You're right about that.
I've been starting to wonder if those "3 Anonymous donors" from the space or science industry even existed.
Star Trek Convention Cancelled DURING Event
- Thread starter Frontier
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You're right about that.
I've been starting to wonder if those "3 Anonymous donors" from the space or science industry even existed.
Not even going to comment on the 3 donors. But that's kind of case in point that I was getting out. Look, I'm going to be blunt, I don't think anything short of a miracle, a bolt of lighting, and the reanimated corpse of Gene Rodenberry riding a black horse, could have save Enterprise.
But as far as fan campaigns went, SE would have had better luck had it not turned into this business and stayed a loose alliance of fans. Everything about TU and the people running it screamed "We in it make a name for ourselves, screw the show". There were a lot of mistakes, and the blame-- always-- has to rest with the people making the decisions. I feel sorry for the SE (why do I keep typing SW
) people that got their hopes up and got played, but I'll be honest when I say that I think that could have went a lot different and a lot better for your lot.
http://community.livejournal.com/aarondouglas/107436.html
Where I live - this is known as fraud and boy has he pissed off the wrong person:
Well there's already people talking about taking it to the Attorney-General's office, Aaron Douglas said he was going to talk to his lawyer. It's a big bad situation all the way around. And I've got the bad feeling some little peon staffer is going to take the proverbial broomstick up the ass when the blame finally comes to rest.
Oh please. You have to be kidding me. That's the best story yet. Who came up with that? They should get an Emmy for fiction.
Sorry, there is absolutely no truth to this.
Here's what really happened:
Tim Brazeal claimed to be negotiating with Paramount. He wasn't. He never was.
Paramount said stopped collecting money because we can't accept it. Tim didn't, and never disclosed the letter.
By the time he pulled the plug, TrekUnited was under so much fire and controversy that if Paramount was really worried about anything (which they weren't) they wouldn't have to worry anymore.
Please let the fiction writers write the fiction? Thanks!
Yeah, I read that over at LiveJournal.
The Chief is NOT amused.
Nor should he be.
However, I'm hoping that there will be some small bit of good come out of all this - that this scam artist will finally be drummed out of the scifi community for good.
I didn't for one moment believe he was gonna accomplish anything with that Save Enterprise campaign....and he didn't.
But this! This makes TrekUnited look like small potatoes.
My memory is fuzzy, but didn't Paramount finally get royally pissed and published the letter telling "no" on st.com (more of less forcing TU to go public with it). And wasn't there one of the Paramount execs that did a interview or something with sci-fi wire and told them the same thing. I do remember st.com putting up a warning about donating money to fan groups taking up funds.
Luke Lightsaber
Captain
People actually gave money to fund a Trek series? Jeez.
The Brazeal house of cards is collapsing everywhere.
Scott McKeown, one of his staunch defenders, has bolted and taken SciFiUnited (at least the assets of which) with him.
Tim tried to strike a deal with me yesterday. He said instead of answering the very direct, pointed questions I had about FedCon and its collapse, he would give me details about the TrekUnited campaign from three years ago, including info on Al Vinci.
I told him no. That ship sailed three years ago.
Scott McKeown, one of his staunch defenders, has bolted and taken SciFiUnited (at least the assets of which) with him.
Tim tried to strike a deal with me yesterday. He said instead of answering the very direct, pointed questions I had about FedCon and its collapse, he would give me details about the TrekUnited campaign from three years ago, including info on Al Vinci.
I told him no. That ship sailed three years ago.
Yes ... that's how the details of that letter got out because Paramount released the letter on StarTrek.com.
I am not sure if SciFi Wire interviewed someone or not, but we actually talked with someone at length who worked in Zapf's office who told us EVERYTHING that happened. It was a lucky phone call.
People try to say the source didn't exist. Yet, at the time we published the story, "Al Vinci" hadn't named the Paramount person. But when we identified him as Zapf, he acknowledged that we were correct.
