Steel City Con: Even Worse Than You thought

I was not going to talk about Steel City Con again on this blog. I figured I had said more than enough in my last post, which blew up on social media and spread the word about Dom Vader’s shenanigans very far indeed. However, two separate events have occurred which prompted me to revisit this issue.

The first is that Dominic Alessandria (hereafter: Dom Vader), the owner and promoter of Steel City Con, threw a hissy fit and kicked out a bunch of vendors who either reshared my post or posted their own criticism. Attached is a screen shot of a message sent to one of these vendors, providing independent confirmation:

I know of at least three other vendors that got booted, but I’ll leave it up to them to identify themselves. I’m sure they will have plenty to say.

By itself, this is an extremely dickish thing to do. Some commentators on social media who had past run-ins with Dom predicted this, citing examples of people being banned from the Steel City Con Facebook page and having any critical posts deleted (in fact, there’s a Facebook community dedicated to the subject). I didn’t think Dom Vader would go this far; it’s one thing to ban someone from commenting and quite another to throw out long time vendors. But there you have it. Beneath the oily, steel shell of his mechanical heart, Dom is actually very sensitive.

But at least (all?) of these folks got refunds. We, however, still have not received ours.

Now we come to the element that personally bothers me the most. Perhaps in an attempt to come across as the wounded good guy, unfairly maligned by some internet malcontent, Dom Vader peddles the epic deceit that we never asked for a refund. Why he would expect anyone to believe such an outrageous thing I can’t guess, but then again I can’t guess why he thought it was a good idea to tag vendors like cattle and charge them $50 for each separate booth helper, no matter how many were in the building at once. (Oh, you didn’t hear about that? More on that in a minute.)

Obviously, we asked for a refund. That was the entire point of making the Paypal claim. In our claim, we stated the reasons why we would not be able to attend and asked for the $189 back. If you’ve ever had a dispute through PayPal before, you know how this works: the request for refund goes immediately to the seller, who can simply issue the refund or escalate it to Paypal for arbitration. He could have sent us the money back at the click of a mouse-button, but instead he chose to escalate the claim to Paypal.

So much for that.

The second event was a comment I received today on the last Steel City Con post. It is so nasty and calumnious that I did not approve it and I had to redact 2/3rds of the letter because it contains unsupported and probably libelous allegations against two of Darth Dom’s rivals. It was sent anonymously, under the name “F#¢k the rumor mill”, but ten seconds of email searching identified the author as “Cy-Fi Samael,” apparently the owner of a Pittsburgh clothing store. Here are the parts relevant to me:

Firstly steel city con did offer refunds to people after they set the letter or regarding set up schedule changing. There’s multiple vendors that got refunds & I was even offered one when I contacted them regarding it – even though I never said I was planning on cancelling.

Secondly is nice [sic] Casey [Bassett, promoter of Sci-Fi Valley Con] offered you a discount to go on here and slam steel city con – is usual behavior for sci-fi valley.

[Deleted three paragraphs that have nothing to do with Ascension Epoch, attacking Casey Bassett and Renee George of the late Pittsburgh Comicon]

As for the claims in the first paragraph, all I can say is: That’s nice, but he didn’t do that for us. Maybe Dom just has a mad on for us for some reason, or maybe my previous post caused him so much heat he figured he’d better play nice. Whatever, the fact remains that we have not been issued a refund.

The second paragraph is simply a lie. I received no financial incentives for posting the previous article, and anyone who knows me knows that I wouldn’t need to be bribed into exposing someone who defrauded me. A moment’s consideration will show how silly the idea is. A “discount” (presumably to buy a table at Sci-Fi Valley Con) would have been worth substantially less money than the amount I had already sunk into the table at Steel City Con ($189). Sci-Fi Valley Con’s tables are only $59. What sort of “discount” would have made that exchange worthwhile? Moreover, we purchased our table for SVC a few weeks after the last one, way back in June. And this does not even take into account the earnings we could have made at Steel City Con.

For the record, let me state unequivocally that we have no meaningful connection to Sci-Fi Valley Con beyond that we bought a table there in May. This is essentially the same connection we have with any other con — including Steel City Con, for that matter. We did not ask Sci-Fi Valley Con or anyone else to reshare the post (though I’m sure happy they did!). Aside from occasional interactions over email or Facebook and a few minutes of conversation in real life, we don’t know Casey Bassett, Renee George, Dominic Alessandria, or any other con promoter. They are not distant relatives or friends of ours. Before this episode, we had no bad blood, no grudges nursing against Dom. Outside of the convention hall, they may be the nicest or the nastiest people on the planet and we wouldn’t know about it. The knowledge we have about any of them comes from our experiences at conventions that they ran, and all of our comments come in that narrow context.

Now, let’s get to the meat of this new indictment against Steel City Con, delivered in the writing of old Dom Vader himself. The following is the full letter/email he sent to vendors that started this whole controversy. Bolded items are in the original. Note the imperious tone of the letter (one commentator on Facebook said he had never been to another con that “treated their own vendors like criminals or adversaries.” Spot on.) and pay special attention to his new rules about the non-removable wristbands and his parking lot gestapo. Also take note of the bizarre requirement that vendors must receive his permission before distributing their own promotional flyers. Of course, you’ll also see the bit about having to pay for your chairs and the stuff about changing the hours of set-up and the con. I won’t make any more comment on the letter, because I think it says more about the type of convention that Steel City Con is, and the personality of the man who runs it, than anything else I could add.

STEEL CITY CON: SET-UP INSTRUCTIONS MAJOR CHANGES!  

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY!

SET-UP is now THURSDAY ONLY: 9:00am – 9:00pm.

This is an additional hour of set-up time and ensures everyone is ready for our customers on Friday morning when we open the doors.

Note: Dealers / Artists may enter the building at 9:00am on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This makes it easy to remember: same time every morning.

LATE TO SET UP? LATE ARRIVALS WILL FORFIET THEIR TABLE(S)

Any ARTIST or DEALER arriving AFTER the set-up times will NOTbe permitted to set-up and will forfeit their table(s) without refund.

SHOW HOURS: FRIDAY CLOSING TIME CHANGE

Friday 10am – 8pm (3 Day Pass holders get in at 9:30am) Dealers / Artists get in at 9:00am

Saturday 10am-8pm (3 Day Pass holders get in at 9:30am) Dealers / Artists get in at 9:00am

Sunday 10am-5pm (3 Day Pass holders get in at 9:30am) Dealers / Artists get in at 9:00am

Please note: closing time for Friday night is now 8pm, not 9pm.

NEW BADGE CHANGES:  

                              

Effective immediately we will be using special design WRISTBANDS (not badges) for dealers and Artists. Each Wristband will have a specific serial number on it associated with your table(s). The wristbands are A SPECIAL DESIGN hospital grade quality which have a unique design, a unique serial number and are durable, waterproof and hypo-allergenic.

Our staff will physically place the wristband on your wrist (and on your helpers). If you and your helpers are not all checking in at the same time you should give the names of those arriving later to our staff. As with you, our staff will physically place the wristband on your helpers as they arrive. We will NOT give you wristbands for you to place on your helpers.

BADGE VIOLATIONS: 

Badge policy has been overly abused and badges have never been transferable. If you attempt to allow someone to enter the show that is not a true helper you will be ejected from the show. Don’t risk getting banned from the show just to get your friends or family into the event.

DO I NEED TO PURCHASE ADDITIONAL VENDOR WRISTBANDS?

Please do not wait until the weekend of the show to purchase additional vendor wristbands. Prices of additional vendor wristbands are currently $40. (The cost is $50ea the weekend of the show).

If you CUT or REMOVE your WRISTBAND at any time it becomes VOID and a new one must be purchased at full price.