The Convention That Never Was

AKA - it's not the first time geeks, nerds, and Baltimore got scammed...

May 30, 2025

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On May 13th, I came across a couple of stories on my YouTube feed about recent convention disasters: one was the SakuraCon Cheesecake Fire, which thankfully was salvaged to be one of the most profitable conventions for those lucky to be in their Artist Alley. The other was about a book “convention” called One Million Lives, which is currently being looked upon as the literature community’s Dashcon or Fyre Festival. Given the high of a recent vacation combined with the anxiety of an impending doctor’s appointment (which I’m happy to report went well), I ended up going down the research rabbit hole. I’m not going to comment on either event in extreme detail since I was not there. But it did remind me of one similar scenario that I endured during my personal peak of convention attendance.

We’re going all the way back to the holidays of 2016 to New Year’s 2017.

Me channeling Rosie the Riveter at the sister Women’s March in my hometown (thanks to a fellow protester who let me borrow the poster!)

It was my pre-Supersenior year. We were still recovering from the shock of Envelopegate (Moonlight won Best Picture!), Beyoncé had announced her twin pregnancy, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle got engaged, The first Women’s March occurred, and the first Wonder Woman movie was trending. Now that I’ve got your personal Wayback Machines activated, let’s get on with the story.

I’m a huge nerd but at the time, I was still trying to figure out what my personal brand of nerdiness was back when that kind of niching was just starting to become a thing. (This is the ancestor of the current ~Cores era.) I’d been a regular at conventions by this point - mainly Zenkaikon and Anime USA (thankfully both are still running today). While I’ve had my moments of nerdy homecoming when going to these conventions, I also had this strong sense of feeling like an outsider in these spaces.

Debates about who could cosplay what characters was rampant. Nowadays the answer would be easy - “dress as whoever you want. If there’s a non-Western cultural influence, respect it by researching & sharing its origins or edit the details to your own background.” But back then, the answer was leaning towards “dress only as characters who match your background.” In the mid 2010s, that severely limited our choices especially for American BIPoC. If you were a fan of certain communities (i.e. non-Western media and video games), that dropped your options off a cliff because BIPoC characters were almost never mainstream protagonists or deuteragonists, let alone villains and lackeys.

Outside of cosplay, the lack of representation was stark. The only prominent black female character congoers could reference off the top of their heads was Dr. Martha Jones from Doctor Who (aka my first doctor #10: David Tennant - this was way before we even thought we were going to get past 13 regenerations). Occasionally there was Guinevere from Merlin. Michiko and Hatchin had released a few years earlier but it wasn’t making much traction beyond the once-weekly Toonami run. There was an improvement in video game representation (Remember Me and Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation come to mind). But in terms of mass popularity, we had a ways to go. Keep in mind, this was just barely after The Force Awakens and it was going to be months before we even got an official announcement for Black Panther. If you thought the current discourse on the Legend of Korra was intense, it was way worse just after the show ended. I did console myself with the idea that something is better than nothing, but the void and the social repulsion felt so strong that there have been several times where I felt like walking away from nerddom altogether.

Enter Black Girl Nerds.

I first learned about the site through another geek and pop culture news site - The Mary Sue. The founder of BGN - Jamie Broadnax - did a feature article on there (unfortunately I can’t remember the precise one) and it sent me down a rabbit hole of finding out about Black Girl Nerds along with several other PoC-led nerd organizations - Black Nerds Matter, Nerds of Color, The Black Geeks: to name several I came across (I’ll link more orgs and sites in the description). Between the website’s content and the community I discovered, it was so reassuring to know that I was not alone in my experiences. It was one thing to know you’re not alone in theory but another to finally see it in practice even if it was only online at the time. But soon it wasn’t gonna be just online.

Black Girl Nerds and The Black Geeks collaborated to start up a convention that was gonna get me out of the void I was experiencing: an intersectional convention for geeks and nerds of all kinds - all fandoms, all orientations, all backgrounds. Everyone was welcome here. From the description, it was an answer to all my prayers for an ideal convention. They started a Kickstarter campaign, with a target of starting the first convention in the spring of 2018 in the Baltimore Convention Center. I found out about it at the tail end of their campaign and with some encouragement from friends and family (student jobs only paid so much even back then peeps so this was huge for me), I got The Fan tier: $35 towards a weekend pass, a celebrity photo op, and a commemorative program. I got so excited about the day I’d finally see my fellow nerds in a convention setting.

My backer email supporting the con. Little did we know…

Fast forward to 2018.

