![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
After making the claim that Dashcon doesn't even hit the top ten disastrous cons, I was effectively challenged to put together a list of "The Five Worst Cons of All Time" to submit to Cracked.com.
Which, of course, makes me paralyzed with fear that I'd get it wrong. I'm certain that I'd start with Disclave 41 as number 5; nothing in the Disclave Flood was Disclave's fault, but it resulted in significant physical destruction of the hotel, the end of a con in its fifth decade, and warnings printed on hotel sprinkler systems ever since.
Number 1 would have to be Boskone 24. The conrunners had PTSD symptoms for decades, cons were banned from the entire city of Boston for a couple years, and The Letter managed to offend geeks all over the world.
But I'd like YOUR suggestions for the other three. Ideally, I'd get three other representative failures. Maybe not the other three ABSOLUTE WORST -- but three other failure modes.
I'd like to mention the 2006 Flanvention as a convention disaster that resulted in true menschlike behavior from pros -- that was the one where the conrunners for a Firefly convention vanished with the money and cancelled the thing after people already showed up -- but the cast of Firefly showed up anyway, without being paid, and hung out with fans. But other genuine scams might be nice to mention: Shane Senter's Jumpcon scam might be worth mentioning.
What other convention disasters can you think of that would be worth talking about? What are some of the other ones which most impressed you? Seems to me that convention disasters happen because of fraud and dishonesty, incompetence, or bad luck -- any stories which include a perfect confluence of all three?
Which, of course, makes me paralyzed with fear that I'd get it wrong. I'm certain that I'd start with Disclave 41 as number 5; nothing in the Disclave Flood was Disclave's fault, but it resulted in significant physical destruction of the hotel, the end of a con in its fifth decade, and warnings printed on hotel sprinkler systems ever since.
Number 1 would have to be Boskone 24. The conrunners had PTSD symptoms for decades, cons were banned from the entire city of Boston for a couple years, and The Letter managed to offend geeks all over the world.
But I'd like YOUR suggestions for the other three. Ideally, I'd get three other representative failures. Maybe not the other three ABSOLUTE WORST -- but three other failure modes.
I'd like to mention the 2006 Flanvention as a convention disaster that resulted in true menschlike behavior from pros -- that was the one where the conrunners for a Firefly convention vanished with the money and cancelled the thing after people already showed up -- but the cast of Firefly showed up anyway, without being paid, and hung out with fans. But other genuine scams might be nice to mention: Shane Senter's Jumpcon scam might be worth mentioning.
What other convention disasters can you think of that would be worth talking about? What are some of the other ones which most impressed you? Seems to me that convention disasters happen because of fraud and dishonesty, incompetence, or bad luck -- any stories which include a perfect confluence of all three?