Title: Scorchie-Critter Las Pegasus Unicon has to be one of the most disorganized an Author: eqcitizen978 Pastebin link: http://pastebin.com/ucSgLusA First Edit: Wednesday 27th of February 2013 10:31:29 AM CDT Last Edit: Wednesday 27th of February 2013 10:31:29 AM CDT Scorchie-Critter   Las Pegasus Unicon has to be one of the most disorganized and mismanaged conventions I’ve ever been to as either an attendee or artist/vendor.     My Experience:   About the Hotel:   It took us a half hour just to check in to our room even though there was only 5 other people ahead of us. I’ve never experienced such slow service from even lower-end hotel/casinos I’ve stayed in during my many trips to  Nevada. Let alone any number of hotels/motels I’ve stayed in during cons or otherwise.   Our room only received Maid Service one day — the day I finally got fed up and called housekeeping to request it. Our toilet and in-room safe were broken as well. I had to call maintenance.   I think two of my friends ended up with food poisoning from eating sandwiches from one of the hotel’s ABC Stores. (Either that or Denny’s’ hashbrowns. I won’t blame the hotel if it was Denny’s.)       About the Con:   I’ve heard that there was probably around 600 attendees. I believe this.  I’ve been to some smaller conventions, and I have to say that is honestly what it felt like. It’s possible that the con hit around 1,000 overall if you count the 1-day passes on Saturday.   It took us 2-hours to get our pre-reg badges because the information for my table that I registered through the con-head was not passed on to registration. I had to finally pull out a paypal receipt on my phone to prove to them that I had indeed registered for a table. The volunteers running registration were incredibly lost, confused and tired. One of them stated that they had been up all night working, and all he wanted to do was sleep. I  felt bad. I could tell from their faces they were in over their heads and just wanted to go home. Whenever I tried asking about Vendors information, I kept getting the answer “I don’t know. You’ll have to go ask Sandi”. The con head, Sandi, was to be found over at the merch table trying to sell T-shirts. It was Pre-Reg and her staff were drowning. She needed to be behind the Registration desk answering questions. I don’t really think trying to sell a few t-shirts the day before the con was exactly a priority.   A guy who was a last-minute vendor and was trying to also get questions answered at the same time I was trying to pre-reg had a receipt written on a scrap of lined paper in sharpie.   The registration staff was printing and laminating badges by hand. What the actual fuck?? The con was expecting 2,000 people and you’re doing this by hand?? Most conventions budget for a print shop to do this for them. How can you expect your staff to print, cut and laminate 2,000 badges by hand with a slow-ass inkjet printer. How is this cost effective??   Did anyone manage to get a schedule book?? We managed to get our hands on one, only because it was the one the con-head was using and gave to me. It was printed with… an inkjet printer. What. The. Fuck. Maybe it’s because I work for a print shop… but that is not time or cost effective. No wonder nobody managed to get one. Not that it mattered. The schedule of events seemed to change every 20 minutes or so. Nobody had any idea what was happening. Also, if I had been one that paid for adspace in the book, I’d be livid. It was obvious only a few people ever saw those ads.   Shitty sales. Shitty sales. Shitty sales. Maybe it was because the attendee crowd was much smaller than promised (We had been told 2,000 but another vendor I spoke with had been told 3,500.) or maybe it was because everybody was spending their money on signatures (I’ve been spoiled by anime cons, where industry guests are paid with budget from ticket sales, not with signature commissions, so this just seems like bullshit to me, but I know it’s standard at some cons.), but sales were slow and crappy. We barely broke even. That is something that has never happened before, I’ve always made profit. A nice paid vacation I guess, but I had been hoping to pay for car parts with my earnings.   Fake. Fucking. Printed-on-cardstock. Monopoly money. We were told we were supposed to accept this fake money the con had printed, but were never told to what end. I still don’t fully know why, just that it was the stupidest concept I’d ever heard of. Essentially, we were told that some people would pay us with the fake money. We were expected to take it, and then cash it at registration at the end of the con (That changed to 5pm when things started to crash, which then turned into ‘good luck getting your money back’). I finally gathered that they were perhaps paying their volunteers with it. I’m not sure. I just know that I have 15 dollars worth of funny money that I never got reimbursed for.   The fire alarm went off. That disrupted things. I never found out if somebody pulled the alarm or if something actually caught fire. That event paled in comparison to the con demise that was coming in the future.   We really started to notice things were going south when on Sunday there were prominent members of the Brony community running around with walkies and looking worried. I’m not sure who the girl was that talked with me who said “I’m practically in charge now. I only came here to relax and attend. I’m not even a vendor this time.”   I was told that at one point nobody could find Nicole Oliver (I think that’s who it was.) because she was never picked up from the airport. It also seemed that Tara Strong was had a hard time figuring out how she was going to get comped for the taxi she inevitably had to take on her own from her hotel when nobody sent one for her. These are your incredibly important guests… and the con was so disorganized that you couldn’t even keep track of them, or make sure they were taken care of properly?? What is wrong here?   Closing time for the Vendors room kept getting shorter and shorter. Rumors of the con’s lack of funds and the fact the hotel was pre-maturely evicting the con were flying. When we were told we would be closing at 5, we made the joke of “Just wait, next they’ll tell us we’re closing at 2:00”… Later, we were told we would have to be out of the Vendor’s room by 2:30. At the time, all we could do is laugh and shake our heads at how ridiculous this was starting to become. It was almost like it was a big joke and we were all getting trolled.   We were told that there was no money for the con to pay the voice actors. In order to save face, donations were being taken for an emergency auction to try and help. I donated a handful of prints. At the time, I had no idea that this auction was being organized not by the con, but by the media and promies.   My brother went to find out what was going so very wrong, and came back with stories of how one of the voice actresses ragequit and just up and left the con. He also told me that “John de Lancie is just out in the hall looking very upset while talking on the phone… he looks so angry that people are afraid to even try to approach him.”   Close to closing time, we were told (much to our surprise) that we were supposed to have a tax form to fill out because our sales taxes were owed to the county. I said that I had never received it, and this was new information. The guy told me that was the case with most of the vendors and he would be back with forms. He never came back… I wanted to leave, so I went to registration to find one. The kid said at the desk said had the master copy, but was apparently not allowed in the room where the copy machine was because there was some sort of meeting going on. Now, I’ve dealt with these kinds of tax forms before, so I asked him if I was just supposed to figure tax and then mail it to the county. He told me we were expected to total our sales, then hand over the form and the cash (CASH. From. Our. Lockbox.) to them in an envelope. I’m accustomed to mailing a check after the fact. The con was crashing due to lack of funds, I wasn’t about to hand over an envelope full of cash to whoever and hope I didn’t get an audit… . I never did get a tax form. I suppose I will have to look it up online.   We finally decided to pack it up and abandon ship around the same time everyone else was. I remember the ladies running the concession stand looking confused and worried. One of them got on a walkie and said “Everyone is leaving. People are tearing-down. I don’t understand. Are we supposed to stay open? Why are people leaving?” They conversed in spanish for awhile with dismayed looks on their faces. It was obvious a portion of the hotel staff also had no idea what the hell was going on.       In the end, we had a good time hanging out and goofing off in an attempt to stave off boredom… but, just, goddamn.