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Returned from Vacation & Confuzzled report...
10 years ago
General
Hey guys!
I just spent the last 10 days traipsing around in the Florida sun with
evilart, --Mad Mable-- and 
skufer42 and I am very, very exhausted X3. That said, it was nice to spend more than an afternoon away from my tablet and I'm now back in the office, ready to get going with both Patreon and commissions that have backed up! Today and tomorrow I'll be focusing mainly on the stuff that piled up over the vacation, but once that's done I'll be hitting the drawing board as hard as I can ;).
Now, regarding Confuzzled.
Some of you may have followed my stream of tweets that happened on the day and wondered what the heck happened to make me so upset (since I don't normally tweet such things) and I felt like I should elaborate since some untrue rumors started flying around for a minute there.
To clarify, since the greater bulk of Mad Mable's merchandise came out of my stylus, we thought it would be a good idea for us to combine tables. That explains why I was sitting next to Mad Mable and bore witness to the entire debacle.
When we arrived on the Friday, we set up the table, complete with a copy of --the Dawn Figurine-- so that we could drum up interest for either a new run of Dawns or a new character altogether (hint: she's not a Bernal character ;3)...either way, the new project would be Kickstarter funded and we just wanted to both guage and drum up interest in the things.
We checked with the Convention staff on the Friday whether the figurine was appropriate, and the Dealer's room staff agreed, providing we cover up Dawn's lower bits, which we did.
Before the dealer's room opened on the Saturday, we checked once again, just to be sure. Again, the Dealer's room staff agreed that the figurine was appropriate and abided by the Dealer's Room guidelines, provided her lower bits stayed covered and out of view. She was also under glass which prevented people from purposely picking her up and showing her hindquarters to the world :).
The day goes by without a hitch...people were very interested and everyone who saw the figurine wanted to know more about it. We didn't receive a single complaint at the table and things were just dandy. Then, about 30 minutes before the Dealer's Room closed a member of Security approached the table and told us that there had been complaints about the sculpture.
When we asked who had complained, the staff member initially said it was other dealers in the room. When we asked him to clarify so we could have a friendly chat with our fellow dealers, his story changed to "several customers" had complained about it. By then, we were (civilly) debating the staff member, since his story kept changing. Because more members of staff and security started arriving (attracted by the debate, no doubt), eventually Mad Mable opted to simply break the table down and not return to the Dealer's Den the next day.
Eventually after continued investigation it turns out that there was only ONE person who complained, and that for some reason a junior member of security had been tasked to come over to us to order us to either cover up or remove the sculpture so the ONE person wouldn't get offended again.
It also turns out the one person who complained was going around, doing it to other vendors and the art show. The convention knew about this person and that he was a troublemaker, and yet, did nothing but acquiesce to his prudish demands.
The reason I was so upset is because the convention staff, to spare the feelings of a single person (who apparently got himself banned later in the convention) ordered a dealer to take down a display that it had initially approved (twice).
Despite that, a personal apology from the Deputy Director of the Dealer's room and every other member of security agreeing that the sculpture was OK to display, the decision wasn't officially reversed. Which kinda sucks :(.
As such, Mad Mable and myself probably won't be dealing at Confuzzled next year, and we're still considering whether or not we'll attend, given the journey may not be worth the hassle if we don't deal.
With that said, apparently this thing is still being batted around the halls of the CF staff, so there may yet be some development on their side to solidify what is and isn't allowed in the Dealer's room.
And yes, when I returned to my room after dealing with all this craziness, I found it underwater. Turns out someone two floors above me destroyed their toilet and every other room underneath them suffered the consequences. When I went to the front desk the hotel staff were pretty shitty and borderline rude about it...telling me to "just go back to my room and wait for maintenance staff to arrive". Yeah, like I'm gonna sit in a room with a leaky toilet-roof and wait for a guy with a mop to arrive....
It was only when I demanded to see a manager the staff member actually did something and gave me a new room (not an apology...just a new room). And I never did get to see that hotel manager.
Speaking for myself, I may return to CF at some point in the future, but I think I'll need a break from it to cleanse my pallete :).
TL:DR--- Confuzzled kinda sucked for me this year, may or may not return in the near future :).
I just spent the last 10 days traipsing around in the Florida sun with
evilart, --Mad Mable-- and 
skufer42 and I am very, very exhausted X3. That said, it was nice to spend more than an afternoon away from my tablet and I'm now back in the office, ready to get going with both Patreon and commissions that have backed up! Today and tomorrow I'll be focusing mainly on the stuff that piled up over the vacation, but once that's done I'll be hitting the drawing board as hard as I can ;).Now, regarding Confuzzled.
