Cosplayer Puts Houston Comicpalooza On Blast For False Promises

Cons are incredibly fun places to be. You get to be around like-minded people and let your nerdiness go on full tilt. Also, there's a mass of things to spend money on (I'm not saying I dropped hundreds of dollars on manga during AX but I'm not saying that I didn't). A lot of planning and coordination goes into something like a convention. There's a lot of front-end work for setting up but there's also a lot of back-end work once the con is over. According to cosplayer Teresa Rollo Nguyen aka Tall Princess, this is where Houston based con Comicpalooza dropped the ball. According to an open letter she wrote to the Con, she's been back and forth with the event organizers over a contest she won that they have failed to make good on.

My time is very valuable, so I am rather upset that I have to sit down and write this letter. After many months of trying to resolve this, you have already wasted so much of my time with your despicable pattern of obfuscation. I keep hoping I will go to the mailbox and there will be something from Comicpalooza so that I don’t have to write this letter.

Nguyen won 2nd place in Craftsmanship at the convention which, according to what was advertised, meant she won $400 for her effort. When this money failed to appear, Nguyen decided to take her fight to social media via her open letter to the convention.

This is not really about the money. This is about DOING WHAT IS HONORABLE AND RIGHT. If you had advertised the prizes were bobble head dolls, I would expect to have one on my mantle right now. But you said I would be paid $400, so that is what I expect.

Of course, there was some backlash from her post. Some were claiming that she had lost sight of the purpose of cosplay. Others claimed she was money hungry and that the post was egotistical and greedy. Nguyen claims that she is standing purely on principle. The con promised something and they didn't deliver and she says she's not alone.

I am not alone; many other winners have also contacted you. There were NINE other winners. They too are all still waiting for their winnings. You didn’t even do us the courtesy of announcing the winners on your website or Facebook page. In fact, the entire cosplay page has conveniently disappeared from your website.

Comicpalooza has yet to make contact with Nguyen and the issue doesn't seem like it's been resolved. The post is making the rounds but either Comicpalooza has not taken notice of it yet or are just plain not doing anything about it. Whether there's an issue with the back end of the Con or the organizers are wrapped in planning FANFAIR is unclear since Comicpalooza has made no statement regarding Nguyen's claims.

[ Source: Tall Princess ]