Comments on: JumpCon Series In Serious Doubt – Celebrity Guests Not Planning To Attend [UPDATE: Event Cancelled]

By: KJ

KJ — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:26:21 +0000

I was disappointed as I had purchased tickets for Cleveland. I fortunately had only bought dinner tickets with the actor I was going to see before this thing went bust so thankfully I’m only out a little, but it is disappointing. But I personally don’t see what happened as shady dealings on the organizer’s part. I think he got too excited and over extended himself. He should have started with two or three over the course of a year just to establish himself and have fewer guests. I would give them another try if they came back with a reorganized way of doing things. I’ve only been to one convention. It was held in London and only had one guest. It was just a very relaxing and phenomenal experience. To me you can’t beat that. I did stop buy Collectormania in Milton Keynes the same weekend and it was just a massive cluster f***k. I’d take relaxing and only one guest rather than huge confusion and a ton of celebs. But that’s just me.

By: Patience Wieland, NoirDame.com

Patience Wieland, NoirDame.com — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:16:43 +0000

First, hopefully people have heard the word elsewhere about United Fan Con/NEFE’s effort to run a small alternative con this weekend, across the street from where JumpCon was to be held, in the Boston Back Bay Hilton. http://www.nefe.us has more information. Mark Goddard of “Lost in Space” attended as a guest Friday, and will be back today (Saturday). Several of us have come together to donate items for their auction. What a class act – Goddard, and all of those folks. NEFE is a great example of the kind of fan-run conventions we can all patronize with a smile.

@Tanner Waterbury, I’m guessing you’re from the newer generation of Trek fans? Me too. A lot of specifics have been lost in the mists of time… (grin)… but seriously, yes, counter to your claim that the first two seasons aired “without conflict” — the original series of Trek was threatened with cancellation not once, but twice in the 1960s, to the point where NBC actually made an announcement to fans at the tailend of an 1967 episode, asking them to stop writing. There were actually two rather large letter writing campaigns spearheaded by Bjo Trimble (and Roddenberry, behind the scenes) with help from science fiction fandom. A great book that covers this is Herb Solow and Bob Justman’s “Inside Star Trek.”

Oh, and Paramount was going to develop a second Star Trek TV series, but canceled it and plowed the money into the first motion picture.

By: Brian Germain

Brian Germain — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 05:54:30 +0000

I think part of the problem is that huge and extremely successful cons just don’t always spring up pvernight for instance GENcon was years in making it into the mobile national success that it is now, DragonCON has also been around forever, Orlando and New York and San Diego comic shows same thing! Here is a for instance Using My own convention We started XcapeCON last year and we hope to eventually grow it into something the size of any one of the several several wizard world shows, but even if it just stays a really cool small convention that will be cool too. I have been to tiny conventions where the attendance is in the low hundreds and I have been to ones that have Huge attendance, XcapeCON lands in there at a modest low thousands mark currently and if that’s all it ever does I can live with that the point I try to make with XcapeCON is to ensure that people come out have fun and perhaps end up with a few great stories as well as some great items they pick up! Anyway we only looking at our second year this fall on November 22nd and 23rd but we hope it is even more successful than last year and we hope you’ll all come out and help it to grow.

-Brian

By: Scott Catton

Scott Catton — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:29:22 +0000

***For those who planned to go to Jumpcon,there will now be a much smaller sci-fi con in it’s place thanks to the fine organizers of UNITED FAN CON/NEW ENGLAND FAN EXPERIENCE-Paul & Deb Aldred.
It will be held in Boston right next to the (former) Jumpcon location at the HILTON BACK BAY HOTEL-40 DALTON ST. BOSTON MA.
The Hours are:Friday 3-10 pm Saturday 10am-6 pm Sunday 12 pm-6 pm.
FREE ADMISSION!!!! (For all those who want to attend?)

There will be merchandise dealers-panels & other events.They have booked 1 Celebrity guest-Popular veteran actor MARK GODDARD from the classic TV series “LOST IN SPACE”.
He is scheduled to arrive sometime after 5 pm or so.He is extremely gracious to appear at the last minute as he is from the Boston area!
Please show your appreciation.He also may be coming Saturday as well.

They are also looking to book other last minute celebrity guests as well!
*These are the fine folks who have run the popular UNITED FAN CON conventions the last 17 years & later this year-the NEW !NEW ENGLAND FAN EXPERIENCE Convention.
They have absolutely NO! affiliation with Jumpcon whatsoever & are definately NOT a “fly by night” quick buck operation.They are doing it solely for the FANS!!!!

*I’m also one of the people helping to run it as well given about a very brief “24 hour” time frame to come up with something for the fans.

Paul & Deb deserve ALL the credit!
They hope to turn a NEGATIVE experience into a somewhat POSTIVE one!

Scott Catton

By: krikzil

krikzil — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:27:01 +0000

Shore Leave was a great con and I’ve always enjoyed the Creation Vegas cons and attend their Grand Slams sporadically too. One of my favorite con was that Huntsville Alabama Anniversary con. As for celeb interactions, I remember when the cast used to mingle with fans in the dealer’s rooms.

By: De Baisch

De Baisch — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:04:59 +0000

I have to echo #33 (Alex Rosenzweig) about Shore Leave being a terrific experience. Met a number of folks I never ever thought I’d meet (like Malcolm McDowell!!!), made some new friends, and had, quite possibly, The Best Weekend Ever.

By: Kazelpdc

Kazelpdc — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:47:53 +0000

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By: Gorn's third cousin

Gorn's third cousin — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:31:48 +0000

There are cost to running a con. The guests ask a lot and the con owners need to make the money somewhere. Looking forward to Vegas this year woot. :)

5 days of trek con fun during the day and 5 nights of shows, poker and endless fun at night. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

By: YOU COULDN'T PAY ME TO ATTEND A CREATION CONVENTION ANYMORE

YOU COULDN'T PAY ME TO ATTEND A CREATION CONVENTION ANYMORE — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:39:28 +0000

I really had high hopes for JumpCon, as I loathe what has become of Creation.

I remember when Creation Conventions were comic book based, and always had sci-fi guests. I used to have FUN at these. You were allowed to talk to and spend a minute with the stars. Now, the Klingon dressed security guards will tell you to not make eye contact with the talent (and I swear I’m not joking, as this was the final straw that led me to NEVER go to one of their cons again). Their auctions were entertaining, and you could actually get a bargain (yes, I still have one of the “rare” Spock liquor decanters from one such auction). But once they had that signed contract with Paramount for the Trek guests, they started to get greedy.

I mean, seriously – $300 for a ticket in the front row and an autograph? I can get the autograph itself for much less, and just watch from the back somewhere. Creation has become such a major rip-off, but people pay it and go because it’d the ONLY place you can see some of these stars (again, due to contracts).

As an aspiring actor, I have made it a personal goal that if I *ever* get in the position to be a guest at a Creation con, I’d spend most of it OFF the stage, running my panel with the poor guys in the back who couldn’t afford the outrageous price tag to sit with the “elite” in front.

I really hope JumpCon can recover. I’d attend. Just to support someone who is trying to make a true fan-con.

By: Jerry Seward

Jerry Seward — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:09:32 +0000

@54

As Robert Picardo put it, CHUMPCON.