Because of the events of the Fyre Festival, I decided that it was time to educate people on safe con/festival practices again. Knowing how to spot something fishy BEFORE you give them your money is important, and I feel like maybe Dashcon was too long ago and we need to have this conversation again
This is all super good advice but I’m left with a burning question — the LOTR con that never happened? Do tell
The short version is that a person who is both a con artist and a bit of a cult leader once ‘organized’ a lotr con but when fans and actors showed up there was nothing booked or organized at all and they ran with the money, leaving at least one financial baker in shit and in dept.
The full story involves at least four fandoms, several cults, three cons, a murder-suicide and a hike to canada, and it’s a bit of infamous fandom history (strap on for a wild ride, someone took care to keep the archives even after fandom wank was closed down): http://www.thefanthropologist.com/?p=215
AND THIS IS WHY YOUNG FANS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THESE THINGS this weirdo is still around
Woah
A couple suggestions that are specific to conventions:
Look at the application processes for dealers, artists, panelists, etc. If there’s no deadline, or it’s close to the time of the event and registration for those categories is open with no mention of how many remaining spaces there are, that’s a sign that they’re not worried about the possibility of those spaces filling up – and since many smaller conventions are planned have on-site registration, even if the convention has been going on for nearly 50 years, it’s a better metric than attendee registration plans IMO.
Look at the guests’ social media page and see if they’re promoting the convention as a place that they’ll appear. If not, ask – “Hey, which days are you going to be at such-and-such convention/what panels are you on/will you be doing signings?” and see if whoever’s running their social media page is well-informed on the guest’s schedule, activities, or even the existence of the convention.
Look at promotion. Is it, say, being advertised only on Instagram? If you google “[genre] conventions” or “comic conventions in [region]” is anything coming up? Go back on the con’s social media timeline – are they making a lot of frequent changes to the schedule, guests, venues, etc? Are they constantly pushing announcements of guests, schedules, etc back further and further? Are there other constant changes or stalling in response to questions?
So those are the ones I can think of right away.
All this about making sure events are legit is super important, but I’m mostly reblogging this because of the fanthropologist link up there about andythanfiction.
I was briefly mutuals with Andy back in 2012 (yeah… yikes…) and I have no doubt that he’s every bit as dangerous as the stuff in the link says he is. I certainly saw the delusions in real time.
Every time he joins a new fandom he follows the exact same patterns–claiming to have changed or to have not been responsible for previous behaviour, and then drawing vulnerable people in just to fuck them over.
He’s no longer active in the SPN fandom, but he moved over to MCU–specifically Stucky fandom. I’ve seen photos of him in Bucky cosplay circulating in the past year, and I legitimately worry about any young fans who might get sucked in to whatever scam and/or cult he starts up next.
Do not interact with him.
If you’re already familiar with him but not the backstory, please read the link above and google his name for more evidence/first hand accounts about his past behaviour.
Just… look after yourselves, guys.
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