Posted by Vee | June 9, 2011, 11:45 (EST) | 16 Comments
Category: Fandom, TV Series, Website
In light of recent drama, and because we have been receiving a lot of questions, we feel it’s time to set the record straight on a few things.
First off, we want to stress that this post is based entirely on our own personal experience with EyeCon in March 2011, most of which is detailed in our review: Fool Me Once.
UPDATE: EyeCon has refunded our sponsorship money. So at least that’s settled!
We bring up a lot of issues in that post but the crux is this: We paid $450 for a vendor and guest badge sponsorship (here is the PayPal receipt) and our logo was not on any badge given to vendors or guests during the convention. We know this because we had a vendor badge, which we’ve scanned for you. (Yes, that’s the actual badge.)
These are facts. We’ve been seeing a lot of talk about everyone deserving a second chance. Generally, we would agree. However, there has been zero effort on the part of EyeCon to address this issue or refund money. When our review went live, it would have been so simple to acknowledge the problem and at least attempt to make amends. No such effort was made. In fact, Kenny made repeated appearances in our comments to respond to people and made several visits to both of our post-EyeCon posts in the weeks following the March event; he knew what happened and apparently did not care.
This is bad business and bad public relations.
We guess nearly half a grand is not a big deal to some people but it’s a big deal to us. That’s server money that keeps our site afloat, supporting the show and giving fans a platform to share their passion for it which we and others have been doing far longer than EyeCon’s been on the TVD scene.
The saddest part of the entire debacle is that this situation could have been easily rectified. We can’t speak to others’ personal experience with the con, or EyeCon’s subsequent words/actions in response. If you want to read them, they’re out there on several fansites, Twitter and Facebook, but we at V-D.net are speaking only for ourselves. We have not been tweeting abuse at EyeCon’s account. Apart from our initial statement on Twitter that we would not be promoting the October con in any way, we have said nothing about it. We have not gone out of our way to use our site (which has tens of thousands of visitors a day) or the @tvdnews Twitter (which, as of this posting, has nearly 46,000 followers) to disparage them since the announcement.
It saddens us that some are putting their personal reputations on the line to defend a company against legitimate complaints that they themselves refuse to acknowledge or apologize for. That is not those fans’ jobs, it’s EyeCon’s and EyeCon’s only. Also, it is unfair to imply that by not supporting or promoting the con we are punishing the cast scheduled to appear. First, we are not telling people not to attend; secondly, conventions are for FANS. We are fans. Attempting to guilt-trip fans in regards to the actors is a weak and incredibly misguided argument, particularly when it means putting money in the pockets of a company that did those fans wrong. The fact remains that if this con was being put on by a different promoter, we would be posting about it. At the end of the day, this is an issue of self-respect for us, and we feel very strongly about it. And we ask that you respect that choice as we, in turn, are respecting your decision to promote or attend.
That being said, to attendees we say: We genuinely hope EyeCon makes good on their promises and that you have a blast. Our feelings on this matter are very specific and are directed solely at EyeCon. Our issue is not, and will never be, with those who choose to attend or support; our issue is with being made to feel as if we’re being unreasonable or aren’t true fans because of our stance.
We reserve the right to feel wronged because we were wronged. As far as we’re concerned, every day since our review went live was a second chance, an opportunity to make things right. EyeCon didn’t care then and they obviously don’t care now. As a result, we in turn don’t care who they book or what promises they make. Second chances are earned, and they haven’t earned one. We lost hundreds of dollars on the first EyeCon. We aren’t going to pay more money and just cross our fingers hoping it pans out this time.
Finally, we are not speaking on behalf of anyone but ourselves in this. Please do not try and dismiss us as “disgruntled fans” and tell us to “let it go.” We’ve been around a long time; you’re gonna have to do better than that.
 |
Read the comment rules and guidelines.
Everyone is subject to these rules and guidelines, whether they read them or not.
If you have problems with any of the comments posted, flag them to bring them to our attention. You can do this by hovering your mouse over the comment so the 'flag' link appears. You're also welcome to contact us to let us know about any problems.
Do not flag comments you just disagree with - it wastes moderator time. The flagging system is not there to give a post a thumbs down, it's there for genuine problems.
Be excellent to each other.
-
http://twitter.com/katelinnea Katie Welsh
-
Anonymous
-
Misty
-
http://twitter.com/NinaDobrevFan Nina Dobrev Fan
-
Nikk Mote 79
-
Anonymous
-
http://twitter.com/Dayna_Barter Dayna Barter
-
The Televixen
-
Charlie
-
Artyjill
-
Anonymous
-
Corinne
-
Brina
-
http://twitter.com/mylobster27 Becca Leigh
-
TriniJax
-
http://twitter.com/AbbyGraham A.G.
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
Loading ...
