So as I’m sure many of you are aware, Universal FanCon has proved not to be the welcoming engagement it was promised and instead has turned into the convention version of the Fyre Festival. It really is a tragedy and also a case study of how not to do so many things. I am going to attempt to make out and understand/ explain what happened. I’m not gonna get into personal attacks or bring in how people feel about the personalities behind this cause that’s kinda pointless.

Before we start, a brief story. I was neither an affiliate nor paid for a ticket to the convention. I applied for and was granted press credentials. In addition, I submitted 4 panels to the convention, including one about my web series, thinking this would be the perfect place to launch. I was also looking forward to going back to Baltimore and meeting some other folks. Cut to the end of March and I haven’t heard anything regarding my panels. Given that I have been pretty strapped for cash, and was going to deal with a major life event two weeks later, I almost thought to email them. But lo and behold they released the schedule. I looked through the schedule and saw that my name was nowhere to be found, meaning none of the 4 had been picked. I was a bit bummed but still was thinking about ways to maybe attend, even tho I really wanted to do a panel. Something interesting that I saw was how many of the same panel types there were and how so many people from a particular sect of people were on them. It could have been titled Affiliate Con. There’s nothing wrong with that mind you, and actually seems a smart way to go to make sure the people with the brands can attract their followers. A couple of days after the schedule release I got an email saying my panel had been denied, which I of course already knew. I replied back saying thanks and that next year perhaps they should be a bit more professional and let us know before the schedule drop. I didn’t realize this was a symptom of what was really going down.

Up until the date of cancellation, the social media campaign for the show was going incredibly strong. They announced Roxanne Gay as a guest like 5 days before postponing, a huge get for any convention but especially one like this. However, if you take a look at the Twitter timelines of the two people most closely associated with this, Jamie Broadnax and Robert aka DarthGeekonius, you will see that there was clearly a desperation around the convention.

That Starbucks tweet takes me down every time because it makes clear as day that everyone involved with this convention knew it was in shambles and didn’t know how to save it.

On April 20th, folks found out that their hotels were cancelled and word started to spread on social media that the convention was cancelled. Universal FanCon then did confirm it via social media and sent an email to the Kickstarter backers:

This email was the first domino to fall, in more ways than one, particularly because it included everyone’s email address for all the backers to see.

After this email, there was radio silence until later that day they released a highly controversial FAQ which initially mentioned there would be no refunds, that the people throwing the convention would also be out of money from travel plans, and perhaps most foolish of all, that everyone was still invited to their Infinity War screening. The person in charge of this communication, Jamie, began to edit the page with more care towards the answers, but didn’t include an edit update notification. It was then that the Fyre Festival comparisons began and the leadership suddenly couldn’t be found for comment, despite being active twitter users.

In the vacuum of response from those involved, many turned to the affiliates such as Nerds of Prey to understand what happened. They put out a statement that says what many were starting to understand, the money just was not there and the leadership showed no desire to downsize drastically. The Blerd Gurl goes a bit into the finances, that out of the $55,000 raised that a whopping $40,000 went to the venue. That 15k leftover plus whatever they sold ticketwise and sponsorships-wise was going to cover the rest of the event. However, we can see now the sheer numbers would never have supported that. Only about 600 people donated to Kickstarter at the level that would get them a ticket. Listen, WonderCon was selling tickets to their convention up until the day before and the day of, so conventions not selling out isn’t a rarity. Which is why its foolish that none of them sought to take action when it was clear they needed major help.

Now around here is where this went from being foolish to being ridiculous. Because I know of multiple affiliates who were copied on a FanCon email stating that if they met the 18K ticket threshold that $150,000 would be available to profit share. See the email below:

So everyone knew and was clear on how much money they’d make but no one involved seemed to be involved in the finances, know how the budget was a mess, or how to proceed?

It’s around this time the name Thai Nam Pham is mentioned on Twitter as someone who was involved with the convention, despite him being involved in failed conventions before. Through all of this there was only one person I wanted to hear from, Jamie. I really wanted to hear from her given how vocal she’s been about the convention AND she was the person to send the email and FAQ out, released a statement. Here it is in full:

