No Con? No Problem.

I wanted to share this with you all – I feel that the past few days has been great for all fandoms.

This week was to be the weekend of the 2nd Flanvation, a Firefly convention in Burbank, CA. The con was sold out with all fans paying at least $250 just to be there not to mention the hotel and travel expenses for the weekend.

The organizers, Booster Entertainment, with less than 24 hours notice, canceled the convention with fans from all over already at the hotel or on the way. The Booster website went away (along with about $200,000 of the fans money they paid for the event) and left only one sentence: “Booster Entertainment apologizes for the great inconvenience, but due to unforeseen circumstances, Flanvention is canceled. An official notice will be posted within 10 days.” No one is expecting to hear from them again except for excuses and litigation.

So what happened? The California Browncoats stepped up and started organizing at least some activities for people to do while they were there.

Then most of the guests that were scheduled to appear still showed up. The other actors and celebrities that were not supposed to be there showed up.

Saturday, a company called Multiverse ponied up for buses to take the fans to interact with the guests in a more open setting, took them to dinner and then took them to a private party at a new Sunset Strip nightclub. All paid for by private donations.

Needless to say this has been a very memorable weekend for those folks. And it really made be proud to be a Browncoat.