Non-Chivalry of a Failed Con

With planning any event, let alone a large scale undertaking like a Con, there are always things that can go wrong, or at the bare minimum, not as expected.

All Kickstarter projects are required to have a Risks and Challenges section, and this opening statement from the fundraising page for Universal Fan Con — whose name was later stylized as Universal FanCon — would turn out to be an understatement for its supporters.

You see, in case you missed it, Universal Fan Con was postponed as of April 20th. The event was to start April 27th.

So what happened? What went wrong?

According to Jamie Broadnax of Black Nerd Girls, “Universal Fan Con was an idea born as a collective. We as fans and geeks of the online community with our respective brands decided to launch the idea of a convention for fans from marginalized communities to have a safe space to celebrate their fandoms.”

In December 2016, the event was formally announced to the world: Universal Fan Con. This would be a cross-genre convention covering all media. However, Universal FanCon had a twist; it would focus on and highlight women and minorities: persons who are non-white, LGBTQ, and/or disabled. Set for the last weekend of April 2018, the organizers launched a Kickstarter for initial funds. The page discussed the goal of having at least 10,000 con-goers and touted TV star Lamorne Morris (New Girl) as their first celebrity partnership. The campaign’s goal was $25,000, and the reward tiers included swag, passes, VIP experiences, and hotel reservations. One person pledged $5,000 for the Sponsorship Package.

The campaign ended with almost 1,200 backers and over $56,000 in funds. According to the Kickstarter page, everyone who gave money would “be recognized as a stakeholder”; a later update announced all backers would given a lifetime membership pass if they came the first year.

In that same post-Kickstarter update, Universal Fan Con thanked the fans and said, “So take note, hotels have been reserved, and the contract for the convention center has been signed, Universal Fan Con is officially ON!”

Only two other updates were posted on the Kickstarter page: one in April 2017 to announce when event ticket sales would open and the other in March 2018 to remind backers to claim their tickets or else they would be donated. Social media accounts for the various ambassadors and chairpeople were far more active. Guests were announced, and organizers gave away free experiences, free screenings of Black Panther and other movies, and offered other discounts.

https://twitter.com/UniversalFanCon/status/959899638907260935

Tickets were also available to purchase at a discount on Groupon.

The schedule was ready as of April 19th.

https://twitter.com/UniversalFanCon/status/987044890575097857

Well, the next morning, Kickstarter backers who pledged $250 or more were stunned to see an email stating their reservations were canceled. After much panicking, it was official: Universal FanCon would not be held April 27th to April 29th. It was “postponed until further notice”. As of this writing, fans who bought their tickets through ShowClix were being refunded, and updates say they’re “working on refunds” for other would-be visitors and guests, although the Avengers: Infinity War screening was still on.

Various organizations pulled together to have a one-day event so that out-of-towners and ticketholders didn’t have their plans completely ruined, even offering digital alternatives.

This isn’t the first convention to be canceled or shoddily put together. The Midwest Media Expo in 2017 was called off three days before the event. Dashcon will forever live as a meme thanks to a ball pit replacing the hosts of a podcast, but what’s even worse is the fundraising they had to do at the convention in order to not be kicked out of the hotel.

Universal FanCon

Now, back to Universal Fan Con. Here’s the part where there’s a lot of confusion… or what seems like backtracking. Several other articles have done some Internet sleuthing or are posts sharing personal insight. I’ll leave it up to you to determine the veracity, but here are some of the points that stood out to me along with my thoughts.

Blerdgurl believes the venue cost about $40,000. Kickstarter takes about 10% in fees, so that means the organizers behind Universal FanCon would have had about $10,000 to cover the 13 one-night stays and 22 two-night stays. That would be cutting it rather close in a normal situation, but they still had to pay for programs, guests, merchandise, and staff. Even if the original $25,000 was just to supplement outside fundraising, it sounds like they really low-balled everything.

Speaking of low-balling, Rosie Knight and Jazmine Joyner at Women Write About Comics breaks down the costs and compares it to normal convention prices. Long story short, the number for celebrity photo ops and passes add up quickly, especially if the guests weren’t getting the profits they normally would at conventions. If Universal FanCon was planning on reimbursing for the photo ops, that’s even more money from the money raised.

In this same article along with articles from Nerd & Tie, Daily Dot, The Root, and Gizmodo’s io9 highlight one particular individual: Thai Pham. Pham was an organizer for an new LGBT convention in California called PrideCon that was called off without refunds. PrideCon also raised money through a little site called Kickstarter. Sound familiar?

Nerd & Tie goes even further, pointing out that Pham’s Touzai Company did manage to put on a TouhouCon. The second year, though, vendors were angered when they were charged for rooms that were supposed to be covered by TouhouCon. Although announced, a third TouhouCon never happened.

