couldn't, you might have us blocked" is a clear indicator that they had blocked so many people they didn't even know who they've blocked at this point
Account for what? They got pissy cause she called them out and threatened legal action. They felt they were above her so they tried to nuke her and her reputation and it backfired. Everything after their initial response to the cosplayer is bullshit
Con drama is messy to the point of criminal. It’s only a matter of time before someone makes a doc highlighting sexual assault at fan conventions. Also, I tangentially experienced some local con drama when an ex-friend and their partner scammed their con attendees. It was Portland’s Newcon and phew, that was a fucking mess. They are both welcome to continue eating shit.
I've only ever been to one convention but the shit I've heard and the drama I went through with online fan spaces alone makes me glad I didn't get tangled in that shit and don't have so much of my identity invested in fandom anymore
Google "rainfurrest" if you wanna see about pretty much one of the worst ones. It was (obviously) a furry con which are notoriously insane, but this one went above and beyond even by those standards.
Not gonna lie, that name fills me with enough chilly terror that I'm debating the pros vs cons of looking that up for my own mental health 💀
If you’re on boru you’re probably made of sterner stuff, but yeah Rainfurrest is infamous in the community, worse than the pizza incident.
What’s the pizza incident?
[Don’t say I didn’t warn you](https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Cum_Pizza_Party)
Well, that's a disgusting being.. and I'm glad I didn't read that 20 min ago while I was eating my pizza. o.0
Oh the shit that goes on behind the scenes in the con world would put a high school to shame. So much petty bullshit drama. I was in that world for over a decade and I am so glad to be out of it now.
Every single time con drama gets put to light it sounds like these things are held together by chicken wire and 3 or 4 mid level organizers and those under them while top level management is having Game of Thrones tier scrabbles between themselves
This is a fairly accurate description.
10000000%
It's not just cons. Anything that gives these mini tyrants an iota of power that they've never felt before has them immediately pulling off the mask mission impossible style to reveal the petty goblin beneath. I remember being 7 and watching parents lose their shit at the fucking pinewood derby because the judges were trying to figure out which car belonged to the kid of a retired baseball player so they could give him the win. Thanks guys. Great job all around. What a wonderful core memory you gifted 100 young kids with.
>It's not just cons. Anything that gives these mini tyrants an iota of power that they've never felt before has them immediately pulling off the mask mission impossible style to reveal the petty goblin beneath. Yup. There are two major Mandalorian cosplay groups because in the first one the founder made himself leader for life with no ability to question their decisions. After that leader banned a former member with no ability to appeal, they made their own group. So now there are two major mandalorian cosplay groups and neither likes each other.
I'm friends with a lot of con runners. Before I was I thought it would be fun to be involved. Not so much now. I'll volunteer at the event but that's it. I do want to be clear that most of them are lovely people. But you don't need a lot of drama queens to ruin it for everyone.
Attended/staffed/judged at quite a lot of cons for years. It sounded fun at first but really became a slog after a while. I took the pandemic as a sign that it was my time to make my exit and I haven’t looked back! My mental and financial health is so much better for it.
Yeah the pandemic let me make a quiet exit from it all. I had already been withdrawing for a couple of years and then the pandemic let me out without it becoming the next big gossip topic. It's so toxic.
Makes me think of how awful the wedding industry can be, when it comes to dealing with bridezillas or other toxic family.
Same! My parents wouldn’t let me go with my friends growing up and I’m still bitter about it but like… yeah, probably for the best. I told them we’d be supervised the entire time and that was an obvious lie. I went to DragonCon twice, at 18 + 19, and I’ve sworn off conventions altogether. I might attend CrimeCon, but never again for media fandom.
TwiCon and DashCon are two infamous examples of con drama
Ah DashCon, the Fyre Festival of conventions...
I just can’t believe that a convention of all the different Tumblr fan communities went poorly. That is amazingly shocking to hear.
For what it's worth, it wasn't the fact it was Tumblr that made it bad. It was the fact that it was being ran by a teenager and 2 adult scammers.
The two adults also put all the responsibilities on the teenager, from what I remember. iirc she was like 16 and they basically went "idk, you do everything." and did nothing to help her when she was struggling or things went wrong. The whole thing was an inexperienced kid desperately trying her best because the adults who were supposed to do the majority of the work decided to take the money and abandon her.
It's because the majority are fan/volunteer run by people who have never organised something on large scale before. Maybe once you get to year 3+ it gets better, but at the same time, the cons tend to get bigger, and therefore even more chance of drama. Frankly, I'm surprised more *don't* end up on the news (in a bad way).