The Eagles won the Super Bowl for the first time - a rematch against the Patriots over a decade later (GO BIRDS!). The second Women’s March happened. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle got married. Black Panther came out and broke tons of records; Infinity War was about to follow. There was even a spike of films featuring PoC leads that year. 2018 was the year I felt proud of being a nerd, especially since this was the year that Universal FanCon was about to happen.

Or, as you can see with the title, was supposed to happen…

There were some cracks starting to emerge at the seams as it got closer to the convention day. The biggest red flag for the majority of us was the financial scale for the convention. The campaign managed to break Kickstarter records at the time - $56K for a $25K ask. Between the venue (Baltimore Convention Center) and the sudden spike of celebrity guests (Phil LaMarr, LeVar Burton, Steve Blum, Orlando Jones, and Billy Dee Williams were some of the big names that popped up), that felt odd to me especially for a first time convention. It made me wonder how they were going to cover it all. Some could have decided to come to the convention pro bono believing in the convention’s mission and vision. But even with the immense connections the sponsoring networks had, the number of prominent artists and celebs highlighted in the adverts didn’t seem to match that idea. Another was the redesign of the logo. It happened months away from the actual date; which if anyone knows how to organize events, that would be a lot of merchandise to change in such short notice. Aesthetics may seem small but logistically, it would be a nightmare to update everything accordingly. Third was the odd emphasis on the ticket sales. The convention made some heavy pitches at such short notice. The pricing was steep for a first time con too - $75 per ticket. Nowadays, $75 for a three-day convention would be a steal; but 7 years ago, it would be a strain for most budgets especially for college students and low-income nerds like myself. They slashed it in half for the Baltimore locals but the price plus it being a first time convention was dissuading a lot of people from taking the leap. The final aspect was convention communication and this was where it had the most personal impacts. The Kickstarter page, email, and Twitter (before it became X) was where we got most of our convention updates. That came to bite me and several others rather quickly.

It was Friday, April 20, 2018. That day was pretty faint until I rewatched the livestream I’ve saved on my YouTube channel and the memories of that weekend started coming back. My original plan was this - after attending my classes for the week, I’d watch a local production of Les Miserables. That weekend was also a youth ministry pilgrimage to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception so it was a good opportunity to do some logistical planning for the convention. Then next week I’d go back to DC, stay with my aunt for the weekend and go back and forth between her place and the Baltimore Convention Center. I thought about proposing to my friends that we could do a photoshoot & hangout at the Aquarium. I finally had nerdy shirts that were ready for the convention rite of passage thanks to the little Hot Cash my friends and I were able to save from Hot Topic. That spring was a busy one between my final year of college and convention season in full swing.

My friend, who was a co-host on my radio show and a student teacher at the time, brought us over to the show after we were done with our respective classes. We were about to walk into the auditorium when I got a notification. I thought at first it was another guest announcement or an update. Earlier that day, I got an email saying that the convention was going to be postponed. I was a bit sad that my plans were upended and I wondered what was going on behind the scenes. But I was assuming that the event was still happening albeit at a later date. It was an update alright - a Twitter update. An update that nobody wants to see:

The event was completely cancelled.

I hadn’t bothered to keep on top of the hotel updates since I had a lot of relatives in the DMV area. But the string of tweets, texts, and emails that popped up on my feed were so alarming that they were hard to look away from. Another one of my college friends who’s a prominent emcee in the convention scene let me know that one of his friends was flying all the way from Puerto Rico for this convention and due to the last minute cancellation, he didn’t know whether she would have a place to stay, let alone get a refund. I told my aunt what was going on and she immediately offered to help find a place for her (or provide) since she had multiple rooms. It was difficult having to put down the phone for the spectacular musical that was going to take place. It was a great show, but it was not going to be a complete distraction once we got back home.

I was an emotional wreck due to the huge disturbance in the Force. I didn’t know what to describe as my feeling at that moment. I wanted to feel upset but, as I said in my YouTube recap, I didn’t think I had the right to feel that way since I contributed so little and I could easily make back the expense in one shift. There were others in more dire circumstances - people had taken time off, bought clothes and convention stock of their items, sewn cosplay, had even donated to get a hotel room only for the block to fall through. The collective overwhelm and confusion of my fellow nerds almost shut me down entirely.

One thing I was very sure about - I was disappointed and angry at myself that I let my hopes cloud my instincts and critical thinking. On the other hand, I was too harsh on myself to think that what was the organizers’ collective responsibility was my fault. When someone like myself is not taught or inclined to think of things in terms of capital, it’s easy to go down the road of self-blame. Failure is always a possibility in investments but this kind of loss is never what they talk about - the loss of trust as well as finances is something not many tend to discuss. It also didn’t help that it felt like nobody was taking responsibility for a series of mistakes that were practically avoidable from day one.

