So it seems my blog post this morning raised a few eyebrows – and I got an email (and then phone call) from Beth Widera, the owner of MegaCon.

After a lengthy discussion, I agreed to clarify a few facts and we agreed to disagree on others.

FIRST OFF – Mini-MegaCon has been in the works for almost two years. According to Beth, she contacted the staff at Anime Festival Orlando when looking for dates in the summer. The only request given was to have the event as “late in August as possible.” MegaCon complied and put the event in the third week of August.

SECOND – Mini-MegaCon has been promoting anime as part of their programming since its inception. I personally was under the impression that the event would not include anime (being so close to AFO,) but Beth has stated this is entirely not true. She included an advertising file used in April of this year that includes “anime” and the event dates.

NOTE: None of the advertising I have seen actually has a “Mini MegaCon” nameplate logo… including the current graphics on the web site header. This, in my opinion, probably contributes to the confusion in the “branding” of MegaCon/Mini-MegaCon.

NEXT – MegaCon (Beth) became aware of Anime Sushi’s event lineup at the exact same time I did… via an email on Sunday.

The fact that this action was in poor form and reflects poorly on MegaCon is where she and I disagree.

Anime Sushi has been doing events long enough to have thought better than to begin promoting their anime events less than five days before Anime Festival Orlando. Not only is it counter-advertising, it is disrespectful to AFO’s event organizers.

The smart thing would have been to wait five more days and do a strong promotions push AT Anime Festival Orlando – therefore not sending any mixed signals about Orlando anime related events and not stepping on toes.

So is Mini-MegaCon still a fail? Not as badly as initially perceived (it would seem)… but sadly Anime Sushi still is – and (very sadly) their actions reflect on MegaCon. Of course, it’s all just business -

But there’s still no such thing as business ethics.

“So it goes” – Kurt Vonnegut

EPILOGUE: Thanks for all the replies to my last post – but a decent number of them were filtered and never saw the light of day. Even if you agree with what I’m writing, I don’t allow posts that are Anonymous.