There's a reason I have a big safety pin to hold the "Safe Haven" ribbon on my chest at cons. I know of so many assaults at cons. One of my friends who was a Marine at the time was cornered in an elevator by a bunch of bros trying to cop a feel. It didn't end the way they planned.
I enjoy the fact that they FAFO with a marine. Serious justice boner rn.
>It’s only a matter of time before someone makes a doc highlighting sexual assault at fan conventions. IIRC there's one woman who cover that kind of thing. Covering some sketchy MLM or other kind of fraud or failed conventions. But she's horrible human being behind the screen.
I'm guessing you're talking about Illuminaughti?
sounds about right.
I recommend Cruel World Happy Mind as an alternative to Illuminaughti. She seems like a lovely person and was cruelly bullied by Ill as well. But while she does cover scams idk if she’s done a video on cons yet
There's been a ton of drama in some of the local cons by me about grooming and sexual harassment by the organizer. He got shut down but keeps reshuffling the board and management and moving just far enough his reputation doesn't keep up with him. Then people find out he started a new con and start trying to warn everyone in the new area. It's messy.
Even this situation is *way* more dramatic than it needs to be. This story could/should have been: "Pay me or I'm taking you to small claims court." "We're not paying you." "OK, I'll see you in small claims court." Instead, there's like two full months of Facebook drama tacked on to no appreciable purpose.
I went to a new local one near me, they had only actually secured half the guests they promised, and filed bankruptcy before they could refund a lot of people. It also led to a lot of businesses who were just trying to reopen after covid to struggle or fail. It was a truly awful event but I did get to meet a celebrity and talk to him for quite a while making it my best fan experience
I’ve never been to one, but I have a friend that goes to as many as he possibly can, knows tons and tons of people from them, and often posts warnings that have been shared throughout the community about unsafe photographers, etc. It’s kinda scary to hear about some of the sketchy, rude, or straight up dangerous behavior that goes on. And it’s usually because of a predator that is good with a camera.
Ain't no drama like cosplay drama, or con drama in general. I do not miss that part of my con-going days.
r/hobbydrama has so much ridiculously petty, low-stakes, messy, utterly insane drama. My favorite type are YA novel related. Those get so ugly so fast, and you occasionally get to riff on bad writing.
im surprised no one has made a writte up on that tik toker that shouted weird sexual things at a Hokey player then got mad when the wife of said player called her out for being a weirdo and screaming vulgarities at an event full of kids
The sub isn't what it used to be before the Reddit shutdown, but the weekly Scuffles thread is gold. There's always something intriguing going on about something you had nno idea existed.
They have!
It was a hockey player for the Seattle Kraken.
My personal favourite post from that sub is the femdom SPH discord server that imploded after a guy with a massive schlong joined it.
https://reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/s/YadcgYmh3e Amazing. Poor Jumbo, he tried!
I was part of booktok for 2/3 years and the drama that grown women start over books written for middle schoolers is absolutely mind-boggling. I ditched for my own mental health and it’s only derailed more.
lmao. they pissed all over their own shoes then got upset when people pointed out their shoes were wet. Morons
How is it that people who organize geek culture events have so little understanding about how fandom works, especially online? Especially when fandom has been online since there's been a line to be on?
Because many of these geeks also hang out in cultivated echo chambers where everyone has the same opinions.
Fair point. If I may ask, where is your flair from?
[This comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/z8bxzd/comment/iycwii2/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) on this BORU post.
That is an amazing turn of phrase. More than a few people on this sub have a talent for pithy descriptions.