We have been covering the FedCon story extensively, including the collapse of SciFiUnited. It's all at www.SyFyPortal.com, and we're hosting a panel on FedCon with some of the people involved Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT at www.BlogTalkRadio.com/SyFyRadio.
Are you serious? Did you actually think people would still give a crap about that 3 years later? And why would, or should, you be inclined to giving him another soapbox or outlet for his spin-machine?
Is he really trying or wanting to stir up crap dead and buried in the past for the sake of obfuscating what happened over the weekend?
Everytime I think my "What the fuck!" meter is broken, something comes along about all this to bury the needle a little further. I'm actually shocked...well stymied at least, as to how something that was completely avoidable and even fixable go the point that people are calling for investigations from the AGO and talking class action suits and shit. This is just so out there in the realm of "how fucked up can one thing get" that it's unbelievable that someone didn't see the train heading off the tracks long before this weekend.
I wasn't going to release other details of the e-mail, because it's an e-mail, and some of it could reflect badly on Tim if it were released.
But his wife has gone and released some of the other details on the message board as an attempt to put me in my place. So, I feel free to talk about it now.
I asked Tim if he would like to respond to our earlier stories on FedCon. He told me to send questions over, so I did. The questions were:
Why did you not disclose that FedCon Gmbh was no longer a part of the convention, and that in fact, it was nothing more than a licensing agreement? You had announced it as a partnership previously, so if you change that, why did you feel it not important to report how that status had been adjusted?
What are your thoughts about how people are reacting to how this came about?
What do you think the first thing was that went wrong?
Was this convention properly capitalized? If not, why not?
What do you think this means to your reputation, the reputation of your Web sites and business ventures, and such about this?
Why can't you return everyone's money right now?
How much of a personal loss do you think you're going to take on this?
Why should attendees not blame you, or should they?
You stated that some stars were too expensive, or that the actor's strike was in the way ... yet those same actors deny that. They said they were ready to go, even willing to waive their appearance fee, but many of them sat at the airport waiting for a ticket that never came. What is your response to that?
Are you using your employment with American Airlines to score tickets for an outside venture, and if so, has that been authorized by AA?
Information Removed - Alidar Jarok
If anyone wants to read my response to it, let me know, but it's basically saying "No deal" and correcting him on inaccuracies.
But his wife has gone and released some of the other details on the message board as an attempt to put me in my place. So, I feel free to talk about it now.
I asked Tim if he would like to respond to our earlier stories on FedCon. He told me to send questions over, so I did. The questions were:
Why did you not disclose that FedCon Gmbh was no longer a part of the convention, and that in fact, it was nothing more than a licensing agreement? You had announced it as a partnership previously, so if you change that, why did you feel it not important to report how that status had been adjusted?
What are your thoughts about how people are reacting to how this came about?
What do you think the first thing was that went wrong?
Was this convention properly capitalized? If not, why not?
What do you think this means to your reputation, the reputation of your Web sites and business ventures, and such about this?
Why can't you return everyone's money right now?
How much of a personal loss do you think you're going to take on this?
Why should attendees not blame you, or should they?
You stated that some stars were too expensive, or that the actor's strike was in the way ... yet those same actors deny that. They said they were ready to go, even willing to waive their appearance fee, but many of them sat at the airport waiting for a ticket that never came. What is your response to that?
Are you using your employment with American Airlines to score tickets for an outside venture, and if so, has that been authorized by AA?
Information Removed - Alidar Jarok
If anyone wants to read my response to it, let me know, but it's basically saying "No deal" and correcting him on inaccuracies.
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Looking here:
http://fedconusa.com/community/index.php?showtopic=349&st=200
It seems that it wasn't the organizers that pulled the plug but rather the hotel.
http://fedconusa.com/community/index.php?showtopic=349&st=200
It seems that it wasn't the organizers that pulled the plug but rather the hotel.
Yeah, but read further down and see what the rumor reason for the hotel yanking the plug is:
As I said upthread, we'll never get the whole truth behind all this, just variations of a finger pointing theme till some peon gets stuck with the check.
Shit...[highlight]EPIC FAIL[/highlight]!!!