DragonCon, or DragonCan't?

[BlueBard]

This just in from the folks at lfgcomic.com...

Booted from DragonCon
sohmer? Dec 08 2009, 10:07 AM

My mood is less than pleased right now, and I?m going to tell you why.

To start things off, Lar and I will NOT be attending DragonCon in Atlanta this coming summer. In order to understand that, we must go back to a time and place?say, around September of this year.

This was our second year in Atlanta, and it was one of the shows we were most looking forward to. There?s just something about the atmosphere of this show that?s so casual, that you really get a chance to hang out with a great deal of wonderful people.

As last year was so successful for us, we paid for a larger booth this year and intended to do some fun & unusual things with the space. Upon getting to the show, however, someone had setup in our space. Confused, we asked the hall attendants what was going on, and were rudely informed that our booth had been moved.

When I inquired as to where, I was shown the furthest and poorly lit section of the room, with a giant pillar intersecting the middle of the booth. I then proceeded to tell the attendants that this was unacceptable, not only because of the move but because of the new location.

Despite the fact that I had announced where we were setup weeks leading up to the show, I would?ve been fine if we were moved to a location similar to the one we lost. But this was unacceptable.

The attendants, once again, were rude and told our crew that we could take the new spot or we could go home. This wasn?t their problem. Still calm and polite, I asked if there was someone else we could speak to, because we did not deserve to be spoken to like that.

A couple hours later, we sat on the carpet waiting, a minor functionary came downstairs and repeated what the attendants had told us. Again, I asked if there was anyone else I could talk to.

An hour later, one of the board members of the show came down to talk with us.

He apologized for the situation, note that this was the first apology we had received thus far, and inquired what could to be done to make things right. In the end, he generously offered to repay us for the booth, but still allow us to use. It was a good solution, we shook hands and all was well.

At the end of the show, I again thanked him for taking care of the matter, and we signed up for the next show gladly.

Usually how this works, is at the end of a show, you sign for the next one, and a few weeks later you receive an invoice. A month passed, and we had yet to receive a single thing.

Wanting to make sure everything was fine, Randy began calling them. For 6 weeks Randy called, at least 3 times per week leaving messages for everyone. No one called us back.

Finally, we reached someone, and were told that we were not invited back to DragonCon because of the incident. I was, am shocked.

We are not allowed to exhibit because their staff was verbally abusive towards us, including profanity. We are not allowed because they moved our location without any warning or apology. We are not allowed because DragonCon shoved us in the dark corner of the show.

Let me be clear. Never did I, or any of my staff, raise their voice or even mutter a ?shite? under their breath. That?s not how we behave.

I don?t understand this decision, and no one was inclined to explain it to me, only referring to the ?incident?.

I am saddened by this, but more so that we won?t be able to hang out with the folks who came out to Atlanta to see us. I felt you were owed an explanation, and there it is. We hope to be able to find a show nearby that we can attend.

As for DragonCon, I will do my best to ensure that this story gets out, so others don?t share our fate.

- Because I can.

Granted, that's only one side of the story but it is truly shockingly bad treatment of a vendor if true.

[Reepicheep]

Ryan Sohmer isn't someone to be dishonest, to alter truths or even to exaggerate except in his humor. I'm really sad to hear that he was treated like that. Its terrible that he is not allowed to attend again.

[Alaric]

Ryan Sohmer isn't someone to be dishonest, to alter truths or even to exaggerate except in his humor. I'm really sad to hear that he was treated like that. Its terrible that he is not allowed to attend again.

Still, we're only seeing this from one side, and people have a tendency to think they behaved better than they actually did- it's not lying, just a difference in viewpoint (not saying that's what's happening here, just that it's always dangerous to judge something like this based on a single point of view, no matter whose point of view that is). Still, the story as stated sounds plausible (not talking about DragonCon specifically here, but similar things have happened elsewhere), and at the very least, the DragonCon people should have notified them that they were not being invited back, and why (in my opinion).

[Glitch Girl]

Having been there:

1) LGF's booth placement compared with previous years was pretty awful.  While I only have a passing familiarity with their work, I do remember the booth from the year past.  I only found it in a dark corner of the exhibition hall which seemed odd after last year's placement.  I think at the time I mentally wrote it off as a last minute addition or something.

2) DragonCon management seems to varry by hotel (and they expanded programing this year too, so I think the staff expanded a lot too).  The main hotel (the Hyatt) seems to have the most veteran staff and my experiences with them have been pretty positive.  The staff at the Marriott seemed less organized and a bit more chaotic, almost as if they were learning as they went along.  I had no direct dealings with the staff in the Hilton, which was where the booth in question was set up, so I can't say how things were handled there. 

To be honest, I would like to know more.  I don't doubt this account, but I would like to know which staffers he dealt with and what might have sparked this whole debacle. 

[BlueBard]

I think the fact that they -couldn't- get a response from the DragonCon organizers is very telling.  If they had been effectively banned from the convention, their application should have been returned with a letter stating why.  Simply ignoring them is very unprofessional, unless it was an oversight.  But then the original booth change should have been communicated properly to begin with, or at least the LFG team should have been informed as soon as they got there.

Didn't I read somewhere that the convention had been bought at some point?  Maybe the change in management is a factor?