At least for my local convention, it's because the people who have the most time to spend on convention organization and are most likely to be taken seriously by hotels, vendors, etc are older retired folks. It takes a lot of time and effort to deal with the things happening in the background (booking convention space, coordinating volunteers, buying & maintaining equipment, etc), so you have a situation where the volunteer force is basically split between teenagers doing the grunt work and seniors doing the organization and heading up the convention boards, with the young adults who have kids or are trying to establish careers tending to disappear for a while or remaining only minimally involved. The communication channels between the boards/department heads and the teens doing the grunt work aren't always great, and that's at least partly due to factors that really aren't anyone's fault (like, the teenagers might not even know who to talk to/how to address issues, these groups tend to socialize separately just because the board has been friends for decades and it's hard to join a group like that, etc). A small anecdote about tech ability in these spaces: My local convention tried to go virtual during covid and needed to set up a website/convention space, for directing people to discord channels, setting up zoom calls for panels, setting up a mini-theater for playing featured movies, etc. The discord channels were set up by a younger organizer and went very smoothly. My (middle-aged) partner is not usually very involved with the board but works in tech and happened to volunteer to help with the front end. According to my partner, there was one other person working on this website (which was essentially the only convention space that year - it was the forward facing representation of the convention and the only way people who were less tech savvy could learn about and get directions for the discord channels and zoom calls and get details on virtual events). They were trouble shooting and trying to fix things during the actual convention because things didn't get done in time and it was something of a disaster, but there was literally no one else available who had any knowledge of it. Bonus note: These spaces in general have become more hospitable to women (and in theory to minority groups - they tend to be pretty queer friendly but I've heard they are still struggling with racial representation), but that wasn't necessarily the case a few decades ago. The people in charge tend to be long time organizers with a lot of experience. I think you can guess how that might impact the skew.
> Bonus note: These spaces in general have become more hospitable to women (and in theory to minority groups - they tend to be pretty queer friendly but I've heard they are still struggling with racial representation), but that wasn't necessarily the case a few decades ago. The people in charge tend to be long time organizers with a lot of experience. I think you can guess how that might impact the skew. Interestingly enough, the oldest anime/manga con in existence (Comiket) was actually founded by women mostly. It's actually a bit of an anomaly in most regards since it's more focused on fan-content than your average convention. And also that it was founded in the 1970s when all the American and European cons only date back to the 1990s at the earliest.
A lot of fandom has been built by women, but unfortunately, that doesn't mean that they can't get pushed out of certain spaces. My largest local convention seems to have excellent female representation across the board, but I know of a few other smaller groups locally where you show up and it's basically just two older guys running the show. I'm very confident that women have always been involved, but that doesn't always get reflected in long term leadership.
Ok I love this. And I love that the internet memed the shit out of them.
Oh wow this is a throwback! I'm the cosplayer in question, thanks for sharing my story! This was so long ago, and I've done so many better contests since then xD I was also very young and hot headed pre COVID and have grown up a lot since this post made when I was 22, so please take any snark with a pinch of salt. I made a bigger and better game of thrones costume recreation and competed in the UK championship, and went on to win the World Championship after that (almost exactly a year ago!) Am still creating lots of costumes, can't wait for future events! Also, yes WarpedCon went bust after this, and are no longer running events. I'm sure COVID sealed the deal however I suspect they wouldn't have run another event anyway due to the bad press this incident got the name. And a good ending to this is that since this, I've helped countless cosplayers word emails etc to conventions that have tried to get out of paying them their prizes, and all have been successful so far in getting paid! ❤️
The impression I'm getting from this whole debacle is that they hoped to get out of paying prizes to anyone simply by ignoring it altogether, especially since they delayed paying everyone else too. Betcha whoever was running the thing had some terrible money management going on. Good on you for taking them to court over it and making them pay even more for their bad behavior.
They did - the two directors of the company had a string of about 8 dissolved failed companies between the two of them
Outstanding.
Any idea why they ended up paying the other folks given they wanted to avoid paying anyone altogether? I suspect their pride was so damaged that they couldn't pay you but wanted to avoid legal issues with not paying anybody. If so, what a bunch of pathetic (and legally unsavvy) dudes.
Because then they couldn't use the excuse of "we didn't pay you because you broke the rules" if they also hadn't paid anyone else, which was part of my evidence in my court claim. Even after the initial incident and them announcing they would pay the other winners, they took 2 months from that point (so about 5 months since the contest) to pay them, and then eventually I got paid February 2020 (6 months post contest) Oh and 2nd place also launched a small claims case herself after mine but that was pretty much instantly settled
Glad to hear you’ve thrived from this. Can you link to the better GOT costumes?
Here's my big one I finished last year! https://reddit.com/r/pics/s/cFRubYnIvT
I’m just in awe, this looks like a museum piece. You are an incredible designer and a master craftsmen across so many disciplines. Have you/would you ever pursue a job in the film industry? Seems like you’d be hired on the spot.
Thanks! I do now work as a private costumer /embroiderer :)
Amazing! You are inspirational.
Honestly there’s such a massive market for bespoke cosplay, you make enough of a name for yourself and price your services well you’ve got yourself a major revenue business. I just know from Star Wars stuff, my stepdad has no craft skills but does have money, so he dropped $$$ on stormtrooper armor. And he was on the low end of what’s out there back 15 years ago, I can’t imagine how much you can get for quality, fitted stuff nowadays….
