How do you feel today? 5

[michelanCello]

We wants it now, my precioussss!

[Catch-up]

Meer good to see you! Sorry about your hips though. Is there anything they can do for it?

Cheery, there-there from me too. Really sorry you're sick. It sounds like a bad one. I have personally tested the ice cream treatment and can assure you that it works. But Dotsie, don't let that stop you from experimenting!

[raptornx01]

Mentally drained.

so there was a major brony convention over the weekend in Las Vegas at the riviera (I didn't go). Bout 1,200 people, plus 22 guests, voice actors, writers, etc. everything was going fine till sunday. found out they ran out of money and the con organizers had skipped town. The riviera basically kicked everyone out of the hotel. the con had to close 5 hours early. on top of that None of the show staff (actors etc) got paid nor were they compensated for their flights/rooms/etc as they had been promised. so all the fandom media groups got together and organized a fundraiser to at least get enough to cover their expenses, if not their fees which they were all ok with waiving.

ended up raising about $12k for them. so we thought everything was fine. until yesterday. reports started trickling in in the morning that not only had the show staff not been comped for their rooms. but everyone who was supposed to have had complimentary rooms, the media staff, the musicians, the artists, etc suddenly found they were being charged for them. and on top of that people who had paid for packages, IE tickets with rooms included, found they got charged as well. people were out anywhere from $200 to $1,600. many ended up getting stuck there cause they couldn't afford to leave not to mention food or a place to stay.

when we started finding all of this out me and a few other started going around twitter and such and trying to get the word out on what was going on and trying to help raise funds. so I spent the last two days talking with people, getting info, trying to find out who needed help. finding people willing to help somehow and basically organizing a bunch of info to get help to people who needed it. and many were willing to help. some artists offered commissions for sale and the income would go to those who needed. one of the writers on the show started selling signed buttons on ebay. different things like that.

its easy enough with the musicians cause they all have bandcamp accounts and paypal and such so you can just direct people there. but ones like the artists or the fandom media who are just volunteers basically don't really have that set-up. plus the regular con goers who were affected.

Thankfully a few others stepped up who had experience with charity drives and such and set up online forms and sites to organize everything.

Though one thing that came out of this. it says alot about people when every single person you would ask "did you get hit, do you need help" would always come back with "Ya i got hit, but it's no big deal, others are worse off then me"

(and i'm not kidding, thats the answer i got every time)

[Tonyblack]

Sheeesh! That's appalling.

[chillicamper]

Hugs to all that need them at the moment.

[wicked woman]

There there to everyone who's suffering.

Try Baileys ice cream... with extra Baileys!

Meer, what you want is a bottle of lubricant, the internal sort. Brandy/Whiskey/Gin/Vodka/Rum, all work well.

[Bouncy Castle]

That's awful, Raptor.

Are the Police involved?

[raptornx01]

That's awful, Raptor.

Are the Police involved?

right now things are up in the air. we still don't know exactly what happened. there have been rumblings from a number of the media people and vendors and such that because contracts were broken they have a legal leg to stand on. but the con organizers released a statement basically saying that they were also pursuring legal action because they say basically the problem was with the hotel and how they acted even before the con.

though for the moment finger pointing can wait.

Sheeesh! That's appalling.

yeah, and the deeper you go in the worse it gets. Amy Keating Rogers, who is a writer on the show has a son who is mentally handicapped. 30% of the sales of the official con t-shirts was supposed to go to the school her son attends. and there was a VIP $200 a plate dinner saturday with the money going to Kiki's fund, a charity meant for a young girl named Kiki who has a brain tumor and Tara strong, the main actress on the show set up the fund to raise money to pay for her medical care. None of this money has surfaced.

but thats another part of where all these donation drives have been targeting. seeing all those willing to help is a wonderful sight. and makes you see it's not all bad.

The oddest bit to come out of all this though is that somewhere in our journey we acquired a stray Robert Picardo (the doctor from Star trek voyager).

When the original drive for the show staff was completed all the various agents for the actors came together and nominated a single agent to handle the distribution of the funds and make sure the staff expenses were paid. The agent they choose was John DeLancie's agent (Q from star trek and one of the guests (he's a voice on the show)), because they all knew him and trusted him.

Over the last couple days a few trouble makers have been going around spreading wild rumors about where the money from that fundraiser went. one of those rumors was that it was given to Robert Picardo's fan club. yeah. we were like, ....what?

turns out, that agent's main client is indeed Robert Picardo and yes he does run robert's official fan club. ofcourse the rumors were unfounded but the kicker is that apparently Robert has been aware of the fandom for awhile and the agent (i don't know his name) had asked him if he was ok with all this (dunno why he needed permission, but ok) and Robert was like Yes ofcourse. and that he had been following the fandom and respected what people were doing so how could say no.

One of the media sites is interviewing Him later this week. if you didn't know the story it would be most random, out of left field interview announcement you could possibly see.

[Who's Wee Dug]

There are some unscruplous people about who just want to rip you off big time, I hope they get done for it.

[Catch-up]

Oh jeez. That's awful Rap. So, what you're saying is the organizers disappeared with a lot of the money, but they're claiming they ran out? I don't quite get what happened.

[cheery_j.]

Yes - it sounds really complicated.
But it's great to see how many people are willing to help to get others out of a situation like this.

Tonsillitis news: ice cream didn't help, but at least it didn't hurt. Yay! I hope having three helpings of penicillin each day will finally do the trick.

[Catch-up]

Glad you were at least able to enjoy the ice cream. The antibiotics should help.

[raptornx01]

Oh jeez. That's awful Rap. So, what you're saying is the organizers disappeared with a lot of the money, but they're claiming they ran out? I don't quite get what happened.

Not disappeared with the money, but that they ran out of money and left after people found out. thats the story we had been hearing all day monday and into tuesday. and that was fueled by the fact that NO ONE that we talked to had seen the woman in charge or her husband all day sunday. and no one had heard from them after. it has since come out that a few trusted people said that they had seen her sunday, but she was hiding in a back office. she even said in that pressrelease that rumors they had left were unfounded.

Last night before my second post I was in a chat with the head of one of the media groups and the main guy responsible for organizing the initial fundraiser. it lasted for like 4 hours ending about 3 in the morning. and he was explaining the situation and what happened as best he knew and what others he trusted had been saying. That saturday night it got out to the VAs that the con was broke and they weren't going to be paid. This guy set up a meeting with all the other media staff and met with this woman to find out what the deal was. she confirmed what they had heard, they were out of money. they had "overextended themselves". Ended up being that she handed off control of the con (not the finances, but the organizing) to them. after that is when she went into hiding. probably understandably.

the big question though is how they ended up broke. what happened to the money. what were they paying for and how much that they ended spending everything. we don't know that yet. we do know that the situation with the hotal bills came out of nowhere. that it wasn't known initially that the hotel hadn't been paid yet. least not by the con. he mentioned that he only found out at check out when he had been charged for the room that was supposed to have been paid for, being a media person. The hotel told him that they were told by this woman to ask them, the attendees, for the money, not the con. and even produced a document signed by the woman stating this. that was confirmed by several people.

all a complicated mess.

[Dotsie]

I hope it gets sorted out, but I agree it doesn't sound good Did you pay by credit card? I once paid for a con that went broke before it even started, and the CC company gave me a refund.

[wicked woman]

That's a good point about the credit card.