Fanlore Live!: 2009 Escapade Panel Notes: Shoshanna

Fanlore Live!: 2009 Escapade Panel Notes: Shoshanna are rough panel notes taken by Logovo at Escapade.
 
Copy editing has been done for clarity and spelling. 
See Fanlore Live! for more context.
==Similar Pages==
* Fanlore Live!: 2009 Escapade Panel Notes: Marnie
*Fanlore Live!: 2009 Escapade Panel Notes: MaryAllice
*Fanlore Live!: 2009 Escapade Panel Notes: Minotaur
*Fanlore Live!: 2009 Escapade Panel Notes: Kathy Resch
*Fanlore Live!: 2009 Escapade Panel Notes: K'Kathy
*Fanlore Live!: 2009 Escapade Panel Notes: Keiko Kirin
*Fanlore Live!: 2009 Escapade Panel Notes: Jan Levine
*Fanlore Live!: 2009 Escapade Panel Notes: Justacat
* Fanlore Live!: 2009 Escapade Panel Notes: Liz Keough
*Fanlore Live!: 2009 Escapade Panel Notes: Shoshanna
==Notes by Logovo==
The Fan war imbroglio that occurred approximately around 1989.
A group of people had put up a fan con for Blake's 7. The fan con was considered to have been a success, however there was questions of who could take credit for the success, as there was a lack of communications in the con community at the time. There are several versions of what happened next, depending on who you talk to.
Where was the con? NY-New Jersey area.
The con name might have been DSD (for Deep Space Vehicle). It was DSV. 
After the con a lot of the fandom split into 2 camps, although some fans remained on speaking terms with both.
One group of fans originated from this con envisioned organizing 2-3 cons afterwards. However, these would be for profit conventions. What they were planning was to pay actors to commit to appear in the conventions, instead of just doing the usual thing of paying their travel expenses. Actors were used to simply committing to cons with the "unless I get a job" provision.
There had just been a con where they lost all their name guests because the actors got jobs. While actors would sometimes be paid extra, it was not enough to turn down jobs. The group of fans planning the for-profit con hoped they could guarantee the actors a salary. However many, many people didn't like it. The issue of slash got wrapped in this controversy. 
One of the cons organizers was friends with one of the actors, enough so that he would hang out at her apartment. This friend of the actors said the actor [Gareth Thomas? Paul Darrow?] had no problem with slash.
Two things kicked problems into high gear. One fan, who went by the name London Bates, had an enormous mailing list, sent out a mailing "Other fans are behaving badly" message. A lot of the people received this letter but they had no clue what had been going on. Another actor [Paul Darrow] who was most involved
also sent out a letter. People felt compelled to say something. Slash was still under the table compared to now.
Some factors that fed into the B7 imbroglio
- who got credit for that earlier successful convention
- who was friends w/ the actors
- who was a slash fan or a secret slash fan, and who could be outed as a slash fan to the actors.
There are people who were more centrally involved than the person relating this story that does not overlap with this account. Some people's experience were different.
One of the letters that London Bates sent out about this conflict had a return address on the envelope that bore the name London Rushdie.
The series of for profit cons did not happen because primarily the actors had commitments that could not be broken. The people who had formed that con committee reformed as committee to run a traditional
convention, not for profit. The con was a success and Michael Keating and Paul Darrow (the actor who sent out the letter) were at the con. And one of the producers was also there.
The second con did happen."
==References==
Category:Blake's 7 Fan Interviews
Category:2009 Fan Interviews