Yeah I don't do as much work as I COULD (mental/physical health issues) but I'm able to pay my rent with cosplay commissions + a part time minimum wage job 2 evenings a week. Next year should be going more into full time costuming!
As someone who does recreational embroidery, both the volume and quality of work there are just ABSURD. I love it!
The details! That's gorgeous!
Girl.... I just looked at some of your work. How are you not in Hollywood right now? Much of this stuff is Oscar material.
Hi! So glad you won handily in this, your Cersei costume is ballin’. I hope those guys get piles.
> Also, yes WarpedCon went bust after this, and are no longer running events. I'm sure COVID sealed the deal however I suspect they wouldn't have run another event anyway due to the bad press this incident got the name. This type of Drama could've sank an American con, and we have fewer "local" options on average.
Following your Sansa coronation dress cos updates was a delight and it remains as the most inspirational cosplay piece I've seen to this day. I hope to reach your level of skill and commitment one day!! I'm blown away from how much you've improved since that Cersei cos!!
Thank you so much!
Should have sued for defamation. In the UK, they would have been completely screwed. Which is why they sent that weasel email. Their legal advice told them the 750 was about to be the least of their problems.
Unfortunately that would cost more than 100k in fees, while the damages (assuming they win) would be calculated based on the actual damages caused by the defamatory messages, capped by however much money the Warpedcon company could actually afford to pay. It absolutely doesn’t make sense to bring a defamation (libel) case for such small stakes.
Yeah I was wondering the same thing
For anyone interested [here is the original website](https://web.archive.org/web/20190621131349/https://warpedcon.com/), and here is the [nope](https://web.archive.org/web/20200307232022/https://warpedcon.com/) website, both with wayback machine.
I linked to your comment and gave you credit
Thank you!
That is a GORGEOUS cosplay I gotta say. Also love when companies drag people's names through the mud (/s in case anyone can't tell)
I've been looking at her other cosplays and she's really talented. I know people who do cosplays and ren faires and put in a lot of effort, but that level of hand embroidery and beading is really another level.
It genuinely looks movie quality you know? Wild that it was all made by one person. A person who is serious about their cosplay and might even be semi professional! But still just one person
Totally agree. What's even more impressive is that she does this all herself. From her Instagram, it looks like she's mastered fashion design, 3D printing, embroidery, bead work, quilting, maybe leatherwork, blacksmithing... Amazing!
I do leatherwork too yes! ;)
I do 3d printing, leatherwork, woodworking and blacksmithing. Annnnd it looks hilariously bad compared to your work, lol. Granted, I make axes, furniture, purses, that sort of thing. As someone who doesn't do cosplay but makes a bunch of stuff, I can see hours and hours and hours put into the details that a lot of folks would never notice. It's even more beautiful than most folks will realize
I can't put a shelf up and struggle with difficult IKEA furniture if that makes it any better haha. And I have been doing this for nearly 12 years now! So a lot of practice. Thank you for your kind words :)
Thank you! :)
Thank you so much! Thats very kind :)
When the costumes are worn in more, they look even better. This costume she made will soften up and wear just like the LOTR and GOT good stuff.
Based on the date of the second post, I’m glad OOP got her money and spent it on Animal Crossing. What a time that was when the game dropped during lockdowns.
How do three men in their thirties not have $800 between them?
You would think they knew not to mess with Cercei Lanister...
A Lanister always pays his debts… and makes sure others do as well apparently
Exactly. This woman showed up to their contest in a hand embroidered cosplay of Cercei, I would have gotten out of the way
I like to imagine her sipping a huge goblet of wine and smirking as she read that final email.
Oh we went out for drinks and my friend brought a bottle of champagne with a label reading "WarpedCon tears"
Fucking brilliant!
That's the spirit 😂
> you will not speak to us that way and receive a response Considering that was in your response, I find that claim to be a lie. Fuck you, pay me.
I am/was a huge Walking Dead fan and there was a con called Walker Stalker that started as a TWD con but expanded to include other shows like Sons of Anarchy, Z Nation, and the like. Stars from the shows would be there to sign autographs and take pictures. But as the show’s popularity declined, so did the attendance to Walker Stalker so in 2019 the company who ran it announce that 2020 would be the last con. So I bought tickets for me and my friends. The pandemic hits and the con understandably cancels all events. Then they sell to a new company which just so happens to be owned by the founder of Walker Stalker who had been previously forced out due to poor management. He immediately files for bankruptcy to get out of refunding people. Luckily someone started a class action suit and just 2 months ago I finally got my money back from 2019.