Some of you may have followed my stream of tweets that happened on the day and wondered what the heck happened to make me so upset (since I don't normally tweet such things) and I felt like I should elaborate since some untrue rumors started flying around for a minute there.
To clarify, since the greater bulk of Mad Mable's merchandise came out of my stylus, we thought it would be a good idea for us to combine tables. That explains why I was sitting next to Mad Mable and bore witness to the entire debacle.
When we arrived on the Friday, we set up the table, complete with a copy of --the Dawn Figurine-- so that we could drum up interest for either a new run of Dawns or a new character altogether (hint: she's not a Bernal character ;3)...either way, the new project would be Kickstarter funded and we just wanted to both guage and drum up interest in the things.
We checked with the Convention staff on the Friday whether the figurine was appropriate, and the Dealer's room staff agreed, providing we cover up Dawn's lower bits, which we did.
Before the dealer's room opened on the Saturday, we checked once again, just to be sure. Again, the Dealer's room staff agreed that the figurine was appropriate and abided by the Dealer's Room guidelines, provided her lower bits stayed covered and out of view. She was also under glass which prevented people from purposely picking her up and showing her hindquarters to the world :).
The day goes by without a hitch...people were very interested and everyone who saw the figurine wanted to know more about it. We didn't receive a single complaint at the table and things were just dandy. Then, about 30 minutes before the Dealer's Room closed a member of Security approached the table and told us that there had been complaints about the sculpture.
When we asked who had complained, the staff member initially said it was other dealers in the room. When we asked him to clarify so we could have a friendly chat with our fellow dealers, his story changed to "several customers" had complained about it. By then, we were (civilly) debating the staff member, since his story kept changing. Because more members of staff and security started arriving (attracted by the debate, no doubt), eventually Mad Mable opted to simply break the table down and not return to the Dealer's Den the next day.
Eventually after continued investigation it turns out that there was only ONE person who complained, and that for some reason a junior member of security had been tasked to come over to us to order us to either cover up or remove the sculpture so the ONE person wouldn't get offended again.
It also turns out the one person who complained was going around, doing it to other vendors and the art show. The convention knew about this person and that he was a troublemaker, and yet, did nothing but acquiesce to his prudish demands.
The reason I was so upset is because the convention staff, to spare the feelings of a single person (who apparently got himself banned later in the convention) ordered a dealer to take down a display that it had initially approved (twice).
Despite that, a personal apology from the Deputy Director of the Dealer's room and every other member of security agreeing that the sculpture was OK to display, the decision wasn't officially reversed. Which kinda sucks :(.
As such, Mad Mable and myself probably won't be dealing at Confuzzled next year, and we're still considering whether or not we'll attend, given the journey may not be worth the hassle if we don't deal.
With that said, apparently this thing is still being batted around the halls of the CF staff, so there may yet be some development on their side to solidify what is and isn't allowed in the Dealer's room.
And yes, when I returned to my room after dealing with all this craziness, I found it underwater. Turns out someone two floors above me destroyed their toilet and every other room underneath them suffered the consequences. When I went to the front desk the hotel staff were pretty shitty and borderline rude about it...telling me to "just go back to my room and wait for maintenance staff to arrive". Yeah, like I'm gonna sit in a room with a leaky toilet-roof and wait for a guy with a mop to arrive....
It was only when I demanded to see a manager the staff member actually did something and gave me a new room (not an apology...just a new room). And I never did get to see that hotel manager.
Speaking for myself, I may return to CF at some point in the future, but I think I'll need a break from it to cleanse my pallete :).
TL:DR--- Confuzzled kinda sucked for me this year, may or may not return in the near future :).
Dude that sucks that you had such a bad time. I myself will be going to Anime Boston for my first convention ever, so it has me really nervous and excited since I'm new to the whole thing. Hopefully your next convention goes smoother
Maybe you should speak to a few artists and set up your own kind of convention somehow? That way you know things will be handled properly, both the rules, displays, security etc.
I'd also hate to completely write off the convention because of an isolated incident. With that said, I think that if I do attend again I'll be staying at a nearby hotel instead of the main hotel, and I definitely won't be dealing on the Sunday, just the Saturday.
And nope, the convention never refunded Mable's table money :(.
To be honest I'm slowly reaching a point where I don't wanna do conventions anymore either...I feel like an old man surrounded by a bunch of rowdy kids that don't know how to act in public XD...
