A simple search brings up many posts about last year. Still I had many friends go and do very well as vendors so my friend and writer over at http://octokittycrafts.blogspot.com/ talked me into going this year. We were going to do both of the eventsthe coordinator had set up, the craft fair and the con. We were both looking forward to them as well.
A week before the craft fair was scheduled we got a message saying it was cancelled. Unfortunately, I didn't screen grab any of that. I had a hunch we should have exited stage left at that point, but I really wanted to do a con and a home one is very good for us so I stuck to it with my friend and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Eventually we discovered this up on the Cherry City page. Mark has a tendency ot promise many things it seems, but never comes through with them. It is quite possible he's having trouble. Paypal isn't always easy to work with. If enough claims are made it does lock down, but still this was rediculous. Apparently some vendors received refunds, but only half for the craft fair. Others hung on for the con.
Anyway, my friend who paid for both events, and i paid through her, never got a refund for the craft fair from the guy. Its possible he only gave refunds to a few people, but no one's confirmed anything. She was far more accepting and friendly to him than I would have been through this whole situation.
Anyway, we kept working and planning in the hopes of making the loss up at the con.
You know where this is going don't you, dear reader?
Yep. It collapsed too.
Of course, just like last time, No one ever got the mentioned refunds.
Then this post went up which led to his rampage and attack on a personal friend before ripping all the posts and links down soon after:
http://koin.com/2014/12/29/vendor-from-canceled-craft-fair-wants-refund/
"Cherry City Comic Con is dead. A big thank you to those who sought to have it end. Your wish has been granted. After watching the farce that was the news I contacted the interested buyer and told him what happened and after his conversation with his business partners we both agreed that there was no coming back after the ignorant reporting done by Tim Becker who didn't contact me till 11am today offering me "a chance to respond, and if possible sit down for a quick interview with me to explain what the situation is." which is a little fucking retarded to air a story without all the facts but hey, it's the news, right? I'd also like to thank the fairgrounds for stating that they had no record of wither events even though I have email documentation that shows there was knowledge and wayne Petersen the contact at the fairgrounds called Tony's Kingdom and told him the event would not happen unless I paid a $10k deposit. Didn't bother calling me, mind you. Called Tony...
My PayPal account really did get locked up. I can't even access it now. So PayPal steals close to $5k and I'm just fucked!
My life is over. CCCC was all I had to live for. I was going to use the profits to get the craft fair people paid back, move myself and my wife to the beach to start a new life and now it's all gone. I have answered every message I've received and even though I have no way of paying people back I was trying to make sure that the artists and vendors would get an event to vend at and Salem would still have a good con to go to.
I have documentation and proof of all of the above so if you witch hunting scavengers want it, just ask.
All I can do is apologize. I have nothing else now. It's all gone.
Oh, and John Rogers, fuck you."
For a long time we figured we were screwed. This is one of the darker sides I've learned about vendoring. People can and will just take off with your money. And there will be people to defend those asses too.
Thankfully there was a huge stroke of luck and a very ambitious young man took over the fiasco before it passed. John Roach took over the con. In 4 months he revived the con, spoke with many of the vendors and got them settled, managing to completely book all the vendor spaces, got in many celebrity guests that Mark didn't even bother trying to get, The list goes on.
I saw him quite a few times going around to various small craft fairs advertising the show. Thats how we met him the first time, at a small local craft show. One of those little grandma shows. I don't think I'd ever see Mark at anything like that. It was refreshing.
To me it shifted a lot of my hatred of the event. Before I met them I was fully willing to work the event because we were being forced to, but I was gonna wear a shirt blasting the event and let everyone know about the crap Mark had done. I'm not usually a justice warrior but this whole situation had me fuming for months.
So, I was blessedly thankful to meet John and talk with him. He happily took time to talk with us about how we had been treated and how it could be fixed. Then to see all the hard work he put into the con itself. Even at the con he was working hard and deserves a ton of praise and credit.
All I can say is thank you to John for rescuing this con and giving us another local Salem event. I look forward to any events you do in the future.
For the record this was never meant as a blast at Mark. I merely posted all this info to inform others of how cons can go sometimes.
And seriously, John, you were a life saver for that Con. Thank you for taking it over.
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