I recall Clarkisha Kent’s column was one of the first articles I came across not long after the incident occurred: I grew up with some of that suspicion she described (albeit to a milder extent) as a daughter of Cameroonian immigrants. I know some of it is warranted and with the way she described it in the first few paragraphs, it’s a mixture of shock, sadness, and confusion when we learn - often the hard way like a funding loss - why that suspicion started, especially with the people we’re supposed to be in kinship with. I was so scared that I was going to go to the extreme that she described. Part of me wondered “what choice do I have? I’ve been burned.” But another part still wanted to keep the mission going even if the original people were not going to - “I still want to bring the nerd community together. We need to be together now more than ever.” I almost proposed that aquarium photoshoot/hangout idea until a couple of other groups came up with a better idea.

Within 48 hours of the notification of FanCon’s cancellation, two other PoC-led nerdy organizations: Black Heroes Matter and Nerds of Color created and then announced a low cost pop-up in the Wicomico Building in Baltimore - #Wicomicon. They managed to pull off the vision Universal FanCon was supposed to have and with such ease and short notice too - an accessible building, a safe space for nerds of all kinds to congregate, and a sense of community. A bunch of local cons also provided discounts and free entry for those affected by the situation. It may not have been the BCC, but it still was a very huge moment for us geeks and nerds of color. It was especially huge for me and my mom because she got to have a direct experience of a piece of my world even if it was just for a day.

Mom and I at Wicomicon together. This is the second convention we’ve been to together. (and yes - that’s purple in my hair)

I got to meet so many creators and people who I only communicated online but we talked in real life like it was yesterday. I also got a chance to talk with local vendors and the lack of communication from UFC’s team for local businesses. I laughed, cried, had good food, and got loads of photos, cards, and follows that day.

Me with singer-songwriter-superhero (and now runway designer!) Roquois cosplaying as Sailor Moon

I still have some mementos from that day. I’m happy to say a good number of those businesses and creators are still around. Some of them are still around while others moved into a different direction. I still dream of starting a convention in my hometown one day but I think I’ll keep it to the pros for now.

As for those who started it all? The 3 Black Geeks and Black Girl Nerds are still going as of the writing of this article. Jamie Broadnax had to step back as CEO of BGN due to the fallout but has since stepped back into the fray. Nerds of Color and Black Heroes Matter are still going strong: the former doing a podcast called Hard NOC Life, the latter mainly focusing on merch and social contributions. As for the money, it’s still a mystery where it all went to. Knowing America, even with an increased recognition of nerd culture, they’re not going to bother looking for $73K’s worth of nerdy investments (that’s in today’s money btw).

To the City of Baltimore: please make sure your convention scene doesn’t fall apart because of terrible and scammy organizers like with UFC and One Million Lives. This is a part of your city’s culture now and it’s time that you treated it as such. Please take the time to come up with legislation to protect your citizens and visitors so that scams like these don’t continue to thrive under your roof. I know I’m only one person - a frequent visitor but still an outsider. But it is still a very important thing to consider for the present and the future of your city’s welfare and reputation.

For those who dream of doing a convention of your own or are thirsting for some community, do not let a story like this get you down. If anything, you could be the people who successfully pulls off the vision that many would consider impossible to pull off. Yes - I said people because if anyone’s familiar with event organizing, caregiving, academia, or - let’s just face it - being human, it really does take a village to make things into a reality. Yes introverts - you’re included in this too: even you’d need a village to get stuff out there as much as we enjoy are solitude. Be responsible in multiple ways - have your i’s dotted and t’s crossed. Be proud when you get things together even if it’s not to your liking and own up when things go wrong. Most importantly, dust yourself off and try again like you would in a video game because you deserve every chance at success. As disastrous as UFC was, Wicomicon, several other conventions, and even my YouTube channel and this blog have spawned because of it. If you’ve gone through a personal UFC or One Million Lives, know that there is a way to turn things around… and thankfully…

hopefully…

probably…

not under the intense gaze of the Internet.

I told you this one was a doozy to write! I hope you enjoyed this trip down Memory Lane. I’m starting to realize that I’m getting longer in my pieces. I’ll do my best to keep things more concise in the future but I can make no promises in length once I get going!

(Also to answer the question about the nerd from Puerto Rico, thankfully she was able to get a new hotel reservation at no extra cost.)

Special thanks to Nerds of Color, Black Heroes Matter, The Blerd Gurl, and my fellow nerds and geeks for making all this happen. <3 If any of you happen to have some memories of that period of time, don’t be shy… come and say hi! I’d love to hear from you. If you also happen to have a business or a creative side, please add it to the promotion thread in my chat.

The Third Nerd

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