Understandable if you'd like to avoid Confuzzled for a while. A shame though! I'll hopefully see you back there or at other conventions in the future!
You just make sure to have a better time there though
On complaint or one sorry offended person does not merit what happened
Seems to me that staff definitely didn't have their act together.
The host hotel also was being a turd.
...Which would really suck XD.
But then, why attend at all? Birmingham isn't exactly a vacation destination! I'm hoping the Resort World nearby will make it a bit more worthwhile once it opens in a year or two.
Now with the hotel staff, i understand they had probably been being bitched at all day from the people who's rooms were affected, but that doesn't give them the right to treat customers who are paying for a room and get shit, like that. If it were me as manager i would shift everyone affected free of charge to a new room, offer my sincere condolences on the issue and offer reimbursement from any personal belongs that may have been damaged by the water.
My mate was like "Oh god that's amazing get us one!" and it's like "Nope sold out" D: FUUUUU
You had a poor experience yes, god knows it sucked ass but would you do as people have suggested and boycott the entire event. I know I couldn't do it. I would be cutting myself off from seeing good friends who, because of vast distances I would never be able to see again. I would also be deigning myself every future possible friendship I might make while there.
But it has to be your choice after weighing the pros against the cons(pun intended XP) regardless of single events and see if how they measure up.
But I can well see the need to take a year or so off if you feel burnt out. either way I'll miss not seeing you there if you choose not to attend next year.
ttfn matey
Vega
I actually don't usually make friends at conventions because I'm too busy working XD, but actually I'm considering alternating between EF and CF year over year. That would spare me from overloading on a single convention ;).
Shame that the pusses who also were the con collective were also too fucking spineless, and that someone had to try and stretch their inverted sack to appeal to their cohorts. Crap like that pisses me off.
However, I applaud you, and Marble, for doing what you felt was best. Yes, it was money lost unfortunetally. A horrid circumstance all around. But at days end, preserving your sanity to reach the next day is better than making an extra sale.
Then again, you were in Florida. I've lived here 25+ years, moving here from the north east. Still can't figure the fucking place out, and don't want to. ;-p
My name is Rizzo, and I am the Venue Manager for ConFuzzled, dealing with all contracts, negotiations, and direct lines of communication with the Hilton. Having read through what you have said regarding issues with the hotel room and advising that there was a raw sewage leak, I need to follow up with an investigation with the hotel to uncover exactly what happened.
I can inform you that each morning, I have a feedback meeting wiht the hotel, where operational issues are fed back. I am aware of a problem that occured due to a faulty air conditioner unit, which directly impacted several rooms below however, each occupant was relocated. If what you have advised is accurate, I would like to find out from the hotels part what happened. In each case of such an event, they will have documented logs as is legally required.
Can you please contact me directly and provide as much information about the situation as possible. You can reach me on venue (a) confuzzled (dot) org (dot) uk
I would like to know the following:
Time and day of incident
Your room number and type
The location of your room where possible i.e. exec wing, main hotel, singles wing
Name of staff member you spoke to from Hilton if you can recall
If you should re-consider to attend our event in future, I would just like to stress that if you ever have such a concern again in relation to the hotel, to raise it directly with our Con Ops team on site at the time, so it can be addressed immediately, rather than waiting for the event to be over. This makes it somewhat more difficult on my part to follow up with an investigation. I can assure you this would have been resolved at the time.
In regards to issues you feel you faced with the dealers den, unfortunately I am not in a position to comment on this but am sure if you contact the team, they will be able to have a direct line of communication with you and try to address your concerns.
Many thanks,
Rizzorat
Yes, it is Security's job to follow up on any complaints about so-called "indecent" displays. That said, if it was only one person, I would imagine that the security director (or one of his or her underlings) could just, you know, walk by the table to determine if it really was something that was truly indecent, or something that wasn't a big deal, after all. If there were any questions, then the security director, himself should have come over and clarified what you had been told you could do with the figurine, and who told you that. This was just handled very unprofessionally, it sounds like!
Between that, and your room (and the Hilton's horrible customer service—seriously, "Just go back to your room"?! AYFKM?!!), I would be highly wary of ever attending CF again. I'll be crossing this one off from my "to go to cons" list, then!
Now, all that said, I must say this: I have been a HUGE fan of Dawn since I first saw her on SexyFur.com, waaaay back in 2003–04, when Bernal was first getting started. She and Gunbunny have always been my favorites, and I'm so glad to see you expanding her character and artwork. Bring on more SEXY Collie Cowgirl!