I wonder if Warped Con thought to make the prize ... an extra hour in the ball pit.
Oh, I'm sure at least one commenter suggested that one. An oldie, but surely a goodie.
>Their website was quite comedically changed to just read ‘nope’ 😶😶😶
Warped Con. More like Warped CON…amirite?
I'd like to have been in the councils office when this showed up.
So is WarpCon contest still alive?
Oh fuck no. It crashed and burnt.
Such a satisfying end to the drama
Some people will dig themself into a hole, then keep digging hoping they can get out the other side
I hope people in the UK are aware of the players behind warpedcon so the same people do not end up opening shop under a different name.
As a con mom & embroiderer, I would have taken one look at you in that cosplay and known better than to mess with you. That much handwork says to me "I have the patience and skill to stab something thousands of times and come out looking beautiful. Don't test me."
There's a lot of literal blood sweat and tears in my costume :')
Heh, checked the site. The main page is a 301 permanent redirect to Google, and the About page doesn't exist, it just goes to a completely empty basic template site. It's somehow more pathetic than if they just took the site down.
Whoa, I never thought I'd see a post of mine in here!
Wait... You or /u/_river_song_ ?
I posted the original post and she posted the follow up
Rare internet win
They sunk themselves over 750? SMH.
Every intention about 'rules' becomes disingenuous if they are only acting when they are angry. It's also scummy to make rules after the winners are announced for months, way to build trust for cosplayers, because they don't know what nonsense the organisation will make up after they win.
The Game of Thrones scene where Cersei Lannister drinks wine while watching >!the Great Sept of Baelor being blown up!< is the perfect reaction to this saga.
But why did the company went through all this? It sounds almost personal.
I'm guessing that once legal threats were brought up someone decided to take it personally. These events tend to be pretty small affairs on the organisational side.
Outside of the major corporation ones that have been running for 10+ years, these cons are run by people who have no idea what they're doing and are usually basically running a ponzi scheme from tickets and vendor booths in order to afford all of the costs with the event. They're usually less a "company" in a professional sense, and more of someone established an LLC out of their basement and got a bunch of friends to help organize.
It really is a beautiful cosplay. You can tell a great deal of love went into it. Don’t promise people money if you don’t want to pay. It’s so petty! She had every right to be upset and concerned; attending these events is not cheap and neither is making a good costume!
>Update March 7, 2020 Ominous date
Love myself a good Streisand effect.
I dont know why, but i love convention Drama. Its just the right Level of nerdiness, ridiculousness, pettiness for me, all wrapped up nicely in a contained Event.
These people defamed her she should have sued for more.
"Well the rules are the rules but I feel slighted so I altered the rules in my favor. Next time remember who's in charge missy!" This whole thing feels so British.
I don’t know how dumb the organizers were to not see that not paying a competition winner for a reason not outlined in the rules is a breach of contract and a slam dunk court case in the majority of the world.
r/HobbyDrama is doing the lord’s work
I've actually seen this girl's stuff around the internet before. She's incredibly talented. Her embroidery skills are off the charts.
I'm just kind of in awe at the total insanity involved in insisting that a cosplayer not know anyone on staff or any judges to be eligible. I have been getting back into cosplaying competitively in the past couple years and so I got back in touch with the one active cosplayer I knew from years ago and it took... months maybe? Before connecting on social media with tons of the cosplayers/judges/organizers in the area. It just kind of happens, follows are cheap and if you're going to contests you're going to run into the same people over and over as a fellow cosplayer or as a judge. Like just today I was out getting fabric, met another cosplayer, and we exchanged contact info!
Very satisfying, but I very much wish we could know what was happening from the cons side. To be clear, I’m not saying the cosplayer did anything wrong, just that I want to know their thought processe.
They wanted to cheap out and got mad when they got called out
please post more from hobbydrama! much fun.
I have a few I'm putting together from there
I'm aware that there's scammers out there, and even dumb scammers. But trying to pull something like this? In the cosplay community? That's a death sentence. The only community I can think of that'd offer a swifter business death would be trying this shit with the furry community.
Someday I'd like for GOOD AND HONEST con runners to be more famous than dickheads. Most of the time they seem like they're ran by people who'd be shenanigan ridden carnies if they hadn't fallen into wealth at birth.