The Death of the Con

I want to say this up front, this is all personal opinion from a limited point of view that I am basing on what I saw transpire over Christmas. I will be speaking from the facts. I will not be providing links to anything because I simply don't want to. Find it for yourself. I am not a vendor of Cherry City Comic Con, I am not close personal friend of the owner of Cherry City Comic Con. I am simply a blogger that is impacted by the events that transpired over the Christmas season and has resulted in the death, resurrection, death re-resurrection and possible final nail in the coffin for Cherry City Comic Con.

Before I begin I want to make it that name 4C, which is being tossed around by some to shorten the Cherry City Comic Con name is actually used by another organization called the Columbia Counsel of Camera Clubs (4C). So, please don't confuse the two, because the 4C organization is not associated with Cherry City Comic Con (CCCC).

Last year I attended my first Comic Con ever. I know, I am a forty-something comic book fan that had never been to a Con before May of last year. But, that's an entirely different story.

Regardless of all of the drama that blew up nationally, and just mere weeks before the Con's inaugural event, I attended CCCC. As a result, I had a ton of fun. I felt safe the entire time I was there. I scored mass quantities of great comics (and I didn't break the bank doing it). I met a ton of wonderful people that have since become friends with. I even wrote a review about it.

And while that blog post makes it look like things were all cherry topped sundaes made from Frosty the Snowman's cold, icy flesh and Care-Bear sprinkles (only the best sundaes come from those ingredients) and lollipops with unicorn blood centers (again only the best). There were problems. But I found it easy to overlook the panel scheduling issues, the unprepared nature of some of the panelists, the fact that my V.I.P. shirt, a unique size, was given to someone else and I had to wait until August to get mine. I heard about issues that vendors had. I heard about a lot of things. But it was just little things. And I never let the little things get to me. I figured that next year those issues would be resolved.

But with this year's event, something has tragically and fatally gone wrong. Merry Christmas. The Con is off, then on... then off again... and now on again and now nobody seems to know what the hell is happening and communication is poor, nay, really non-existent.

This is what I know in the chronology of what I saw shared by CCCC's owner, Mark Martin on the CCCC Facebook page (before I left Facebook; yet another completely different story).

1. Mark Martin shared that the CCCC was off indefinitely due to Fairgrounds deposit requirements.
2. Mark came back a short while later saying that CCCC was back on and that he had a buyer lined up to buy CCCC from him.
3. Then came the news segment from a local news channel that blasted the CCCC, plus another event and Mark Martin himself (the owner of both events in question).
4. Mark came back on to Facebook to announce that the sale of CCCC was dead due to the unfair, biased news segment.
5. I found some links to some vendors talking about legal action against Mark Martin.
6. On Jan 2nd, Cherry City Comic Con announced on their Facebook page that a Marketing Firm is "helping" make sure the con happens. There are no details about the Marketing Firm that is involved, or what their level of involvement is, but it is obvious from the language used, and more importantly the language that wasn't used that this was not Mark Martin making this announcement or responding to any of the comments from disgruntled vendors and patrons.

I am not here to place blame. I am not here to spread hate. I am not here to spread dissension. I am here to share what I know about the death of a Comic Con, one that had so much promise for a great community of local comic geeks. But, I also want to talk about the fallout from that.

Regardless of fault, we as a community have lost some things detrimental for our community's health and the collateral damage is far reaching and damaging. But, with all that bad, there is also some good that came out of this:

• CCCC inspired others to try their hand at putting together their own events, and do it their own way, be it a Con, Festival or something smaller.
• CCCC taught these inspired people lessons in what to do, and in some cases, more importantly, what not to do moving forward.
• CCCC took a chance and ended up opening many doors for our community. We just have to be willing to walk through them.

While the final fate of CCCC is still up in the air. The rumors of a marketing company taking over, partnered or otherwise is running the event sound promising. It looks as though they will still try to execute CCCC this year. I'm not here to tell people to go to CCCC or to boycott CCCC. That is up to each individual. It will be their personal choice, just as it is my choice to make my own decision on whether to go or not. 

But, regardless of the future of CCCC, there are alternatives already here and even more coming. Wizard World in Portland, Emerald City in Seattle, Rose City in Portland to name a few of them that already exist. Plus there are more events being planned and executed for Salem. 

These new local alternatives don't have the drama coming with them that I have seen. These events are in no way shape or form connected with CCCC or it's owner Mark Martin... or is it "CCCC owners" now. I don't know, but regardless, there is no CCCC affiliation with these local events that are being planned and executed.  

In the end, if we want events like Cons and fesitvals in our community, we have to be willing to support these events. Vendors can't let broken trust from one event to cause them to to fear that all events will do the same thing. Vendors need to do their homework before payments are made. Make sure the location the event is being hosted at has the event on their calendar. Find out who is actually behind the event. What can you find out about them? Good... Bad... Indifferent? Do some research. 

But most importantly, everyone need to know that these events take money to put on. Convention Centers don't offer their spaces and services for free. So these local events take money early on. Most of these events are not put on corporations with bottomless pockets. To the contrary, many of these events are put on by individuals or a small number of individuals, all of whom are passionate, but who live paycheck to paycheck like the rest of us. So show your support and after doing your homework, outlined above, buy your booth, buy your tickets, and finally... get ready for a good time. By buying your booth and ticket early, you are ensuring that the event is not going to flounder. 

If we want it bad enough, we have to take a chance. There are good people out there looking to do good things for the community, there truly are. So watch for them. Listen to them. Talk with others about these events. Be patient with them, mistakes happen. Let them try to fix the issue with you before you blast your dirty laundry all over the web for everyone to see.

Don't let this one failure destroy your ability to see other opportunities coming.

Until next time... I will see you all on the flip side.