Yup, that’s right, two posts in one day. Well, more like 24 hours since I did sleep between the last post and this one. But hey, beggers can’t be choosers.
So, here goes.
First off, let me say to all you that might not know… I am not Druihd. Never have been, never will be. She is a friend… I give her space to host her–albeit bandwidth intensive–website. Those of you who know me know more than this… but to protect her as well as myself, I will not say more than this. I do talk to her often though, and have heard about a con she recently sent artwork to. Ohayocon. In Columbus, Ohio. Punny, no? That must be one of the only things going for it. Cause from what I’ve heard, everything else sucked. First off, it was in the same convention space and time as a huge Christian Gathering. Very conservative ones at that. But hey… that’s not that big of a deal. Most of what pisses me off is the fact that Druihd took her time and money to send artwork there to be sold, and it first was misplaced (the woman running the art show didn’t remember getting it, then found it when reminded). Then, the art show room was hidden so no one could find it. Not that it really mattered, because there was NO SILENT AUCTION. All you could do was look at the stuff in the art show room… and then have to wait until Sunday to bid in a live auction. Well, god willing (har har) that would have been fine, HAD THERE NOT BEEN A HUGE SNOW STORM THAT WEEKEND. So everyone left early. There were reportedly all of about 20 people in the auction… for a con of more than 2000. Them’s pretty shoddy turnouts… don’t ya think? So, okay, the auction happens. Then what? Does the woman running the show contact Druihd to tell her what she sold, or made? No. She hears through other sources what happened… and only after 2 weeks of waiting does the woman finally email her and say “I’ve been busy with school, I’ll get intouch with you soon”. Or something along those lines. Excuse me, but, WTF mate? You mean to tell me that you ran an art show full well knowing that you would not be able to follow through with everything because of school? How irresponsible is that?
So, basically, I’m writing this for a couple reasons. One, this isn’t how art shows normally are. SakuraCon has an excellent art show coordinator. Ushicon has an excellent one that contacted Druihd within 24 hours of the con being over. Druihd herself ran the artshow for Kumoricon. These aren’t difficult things to run. You basically just find a biscuit or two to watch the room for you, and then you just make sure people pick up the stuff after the con. Simple. Now, there are other bad art shows… Otakon was pretty bad… it took about 2-3 months after the con to get her check, and the people made absolutely no effort to contact the artists directly. Sure, Druihd made bank at that con, but that doesn’t excuse the lack of responsibility on behalf of the con staff. Druihd made serious bank at Ushicon last weekend, and that woman contact her within less than a day!!! See, it can be done. It has nothing to do with the size of the con. It has everything to do with finding responsible people who take their job seriously. They’re out there. There is a reason Kumoricon got such high marks despite the fact it was only a 500 person con.
So, yeah… I now declare (for what that’s worth) that Ohayocon is blacklisted. It will receive no artwork, no recommendations, nothing. It will have to prove to me that they are past their previous ways. But until then… I suggest all artists that routinely send art to other conventions no longer send any artwork to Ohayocon… it was a waste of time for all those involved… and at this point, I’ll be happy if she just gets her artwork that didn’t sell, back.
Until my next post.