#firstyearcon

This picture was taken at Anime Conji 2010! This was the inaugural year for the con, and let me tell you, it was full of glorious chaos. As the first major anime con in San Diego, a ton of anime and manga fans showed up.

I remember the registration line was absolutely swamped, but that didn't stop anyone from having a good time. A super kind touch was the hotel staff giving out a bunch of free cookies to keep everyone's spirits up!

(this post will be updated as more hilarity is found)

Well it looks like a first year con is doing everything that a first year con shouldn’t do:  alienate artists and vendors by silencing criticism, sell “space” (tables and booths) when you don’t even have a venue, and have a Social media manager that has the ego the size of Texas, run your facebook page

So slowly updating throughout the day, a little known (less than 1000 likes on their Facebook Page btw) convention to be held in Arizona (more than a year from now), posted the pricing of their Vendor booths, Artist Alley tables, CRAFT Tables (yes, if you do crafts, you are not an artist apparently), Kickstarter tables (what the actual fuck?), and Vendors

Mind you, this is a first year con. With NO Venue booked. No guarantee of how many people are expected to attend

http://www.outlawcomicon.com/

400 days out (as of this writing) and they want people to pay for space, that isn’t even booked. $250 for an ARTIST ALLEY TABLE, $550 for a CRAFTERS table, and $750-$1000 for A VENDOR space. Kickstarter tables are free, but will be “given” out to whomever  they decide they want (Mind you, I‘ve been tabling at SacAnime for 3 years now, and the most I’ve paid for a table there, was $160 with electric hook up, and vendors pay ~$500 for a 10x10 space)

This is where the hilarity starts.

First: they badmouth JIM (fucking) LEE, because he declined their invitation, and “guess” that he wouldn’t attend because the con is not worth it (never mind that maybe JIM LEE has other obligations...like his job), and thinks that 10,000 likes (remember on a page with only 750 likes), would sway Jim Lee to attend:

Then they post this little attack against artists on their Facebook Page, because having prices for tables for an UNBOOKED venue is like putting the cart before the horse. Notice his lovely “reply” to those posting concerns about their pricing structure:

It gets better. 

Remember, the con doesn’t have a BOOKED venue yet. That means, there is no location. Not even an inkling of where its going to be hosted. Just somewhere in Pheonix, AZ; so this Texas sized ego man, started to work on a Exhibition hall layout.. which anyone with two neurons firing, can see this nutjob, has no freaking clue on how to set up/layout an Artist Alley, and Exhibitor hall.

Yeah, even though I don’t run a con, but having attended several cons as an artist, can see that this person has no freaking clue how traffic flow works, or how booths are setup and laid out. I guess he thinks Artist alley is an ACTUAL freaking “alley” in the middle of the room. And the FUN doesn’t stop there! Some artists voiced their concerns over this cons attitude toward artists. So artist have been replying to the post all day, pointing out that this is  not a way to attract vendors and artists to the con. So you’d think that maybe, the guy running the Facebook Page would be like “We are hearing you, and as you know, the con is still over a year away, so we will work with our vendors and artists as we get closer..” or something cordial...nope..

He fucking bans you from the page. What a way to attract artists, dickweed. Here are more screens from now that “moderated” post, where comments from artists who were asking about the justification of the prices, and his direct attack on crafters, are now deleted, and these artists are now banned from the page: