So this weekend was my birthday weekend and I had a friend out from Minnesota. We purchased tickets for Rhode Island 3rd Annual Comic Con on 1 Sabin Street Providence. I attended last year and all went well. Well as any convention you would expect it to be somewhat crowded and hard to park. So after parking 3 blocks away we walked 3 blocks through the rain to enter the convention. We went in through Security no problem, We tried to get around to look at some celebrities and see the merchandise. After about 2 hours inside we decided to head to Dave and Busters for lunch and after having to track down a waitress and nearly having to tackle someone to get our bill we decided to head back for round two. We tried to backdoor in the convention through the hotel area and they had it all locked off, thinking maybe something was wrong we decided to head back outside to into the rain. We seen the line not moving and the doors were locked, inside was the Fire Chief and Police. I began to think there was some sort of threat that had happened. We went to the side doors to ask one of the cops inside what had happened. They stated there were too many people inside and it was oversold and no one was getting back inside including us who had already been inside and were issued bracelets. So we were standing outside at 130 and we had no clue to when we were coming in. People in line were naturally upset as were we due to us getting denied access back inside We drove from Connecticut so we decided to call it a day, after monitoring Twitter feeds along with Facebook it seems the convention center was trying to blame Public Safety for doing their job. I applaud Public Safety for making sure the damn floors don't cave in and kill anyone. So after getting back home I began to poke around on Facebook and it seems as if fans were posting messages on RI Comic cons page and the staff that monitor their page were deleting comments as people asked for refunds. They stated they were only deleting comments with swear words which makes sense due to kids posting fan pics on their page. So I posted my strongly worded opinion and mine was deleted as well. So the my friends and I are convention junkies, mostly horror movies however some other ones as well. I have to say Rhode Island Comic Con you should be ashamed of yourself. First of all, I have never seen such ignorance in planning an event this size. From the reports from the Providence Journal it seems as of they sold 23 thousand tickets for a venue that can only hold 17 thousand maximum? That makes absolutely no sense what so ever. Their excuse was that they thought someone was coming to browse for an hour and leave? I have been to Fangoria, Chiller, Monster Mania, Rock and Shock, and Terror con. I've seen some drunken crowded venues in my time. This was managed so poorly it makes me angry enough to never want to go back. They need to learnt to make an event that size workable and also cut the sales when they hit a number. They should be ashamed go themselves and someone should be fired oner this. Some people not me but I have down this have traveled to these conventions got an overpriced hotel room bought premium tickets and photo packages. Then to be denied access back inside to abstain those packages, When revisiting their page they claimed not to be over sold. First of all I do understand the closing of the building, I get it however send a few ticket representative with a bullhorn announcing what was going on. There was no information about what was happening whatsoever. We left at 130 PM and I read they starting letting people in 100 at a time at 5 PM. Mind you the line was wrapped around the block at least twice not including the ones that were backed up into the hotel garage. So just looking at the line I could see about 3 thousand people waiting to gain access where we were 3 of them. People demanding refunds from Ticketmaster said that all the funds were released to Comic Con already and get this they were STILL selling tickets on Saturday to a shut down event. They had a great cast from Star Trek including Shatner but that won't draw people right? These people need to hire Creation to run this event cause obviously they don't have a clue to what they are doing. There were some people defending them saying growing pains, this is the 3rd one!!!!! They need to understand they want to compete with the big boys in San Diego and New York City, they need to plan for this properly. How a lot of people ask well I went onto New York Comic Con website and tried to but tickets and they were SOLD OUT, Lets not be greedy hogs and cap the damn ticket sales like New York city did. Lets make them issue refunds even partial, understand its only $33 dollars but its not the money its the principle of them learning their lesson for what they did and making them know that we know they oversold the place. I personally would love to see a Class Action Law suit on this for a partial refund. I am very upset they have not apologized in any way yet officially, nor have they took ownership for their royal mistake. I do apologize to the people that missed their expensive photo ops and to the ones that saved up a lot of money to enjoy the weekend and geek out. Also to the stories I heard of the families that got separated. I also want to thank the Police and Fire Department of Providence for doing their job to make sure no one got hurt. Trust me people they knew exactly what they were doing when they oversold the show. That is an amateur greedy move. Please retweet this and repost it on FB
#RIIcomicconfail #RIcomicconGreed
