the problem with problems with Aki-con

[davemerrill]

So here's what I know: there's an anime con in Seattle named Aki-Con. Their 2012 show had some problems; the Dealer’s Room, Artist Alley, the Haunted House, the arcade, table-top gaming, LARP, and food service were all in the 'Exhibition Hall' which was a parking garage. Literally a multi-deck parking garage, in Seattle, in October, which means it was cold and wet and water was leaking down from the ceiling being caught in little blue buckets and being emptied by embarrassed-looking maintenance workers into 40-gallon garbage cans. There's a full report of the 2012 show here from someone who was in that AA and didn't like it.

So that's bad enough. What's happened since then is their 2013 show, at which one of their DJ guests sexually assaulted a woman. And that's bad enough, but as it happens, this DJ guest had a previous arrest and conviction for sexual assault. And THAT's bad enough, but the convention was informed of this person's history and not only continued to have this person as a guest, but deleted the public post warning them of the situation. The convention's subsequent post-convention responses have been to delete their entire message board and to work a little victim-blaming on their Facebook; not really constructive.

Initially I found out about this through a link to an online petition concerning the situation. This had the initial effect of looking like just more fan complaining. I had to do a little more digging to find the real meat of the case. If you have an issue you want to spread awareness of, online petitions are not the way to go, people.

Anyway, it raises tons of questions about the responsibility of fan conventions, liability issues, and questions about background checks, and it puts it all squarely in the middle of the larger debate happening right now about sexual assault, intimidation, and abuse in the fan community and at conventions. It's sparked some discussion on the ACML, some members of which are actual lawyers. I'm quoting EML here from the list, which is a public archive (so I'm not betraying any secret SMOF secrets here).

1) i am a lawyer.

2) from a legal standpoint, the issue isn't about whether cons should do
background checks. frankly, that is too onerous. the issue is that aki con
had constructive notice that this was a dangerous condition. under CO
premise liability law, the convention, as an assignee of the hotel (or
whatever venue they're in), has a duty of care owed to their licensees
(attendees). one of those duties is if they know of a dangerous condition,
they have a duty to inform any licensee that comes on the property of said
dangerous condition. they breached this duty of care.

3) that this warning that the individual was a convicted child sex offender
was placed in a public forum, managed and maintained by aki con, creates
constructive, if not explicit warning, of a dangerous condition. it does
not matter if aki con's board of directors, or whoever is managing the con,
saw it or not. aki con's agents/representatives (under agency law) saw the
warning, and responded by deleting the entire post. these actions raises
the actions from negligent, or even reckless disregard of their licensees'
safety, to to a willful and wanton disregard to their licensees' safety.
under CO law, you'd be looking at exemplary (punitive) damages for that,
which usually are treble damages, or even more, since this is the case of a
sex offense against a possible (not sure what the girl's age is) minor.

in short, if i was a practicing attorney in WA, i'd take this case in a new
york second. and, frankly, i hope the girl sues the convention into
oblivion. PIERCE THE CORPORATE VEIL!! go after personal assets!!!!

If you're involved with any sort of fan gathering this is important stuff to read and internalize and put into practice. Common sense stuff, really. I used to take a more laissez faire attitude towards this - people should take care of themselves, we're not police or parents, etc. But it's becoming clearer and clearer to me that predators are using our fan conventions as their hunting grounds, that the hard work we put into having fun and enjoying things we like is merely the bait used by abusers and molesters, Ed Kramer.

I can't speak for legal responsibilities or big moral pronouncements. What I do know is that if this happened at a con I worked at, I would be horrified that something I participated in led to this kind of trauma.

I believe -strongly- we need to work hard to make our fan conventions a safe place for everybody to enjoy.

Comments

[hooverdam.livejournal.com]

Biggest and easiest lesson here:

If your event is more than about 20 people, GET A LAWYER. He or she will be well worth the money in the event something goes wrong. He or she will also tell you that when something goes wrong, shut the fuck up and repeat "For legal and privacy reasons, we cannot comment regarding [blah], and direct inquiries to our legal counsel." Because as bad as you look saying "no comment," digging your own grave on Facebook is a hell of a lot worse.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

One hundred percent. Lawyer up.

[warpig1979.livejournal.com]

The whole thing defies belief on a number of levels. If the story were simply "young woman assaulted at con," it would be terrible, but it would be terrible in a way that made some kind of sense. For a convention to knowingly book a guest with a serious sex offender jacket -- the guy got six years in the Arizona slam and served nearly four -- what warped view of the universe do you have to possess in order to consider that a good idea?

I'm full of dead kitten hate

[lolotehe]

Here's the theme song for that fucknuttery.

[jasonrmerrill.livejournal.com]

What kind of conditions did Arizona place on his release? Surely he had some sort of probation he had to follow. The one case we had to deal with here (which resolved itself before we actually had to deal with it), the person was not allowed to be around anyone under 18. So attending any kind of convention was out of the question. As a registered sex offender should he not have to report leaving the state for any reason?

I am completely horrified that this happened at all. Her first convention as a guest and this happens. ALL convention guests (including cosplayers) should have a handler from the con to look after them. That's something I will insist upon from here on out. At AWA 2013 one of the first things our cosplay guest asked me was who was her handler... and I confessed it was probably me since I had not been informed of any other arrangements.

Every single lesson that can be learned from this should be applied. We had far more complaints of harassment this year than ever before (partially due to having a published policy). We need to make those numbers go down, if not disappear. Zero tolerance for this behavior (and the enabling thereof) is the only way to go.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

I know Hayley was talking about the increase in reports, but it's unclear as to whether or not there have been more incidents, or whether the number is about the same and they are just now getting reported. I guess we'll see what the numbers look like next year. I dunno, maybe we just attracted more jerks this year. More people, more jerks, I suppose.

[jasonrmerrill.livejournal.com]

I think the overall consensus is that more were being reported. Might have been the same number of things happening (or slightly higher) but the jump was attributed to people now saying something where they may not have before.