Firefly 4: Also, we can kill you with our brains
Discussion of the Mutant Enemy series, Firefly, the ensuing movie Serenity, and other projects in that universe. Like the other show threads, anything broadcast in the US is fine; spoilers are verboten and will be deleted if found.
Vicki has posted a personal statement/reply to Denise's statment, back at the BE board. I'm going to copy it here, because that board is not reliable.
vicki
Captain
Posts: 3875
Location:
12/15/2006 5:26 PM
Blah. blah. blah. and this is MY personal statement.
I'm not afraid to say I AM sorry.
I've *been* saying I'm sorry. I've been saying it. Because I am.
Rick and I have invested over $80,000 in two years of our PERSONAL money in Booster Entertainment. Fact. Documented. Denise keeps saying she is "sick of hearing about my contributions ad nausem" and sick of hearing how "I want some of it back" Duh. I don't- but Rick does. He took money out of his 401K for this business. Okay. He lost it. We resigned ourselves to that some time ago. We've offered the business to Denise several times now at her request.
She has offered no plan to take it and make it right, just a bunch of crap as outlined above.
I keep asking- "what do you want to do about refunds?"
"what do you want to tell people"
"we need to make an explanation"
"are we filing bankruptcy? Are you keeping the business?" nothing but more and more and more CRAP like you see posted above.
Of course I need to go to BACK to work, I am crazy in debt for this business. Denise isn't. Dave isn't.
I almost entirely funded Angel Booster Bash and have the cancelled checks to prove it. Want me to post em?
I wrote an $8,000 personal check to the Hilton for Flan I, want me to post it?
Rick paid Bruce Campbell personally- want me to post that check?
Yes- we had disasters this year. Yes we should have cancelled BEB and BES. We didn't. Hindsight is 20/20.
We should have done a lot of things differently, but we didn't. I should have had a different partner, but I didn't.
I didn't take any company money. I also don't have the business address, nor do I do the banking. Apparently, I just do the work and supply the financing.
I was led to believe we were going to get an SBA loan to finance ALL of 2006-realizing that two of the three conventions were selling poorly. Not until less than one week before Flan did I find out just how truly horrible my partner's credit is. It had nothing to do with "inventory". If I had been told this information 6 months prior when I first brought up the fact that we needed a big loan to get through 2006, I would have found some other way. I would have done it alone. No big. It was ignored and put off and lied about until it was too late. No excuse. I'm not making excuses. I should have just done it myself.
I have been waiting all this time since Flan because I was under the impression Denise actually *wanted* the company and wanted to re-pay everyone. I was prepared to hand over our shares and do whatever to make that happen.
I don't see that as being the case here. I have to figure out what to do at this point.
Do the two posts read to anyone else like a longer way of playing the blame game?
The convention fell through, because even though I work my ass off, and had wonderful ideas for saving it, my partner didn't live up to her end of the bargain.
That's exactly what I was going to say, well that, and that you smell like poo. Because you totally do.
Do the two posts read to anyone else like a longer way of playing the blame game?
Pretty much. Sounds like none of them have a clue what they're doing and both they and a ton of fans are out of a ridiculous amount of money because of it.
Vicki just posted and said her husband told her she was acting like a 12-year-old, so she intends to delete that post and asks that no one reposts it.
Of course, it's already spread most everywhere.
I also don't blame the Flan II 500 if they're even more angry now.
I also don't blame the Flan II 500 if they're even more angry now.
No kidding.
They are planning to sue, right?
Zenkitty, I've got a lawyer who's doing some free (at this point) consultation to see what the options are for peeps. They're a business asset lawyer type person.
The general feeling at the moment, however, is that it might not be worth it. We know they owe a *LOT*, as they've got the Flan tickets, the lifetimers, the actors, Neptune Noir and Booster Bash 2 people they owe money to. It's going to be high 6 figures, or low 7 figures. They got a bunch of loans, and (if I believe them) a mortage secured on Denise's house (yes, THAT was sensible).
Obviously, the creditors would come first in bankruptacy. In terms of physical remaining assets of the company... well... I don't think they have any. Even if fraud was proved in court, that would just put the money back from the indiviual it's gone to back into the company pot to be divided out.
At the moment, because the two owners aren't speaking to each other, they aren't doing bankruptacy. But they will have to, because VISA is going to rape them for all these charge backs. It's a crazy situation. I predict the owners will loose houses or suffer serious financial problems due to inability to run a business like a business, and the fans will get very little back after a long fight.
As horrible as I think BE's actions were, I would hate to see anyone lose her home over this. I don't think they deserve to be in business, and although I'm not holding my breath, I want the attendees to get some money back (the Hilton will survive, and it's not like it cost the actors anything, they didn't get paid, but there is a difference).
Kevin, have the ticket holders gathered anywhere to report and tally up what they paid for this event (ticket price and all their add-on tickets)?
At the BE forum, I've since seen the (lowest) ticket price mentioned as $229.00, so the rock bottom take-in would have been $114,500.00 ($229 x 500 attendees). Since there were different passes (more expensive = more access to the actors), and there were add-ons for things like photo-ops, additional autograph ops (possibly; that was unclear), a cocktail party, a dinner, and I don't know what else, the figure has to be higher. Upstream here, someone floated the figure of $125,000.00, but my guess is that's too low, as well.
It would be interesting to see what sort of money BE took in. I would love to know how much they had, going into the cancelation, too.
I have nothing at stake but curiosity here, but I would dearly love to know if all that money went to paying for previous events which did not pay for themselves, or if it is lining some hidden pocket.
Well, they had at least two undersold events and a canceled one.
I have read that a star like Nathan gets twenty to thirty-thousand dollars, for an event like this. If you have 3 or 4 big stars at two undersold cons, you can see how a lot of that money would get eaten up. If you have a handful of less expensive stars there two, you can imagine the hole getting deep, awfully quickly.
Supposedly, this Vicki paid Bruce Campbell out of her own pocket, for one of the earlier cons. I haven't seen Denise dispute that, so I do think it's totally possible they just suck at business, and suck at coming clean and admitting failure, and suck at facing reality, until it is beyond too late. They probably got themselves into such a hole, they needed to keep having cons, in order to continue getting in money.
I'd still hate to see them lose their homes, though.