Twitter user @ProfessorShyGuy points out that Universal FanCon’s guest questionnaire actually had “PrideCon” in the survey.

Most likely, either Pham was brought on because he had so many unused resources from PrideCon, or he joined because he saw Universal Fan Con as a way to recycle all his assets and recoup his losses.

Instagram and Facebook posts say not to blame Pham or “contractors or volunteer staff”.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bh5adnWnKie/

While it’s arguable that they are downplaying the role of the former Vice President of Convention Operations & Entertainment, Jamie Broadnax says she was an unpaid volunteer. She billed herself as a co-founder, and her original statement says she was “promised part of the profits” — again, pointing more to being involved than just promoting it.

She and the official Universal FanCon account, as Knight and Joyner points out, were pushing for sponsorships from places like Starbucks as late as April 18th, even though she reportedly knew of the financial troubles as of April 3rd.

Quirktastic shares some other Twitter users’ alleged grievances with Broadnax and her brand, Black Nerd Girls, which she has stepped away from for now. Others say she’s being unfairly targeted among the core convention staff.

Regardless of what involvement she had, at least she’s a person. The Women Write About Comics article makes a credible argument that the Vice President of Marketing and Sales, Tom Leonard, might not even a person at all but a bot — one that specializes in multi-level marketing, which is often synonymous or indistinguishable from pyramid schemes.

An even bigger faux pas (to say it mildly) is the fact that the hotel cancellations were CC’d, meaning e-mail addresses were exposed to strangers.

There are other points of interest. Comics Beat has their own short round-up that would be a good place to start for more information. Some people say they saw this coming or ignored the signs, and the event was only cancelled when it became clear that a Go Fund Me would be nowhere enough to cover expenses, and organizers were reportedly frustrated if not outwardly rude about the struggles with finances and refused to scale back a first-year event. Notice of money problems among affiliates and convention staff emerged as early as February.

Co-founder Robert Butler, in a deleted Twitter thread, blamed the hotel for essentially spoiling the surprise that the event wasn’t being held at Baltimore Convention Center and/or that specific weekend.

Of course, this begs the question, when WOULD they have announced their change of plans? Four days before? Two days? The day of?

In fact, as far as Monday, April 23rd, some vendors and ticketholders still hadn’t received official word of its cancellation, and notices may have only been officially sent out on the 25th.

Even the original Kickstarter page was never updated to inform backers of Universal Fan Con being “postponed” or information on how/if they will be made whole.

So, in short, a couple of Internet celebrities had an admirable goal of having an open-to-all convention, teamed up with someone trying to get back in the circuit, and they all overestimated the value of their brand while underestimating the actual costs of running a convention. Canceling may be the only logical outcome in such a situation, but it does nothing for the hordes of people who found their travel plans upheaved and feel like their money has been stolen, even if the pop-up WICOMICON turned out to be a solid alternative considering.

As I’ve discussed before, Kickstarter is a risk. Don’t pledge any more than you can afford to lose. In this case, I would say it’s more likely than not that the $56,000 is gone forever. If Universal Fan Con did spend the majority of its Kickstarter funds on a venue, then that might be enough to constitute good effort to make it happen, especially if they also spent time and money on advertising. If Broadnax is correct, bills were racked up in excess of $400,000, $70,000 of which was due April 20th. Even if their foundation money is somehow actually part of a general fund that can be used to pay off debts, it is still unlikely that Kickstarter backers will get their money back. By also labeling it as postponed, the creators could argue that they haven’t failed just yet, so there is no need to refund.

So for anyone hoping to start their own con one day: take advice of the old adage of under-promise and over-deliver. You can’t aim to be the next Otakon or Comic-Con in one year. If something goes wrong, hiding only makes it worse for all involved. Also, make sure to hire people will reliable, proven experience. It may seem like an obvious recommendation, but it seems like many people have ruined much of their financial and social capital because they decided to cosplay as capable convention executives instead of going as themselves: excited fans.

This situation should also serve as reminder to always have a backup plan. Whether going to a brand-new convention or an established one like Anime Expo, what would you do if the weather started acting up? Your credit card number got stolen, you needed to get a new card, but the hotel canceled in the meantime? Your supplies as a vendor wound up on the wrong truck and got sent to a different location? Would you be okay with losing airline miles if you don’t have travel insurance? The likelihood may be small, but someday you too may face a similar situation to the unfortunate supporters of Universal Fan Con.

Were you one of the people who planned on going to Universal Fan Con? Regardless of whether you were or not, what do you make of the whole situation? Was this a set of simple missteps that went off-track, or was this a systematic concealing of the truth?