Posting this now because these bastards keep emailing me, asking me to come back . . .



Last year some friends and I put in for tables at the Artists' Alley at New York Anime Festival. The con was fairly new and supposed to be huge, so we figured it'd be fun. At this point Larry Settembrini, the head of the Artists' Alley (henceforth AA) & Dealer's room, emailed my friend, telling her our work was "too professional" for AA and that we had to be in the Dealers' room.

No biggie, we figured. Between all of us the fees weren't too terrible, we decided; and with Settembrini on the phone with my friend, assuring her that everything would be perfect and we'd make a ton of money and that he'd "take care of us," we went along with it.


This should've set up red flags, but we were all fairly new at this and didn't know better.


Settembrini promised us--once again, over the phone--a 10x10 space with electricity, two 8' tables, and five chairs. My friend asked multiple times if we needed to purchase con passes to get in; he told her that we got vendor passes but any additional passes would need to be purchased. As in the emails:

Her: "Also, the 5 passes that are included, are those for being present at the NYAF as well or do we need to purchase those passes separately?"

His reply: "The 5 passes are exhibitor badges that you can provide to your staff. Any additional passes need to be purchased."

We're used to this sort of thing with AA tables, though--you pay for the table and then for admission. No biggie. So more than half of us bought passes. None of us had worked at a dealer's room before and didn't expect anything different.


Three guesses what happened from here.


We got to the convention center to find a bare little concrete-floored space, 10x10 if we were lucky, with no electricity, no chairs, and no tables. When we went to con staff to ask about tables, we were told we could rent one. For $211.

Yup. Rent a single 8' table for a weekend for over $200.

Con staff told us we hadn't been guaranteed anything other than a space, no matter what Settembrini told us. They also told us that we hadn't needed to buy passes, but that our vendor badges would suffice. The person we talked to at the registration desk told me to look into getting my money back after the con.

You can guess where this part is going, as well. But first, the con itself. Con staff were rude and pushy, chasing potential customers away from our tables at closing time despite how their doing so cost us sales. On Sunday, armed NYPD officers with their hands literally on their guns swept the dealer's room to clear people out. And the promised fabulous sales? God-awful. I made $12.50 on one entire day. That didn't even cover parking. Since then I've talked to a number of people who were also there, both as vendors and as artists. Many felt like they'd been hosed--they'd been promised a huge show, some banking on these promises and coming from the other side of the country, and had barely made a profit if they broke even. Most cringe if you say "New York Anime Festival" around them. All of the people I've talked to swore they'd never come back.


So! A few days after the fact, I went to make up for a bit of the losses and get my badge money back. So I called dear Larry Settembrini and left a message.

Didn't get a call back.

I called a few days later and left another message.

Didn't get a call back.

Finally I got a hold of the man--and he freaked out on me. He couldn't help me, he couldn't refund my badge money, that should've been done at or before the convention--no matter what I'd been told at the convention. I argued with this man for twenty minutes, and he refused to help or find any way to help.

Thankfully--as I was about to go absolutely nuclear--I got a hold of the con's information/help staff. The poor dear I talked to then was able to get my card credited for my ticket amount. This is no way excuses the way Settembrini acted, lied to us, or hustled us from the cheaper actual -tables- to the more expensive bare space--or the hideous prices the con tried to charge us for table rental.


So yeah: If you hear about this con and get the idea that it'd be a good place to go or sell things? Don't.