22nd June, 2009 I received the most depressing news I've heard in a long time, which was the news of the Abrams Inc. convention being cancelled that was supposed to take place in the second weekend of August. It is a real shame and quite depressing as I was so looking forward to it, I had also forked out a lot of money on it to get the top gold pass that came with lots of privileges such as getting to meet the guests, drinking cocktails with them and autographs.
Michael Emerson whom portrays Benjamin Linus in the popular tv show 'LOST' was going to be there and I was going to use the event to aid my research and work for my dissertation question to do with fandom in my dissertation essay for third year of university, which would have made a really valuable direct primary source.
Furthermore not to mention that I could have used something really good to happen in my life this year to put towards making up for the crappy past year I've endured with the illness and passing of my Nanna which had put me (and my family) through much painfully distraught and languishingly devastating. This summer has already been depressing enough for me with lack of money and job as well as being away from uni and uni friends being brought upon me.
It's not just the fact that the con has been cancelled either that has depressed me, I also had planned tp meet my friends there too. Friends whom I befriended on the internet and have known for years now, and we were using the con as our big thing to finally meet each other in person. What was also disappointing is how ill-treated some of the customers were treated, including myself, whom felt the need to express their sorrow, and disappointment on s/m and m/e forum. I myself got banned for asking revlevant and important questions, which in the end, were ignored. After much emailing them and other forum posters on my side pointed out the absurbity and unfairness of banning me, I was unbanned.
The only positive thing coming out of the cancellation is that I will get a full refund, and I am lucky that I didn't commit to travel and accomodation expenses, so at least I''ll have more money for my final year at university. I actually got my refund days after the announced cancellation, which is the one good thing s/m and m/e have been able to scrape out of their quality of customer service,
But what has made the cancellation of the even worse is that the organisers of the event 'showmasters' have blamed the uncommited fans who had not yet/would not buy tickets for the con, which has some truth in it, but customers shouldn't be blamed, and the reason there was reluctancy from more customers were that there was only one guest announced, and there would have been more interest if more guests were announced. Not only that, there was a severe lack of advertising, I myself only found out about the event through word of mouth. It's simply outrageous for potential customers and the fans to be blamed for the lack of ticket sales.
To be fair, the man that was out of order to customer's expressed disappointment and significant and relevant questions was a man called Jason, who verbally attacked, accused and slandered customers whom expressed their valid oppinions that so much more could have been done to prevent the cancellation, such as better advertisement, better organised budgeting, gaining more announced guests etc.
I, among many other people, have publically announced that it is very unlikely that we will have enough trust in showmasters and massive events to be fully committed into purchasing for an event for a long long time.
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