I am Jamie Broadnax, the founder of Black Girl Nerds and a member of Universal Fan Con. On Friday, April 20, 2018 I provided a preliminary statement to the individuals that supported Universal Fan Con on Kickstarter in 2016. What followed was a day of questions, justifiable anger, frustration. However, what was lacking was transparency and clarity. I feel that it is imperative to provide a comprehensive update to the Universal FanCon community as our internal team works toward solutions. Thank you for your patience, thank you for your trust, and thank you for believing in the mission of Universal Fan Con. What I have written below is not a series of excuses but a full acknowledgment of my responsibility in the postponement of Universal Fan Con and the surrounding context.
Universal Fan Con was an idea born as a collective. We as fans and geeks of the online community with our respective brands decided to launch the idea of a convention for fans from marginalized communities to have a safe space to celebrate their fandoms. I was brought on Director of Community Outreach for the FanCon Organization. My role was to spread the word and be a public facing liaison for the organization. I lent my brand Black Girl Nerds and invested my social capital into the mix which allowed for a large network of nerds and geeks to be exposed to this new event. I also leveraged my relationships with brands, studios, and celebrities to get them onboard and co-sign on this fan convention.
Since the Kickstarter launch in 2016, which raised a significant amount of funds, I was honored and proud that so many in the community rallied support for Universal Fan Con and were just as excited as I was about the event. People were sending me tweets and messages saying they have never been to a con, but they will definitely be coming to Universal Fan Con. I spent a great deal of my time expressing to the public how much this con means to me. I traveled all across the country and participated on panels, hosted screenings, coordinated meetups and wore my geek flag proudly as Director of Community Outreach.
As I was working to spread the mission of Universal Fan Con, I did not involve myself with financial or legal matters. To be frank — I didn’t know what was coming in nor what was going out. I didn’t sign any contracts. And in hindsight, I realize that this should have been a major priority. However, I acknowledge that in hindsight, that does not remedy the aftermath. On April 3, a bomb was dropped on me about our finances. I was shocked that outstanding bills were not paid and that the likelihood of FanCon would be no longer.
I help oversee our Affiliates team — our team of bloggers, vloggers, podcasters, etc who are the cheerleaders that have helped to spread the word of Universal Fan Con. We discussed having an emergency Go Fund Me and I even created a video as a last-ditch effort. I was reluctant and didn’t like how it would look that I was being asked to be the face of the video, but I went with it anyway. However, I guess I was positioned as the leader and representative of the fandom community, and I recorded a video about our need for funds. After we had our meeting with Affiliates, most agreed a Go Fund Me would be a good idea. I had a secondary meeting with the FanCon board and we decided rather than putting the onus on fans and asking for money which we already did during the Kickstarter, I agreed that we should try to find ways to scale down the size of the space and try to defray costs. I also worked with a sponsor at the last minute to help us out that provided a generous donation that I thought would have us in a better position.
48 hours ago, I found out that we owed more money and that there was no way to run this con with the debt that was owed. I called the team myself and requested an emergency board meeting to discuss what we need to do and what went wrong. As it turns out there was a balloon budget that would make it impossible to run this convention by Friday, April 27. I was sick to my stomach, devastated and I’m still in shock by all of this because at the time I thought FanCon was okay. I had a press coverage meeting with my team a few days before and I was prepping my schedule as to what we plan to cover at the event. I was completely blindsided by this news and frankly still don’t understand what happened.
I owed more due diligence to the community and I did not know what was happening behind the scenes in terms of contracts and financials. I made assumptions that I thought were okay and that’s not how you run a business. I put my faith into others who were subject matter experts in various areas and assumed that everything was a well-oiled machine. I put my personal name and brand of Black Girl Nerds on Universal Fan Con knowing this would be a success and would help more Black women, fans of color, and so many marginalized groups get the opportunity to have a platform where they can see themselves reflected and feel represented.
All of you trusted me, I’m certain many of you decided to purchase your ticket and/or financially support this event because of me. And I understand completely that I have let you down. I have started meetups at DragonCon, San Diego Comic Con and New York Comic Con and opened it up to the community to participate. Communities that I have built a rapport with for years and online communities I’ve helped to build were a part of this mission. In no way, shape or form would I ever want to jeopardize what I have spent years building and creating and compromising many nights of sleep over, just to cash in on a few bucks. I worked for Universal Fan Con as a volunteer. I was never paid but was promised part of the profits.
My statement, recollection of events, and acknowledgment of responsibility will, unfortunately, do nothing for those who have requested time off, put their livelihoods in jeopardy, and spent money on travel, lodging, registration and more. I am personally devastated to have broken the trust of my community. I know that only time and concrete resolutions will regain your trust and I am prepared to work toward that and to honor that truth.

A couple of things immediately leapt out of her statement. First, the shifting of who she was in relation to the con. In one place she’s just a member, then she’s the Director of Community Outreach, yet in her Twitter bio, she was a co-founder. All of these titles might be true, but to have them listed in different places isn’t helping matters. Most important out of all these words is the fact that she was made aware on April 3 what the financial issues were. There was even a potential gofundme that was going to go up to ask for more money. Basically, Jamie’s letter serves as a great anchor for the case. Even though postponing the con on April 3 would have been late, that’s at least time to figure out your life. How in the hell these people thought one week would be acceptable is beyond me. Additionally, everyone would have understood if you asked for more money or needed to postpone because we all believed in the mission.

Today, to add more fuel to this dumpster fire, DarthGeekonius himself hopped on Twitter saying the following




So here we have a situation where everyone is saying they didn’t know what was REALLY happening with the funds despite putting their brand and studio contacts out there to make it happen, another person saying he’s not concerned with who did what and when, and affiliates who say they weren’t affiliated. The name of that person hasn’t been released, but has been made plain is the gross negligence and incompetence of the people who were making this convention. If two blogs can make a contingency event in less than 48 hours, a group of people who had two years to plan an event should have been able to read the writing on the wall. Especially when they notified affiliates in February what was going down. So now we’re stuck with a bunch of people playing in our faces and not being clear about the issues at hand. The mess is still playing out but it’s sure to be a really horrible ending, more so than the already dashed dreams of those who expected a great convention.

Oncae again, a brief timeline:
February – Some affiliates made aware of the fact the con was running into budget issues
March 8 – Email sent to affiliates about ticket goal and profit sharing
April 3 – Jamie made aware the finances were terrible
April 18 – Jamie and Darth ask Starbucks to sponsor FanCon
April 20 – FanCon cancelled, statement and FAQ released

Things we still don’t know and need to know ASAP:
Who in the hell was in charge of the budget or handling the money? We seem to know everyone else’s role in this but no one has been specifically identified re: handling the money.
Who was in charge in general? Chile, we can’t make heads or tails of who all should be blamed.
Will there be refunds? Telling folks that you will honor their ticket for the next convention makes no sense when you couldn’t even host the first one.
Also, everyone involved needs a clearly defined statement about who knew what and when cause it’s gonna get bad if you don’t have that.

If you are gonna be in Baltimore, there’s a pop up con on Saturday that you can attend. Additionally, you can go to this tumblr https://universalartistalley.tumblr.com/ and support the artists who would have been vendors.