Steampunk World’s Fair – Cancelled, Part 2

 

Read Part One here

Read Part Three here

Read Part Four here

Read Part 5 here

 

Within less than 24 hours of the announcement of the cancellation of The Steampunk World’s Fair, there have been plenty of posts, information, and conflicting information.

Shortly after the announcement was made on Facebook and on the Talk of the Tavern podcast, an update was made to the original Facebook post:

The update read:

Note: When we made this announcement, the idea was floated to us of running a vendor bazaar by the name of End of the World Fair at the SPWF hotel. It would be a much simpler event than SPWF, but will still allow our vendors and community come together for some Steampunk fun. Vendors will get an email with information shortly, and we ask you to give us about 72 hours to figure out if the community can work out the details.

 

“… if the community can work out the details.”

 

This was followed by an update to the event’s website with this announcement, also posted on Facebook:

 

Reading:

Update 3/14/18 – Don’t panic!  Read on:

It’s just not possible to repair SPWF to the grandeur that the community justly expects in 6 weeks. That said, we have found someone who has stepped forward to run a smaller-scale event on those days so that the Steampunk community has an entertaining, fun, and casual event to attend. We, SPS, are in the midst of planning a new large-scale event for a future date that will be able to be held up to the lofty standards of SPWF.  Communication has been spotty and we apologize for that. Here is the TL;DR:

• There will be a smaller-scale event held on May 4 – 6, 2018. It will be smaller scale and details are being fleshed out – expect a plan to be announced within 72 hours.
• SPS is planning a new event for the future, tentatively the fall, that will be better organized and better planned than what we could have done in 6 weeks or less.
• We would love your help, advice, and input on both of these events to make sure that you, the community, are happy with them. We admit that SPWF was too much for us to take on this quickly – and we are asking for your help to bring it back as much as we can for the future.

Click here to help us, and click here to ask us questions.

 

Clicking the ticket link on the updated website eventually brought users to Ticketleap, and this message

 

 

Meanwhile, people began contacting the hotels for the event, inquiring about the room cancellation process.

David E. Christman shared a Facebook post about room information from Arthur Geissler,

 

The key item about rooms being :

According to the sales departments of the hotels, attendees have only 72 hours from now to cancel their reservations. What does this mean? It means that past that point, those who booked may still be liable for at least a single night’s stay. I believe the rationale is that the hotels may have a 45-day cut-off.

Edit: it has been confirmed that any deposits will be lost if one does not cancel their reservation in this time period.

 

Within the comments of that post, some people countered by saying it was “72 hours before the event” and shared an image purportedly sent by the hotel to that effect

Multiple commenters noted that “cancel the hotel room within the next 72 hours or lose your deposit” coincides with the various requests to “give us 72 hours to sort this out”.

Some people noted that they were able to cancel their hotel room(s) but they haven’t been able to get a refund on their event ticket. Some people have already booked plane flights and other transportation which cannot be canceled and refunded.

Then there is another post shared by David E. Christman, reposting a reply from Jeff Mach to an attendee requesting a refund for the event ticket,  wherein he says that he’s not involved with The Silver Phoenix Society and has no control over anything connected with the event now:

 

Lastly, there are two posts which call into question statements made about that transfer of SPWF to SPS:

SPS Claim of Purchase

wherein Michael Whitehouse says:

M.W.: The properties were purchased from JME for a sum because you don’t get a half million dollar event for free.

 

But then this is refuted in a second post

SPS & SPWF

wherein Amy Whitehouse says:

Amy:
I just want to clarify that the sale of Widdershins to SPS was never a deal on the table. What was on the table was the sale of the IP to Steampunk World’s Fair. I’m not sure if you got a chance to watch Michael’s live video on the SPWF page from Friday night, but it explains that thanks to lawyers and miscommunication, SPS decided to walk away from the deal because time is short and the back and forth is costing us time.

 

The Summary so far, then:

SPS bought the intellectual property rights to Steampunk World’s Fair. Or they didn’t actually buy it but planned on doing so but finally walked away.

Steampunk World’s Fair is renamed Silver Clockwork Exposition and Symposium (if SPS can actually do that on a property they don’t own), and the original May event is cancelled, and the newly named event to be held sometime in the fall.

But then a new smaller event will be held in May after all, if the details can be worked out in 72 hours. Until then, if then, the ticketing website says there are no tickets available, anyway.

And people can cancel their May hotel room reservations within 72 hours (much less now) if the Sales office people are to be believed, or 72 hours before reservation arrival, if alleged hotel emails are to be believed.