Slagacon C.E.O. has just posted some sad news on his facebook:

Today is truly a sad day. We walk away a little older, a little wiser. What comes next, who knows, but brighter days are sure to be on the horizon.

I would like to offer a heart-felt thanks to all those of you who helped to make Slagacon Conventions special:
Gregg Berger
David Sobolov
Daniel Ross
Garry Chalk
Jon Hartman
Karl Hartman
Scott McNeil
Arlene Banas
Buster Jones
Rosemary Ward
Captured Prey
Mega Toyfan
TF Marketplace
Allspark
Jake Isenberg
TFYLP
Frenzyrumble
and so many others

Until the day, 'Till all are one!

~Jim Black, C.O.O. Slagacon Conventions

 

I'm sorry this happened to Chad aka TransJazz....I know he put his heart and soul into this venture.
Hope he can work everything out financially and he'll have some help.

 

Man, I hate how he got screwed in this situation.

 

RIP. We all knew this was coming.

 

Unfortunate. I enjoyed all the years I went.

 

I went in 10 and 11, 12 and 13 I could not due to work.

Enjoyed it and had a great time.

Chad is a good guy and I am sorry he got screwed by someone else.

Someone get a paypal or something for him up here and I'll make a donation. He had the balls to do this where a lot of others would not and above all he is a stand up guy and I truly believe he will pay everyone back.

 

Let's kickstarter this con!

 

I think that would be a great idea.

I hope the guy that screwed Chad on the Vector Zeta thing is happy now. His theft has now killed a great con. Between the damage to the finances and reputation, Slagacon never recovered.

 

Was it not TGping who was doing this for slagacon? Old threads show him chiming in and if it was him I wonder why he is still an active member.

 

Whats the story here? What problems happened that caused this and what was the Vector Zeta issue? Interested to know...

 

Essentially the "manufacturer" of the Vector Zeta exclusive set for 2011 never "manufactured" anything but a few resin prototypes. Took Chad's money and never produced the sets.

 

Too much British protests about Whore-a-con's name.  

 

Like I said in the other thread, terrible news. I am 7 hours away from Dairycon, 8.5 hours (and a passport) away from TFcon, 9.5 hours away from Savcon, and 30 hours away from Botcon. It was nice being only an hour away from a Transformers convention. Too nice to last, I guess.

 

Very unfortunate news. I really wish the organizers of Slagacon all of the very best in the future.

 

A huge shame.

The zeta issue is no win. Unfortunately, the design and apparent build quality was barely passable back when it was announced. Given 3rd party progress in the last few years it is completely obsolete and not up to standard. Not that they're ever going to appear.

 

I'm going to play the role of dissenting opinion, and try to do so in as politely a manner as possible. I was extremely unimpressed with Slagacon when I went last year. the entire thing was in a basketball court in a small town civic center that literally smelled of urine. There was more emphasis given to 3rd party products than 1st party on the sales floor from actual vendors that attended, and a post on the cons main page that Chad would be selling some of his collection to finance Vector refunds..... was treated like a myth when you spoke to Chad himself. I'm not wishing ill on those involved but the "con" itself was barely more than a flea market.

 

While others may rightly debate the subjectivity of design quality, I have to agree with you. By all accounts if the design was more positively memorable to me I would have kept a closer eye on the figure and events surrounding it. In that case this news would be less of a surprise but still a shame since the dubious business surrounding the figure was undeserved regardless of the product.

 

This x1000.

I don't know WHO was supposed to make the damn things, but whoever it WAS - why aren't they being dragged through the dirt? Every time I see a post about Slagacon it's "Oh wow how unfortunate - "that guy" didn't make the toy" or "that mysterious guy took the money and ran, poor Chad" or "Well the "manufacturer" didn't come through" - that's bullshit - SAY HIS NAME. I want to KNOW who was responsible so that I never even accidentally give that person a DIME. PLEASE. Out with it!

 

Yeah, the venue was picked for 2012 due to it being cheap, and noone knew that they'd have an actual real elephant in there the day before. That's the (unfortunate) smell. The not-so-great venue is why this year's was a much better venue.

As far as 3rd party versus 1st party...I'm not sure what dealer room floor you were talking about. Captured Prey had lots of 3rd party stuff, but the other two big dealers were almost all Hasbro stuff (alot of it vintage), and the small dealers seemed to be all Hasbro. However, I'd argue that even if it WERE more heavily 3rd party, that it could potentially be a good thing. The third party is much more exciting than Hasbro stuff to a lot of collectors these days.

The show definitely had a lot of a "toy flea market" going on, but I don't know what toy show doesn't. Even BotCon does that. However, even beyond that, there were things to do. There was a VA panel, an autograph session, TWO customizing classes, and the pizza party. Most of that probably could've been packed into one day though, arguably.

Lastly, regarding his personal collection....he did indeed sell it. I helped unload it and sort through it even (though I was not the purchaser). It was many, many boxes of Transformers, most (if not all?) of it more modern-ish things.

I know it's all kind of a moot point, and the show was not exempt from criticism, but it still should be based on facts and with the most knowledgeable possible. Chad really did give it all he had, and then some. There was some other back-door issues and drama hurting his chances for success, even right here on TFW2005. Anytime a local show can't get things going, it's bad for all of the fandom.

 

This is really sad. It really sucks to hear about people just ripping other off and then fans and folk just looking to have a good time get screwed as a result.