IFCon’s Ken Twyman speaks about cancelled event, backlash, online behaviour

On November 5, 2015, we published a story about the cancellation of local fantasy convention IFCon. The story did not have a comment from anyone associated with IFCon, as event founder Bill Code was hospitalized and, at that time, spokesperson Ken Twyman had posted that he would not return messages about IFCon.

Since then, Twyman (who says Code is now out of the hospital) contacted Nexus and we gave him the opportunity to respond to claims in our first story. The conversation has been edited for clarity.

Nexus: Take me back to when the event got cancelled. Explain to me what happened.

Ken Twyman: Bill was rushed to the hospital [the weekend before the event]. His mother, his brother, myself, and a family friend formed what we’ll call a committee. When we looked at what we had to deal with before the decision was made on the Monday, we basically had boxes, we had sticky notes, we had pieces of loose paper here and there. We were left with a jigsaw puzzle that was incomplete. The intention was to bring forth an event for Victoria that was going to be huge. It did get out of control. There were too many people that were booked; there were too many promises made to people.

Some people say they didn’t get a receipt for tickets. Why were no receipts given?

There were receipts given depending on how they paid. I was never present for any ticket purchase. If somebody bought a ticket or booth by credit card, there is a record of it. It’s not like they’re not going to be paid back one way or another, whether it be through VISA, Eventbrite, whatever the situation is. IFCon has no money. IFCon is running at a major deficit. I’m not going to pass blame on the purchaser to say it’s their responsibility. It’s going to look like it was a fraudulent act, but if you’re going to commit fraud and potentially be arrested for it, you’re not going to do it for $250 [the price of a VIP ticket].

Speaking of responsibility, you’ve said it’s the vendors’ responsibility to have the contracts, and because they didn’t have contracts, they’re out of luck. Some people have said you should have supplied the vendors with contracts, and that shouldn’t be the vendors’ responsibility. What do you have to say to that?

What I have to say to that is that it is the vendor’s responsibility to have a contract. We offered contracts. If we did not offer contracts, how would some people have contracts and how would some people not have contracts?

So everyone was offered a contract?

The option for a contract was there. It may look like I have no sympathy for these people, but it’s just the opposite. We made absolutely no guarantees to these people that they would get a return on their investment. There’s a clause in their contract that states if the event is cancelled, there are no refunds. And they’ve signed that. The people who are bitching do not have a contract, and that is not up to us to chase these people down. I do have sympathy for these people. If you want to talk about loss of money, yeah, look at what I’ve lost. I’m not playing “feel sorry for me,” but my reputation has been 100 percent ruined by these people who don’t have facts. Every place online where you purchased a ticket, you will get a refund.

Those places are claiming that they’re doing that out of their own money.

Legends [Comics & Books], I can’t speak for, because I haven’t dealt with them. I dealt with Lyle’s Place, and Lyle’s was out-of-pocket… I believe $165 was the figure. I offered to give them the money out of my own pocket, and they said to not worry about it, they can absorb it.

What about Eventbrite? They said it was out of their own pocket.

It can’t be out of their own pocket. They issue 10 percent to the vendor and hold the other 90 percent in the event of situations such as this, so that if it’s cancelled they can issue refunds at a loss to neither party. [Nexus contacted Eventbrite and a spokesperson said, “In order to ensure IFCon ticket buyers were refunded in full, Eventbrite covered a portion of refunds. Part of the money refunded to IFCon attendees came from the organizer, and part came from Eventbrite. Eventbrite had already paid out IFCon for a portion of their ticket sales. The refunds from Eventbrite were partially from Eventbrite’s pocket, and partially from the money we had collected from attendees, but not yet paid the organizer.”]

Who actually made the decision to cancel IFCon and said, “This is off”?

It was a mutual decision. It had to be unanimous. It did not come easily, it did not come quickly, and it did not come lightly.

Part of the problem in a lot of people’s eyes was that as soon as it was cancelled the website went down. This is a touchy subject; take me through that.

That’s not 100 percent accurate. The websites came down relatively quick, but they came down because the event was cancelled. The website was used as an informative descriptive thing for people, you could purchase tickets there. The event was cancelled, so the website was pulled. Why promote an event that’s been cancelled? We did have it up there for a day or two days that the event has been cancelled. As soon as I could, within 24 hours of the event being cancelled, I contacted Eventbrite. It took them 24 hours to get back to me and get that process started.

Were ticketholders informed about the cancellation?

Ticketholders were informed the same way they were informed of the event: through Facebook, as well as the website, there was a notice put up that it was cancelled.

But do you think that someone who buys a ticket might not look at your Facebook page or website for the, say, two days you had that notice up? Then they show up and it’s not happening.

The website was pulled down relatively quick. It was pulled down within four days, I’d say. I don’t have an exact timeline. The Facebook pages were left up. Eventually the comments were deleted because it got to the point where I was tired of people accusing me of theft, fraud, calling me a con man… how long would you take it if you were in my shoes, Greg, before you started going on the attack? Pardon my language, but you can have a few people call you an asshole. Whether you are or not, that’s up for debate. But when you’ve got 300 people every day going, “You’re an asshole, Greg,” you’re going to get tired of looking at it. If you’re an administrator of the page, you’re going to start deleting the comments, and you’re going to try and do some damage control in that respect. I didn’t pull down all the negative comments, but I pulled down a lot. I just got tired of being called a thief, people making statements and claims that were just ridiculous, and slanderous. So, yeah, I did eventually pull down all the Facebook pages. I tried to leave them up. But I’m not going to try to update people that have already come to a conclusion.

What about the statement that IFCon was unable to update the website because a third party had control over it?

It was contracted to a third party, a web designer. I dealt with her through email or Facebook with any changes. I’d email her with changes and usually within 24 hours the change was made. I had no contact with her via telephone; I never spoke to her and Bill had no access to that website.

How can people contact you guys now?

I can’t speak for Bill, but they can contact me through Facebook. If the message is respectful, I’ll respond to it. If it’s not respectful, I won’t respond to it, and I’ll block them. Now, you brought up claims [in previous Nexus story] that I’ve threatened people. You know what? I can probably show you 25 death threats I’ve received. Yeah, I came back with some brutal comments. But think about this, Greg—I didn’t pull these people’s names out of the air. These people attacked me, multiple times on multiple Facebook pages before I reacted. I came back hard and harsh and I have no problem with that, and I will not make apologies. If I was doing anything against the law, the police would have arrested me, and I know the police were informed.

We need to bring up your online behaviour. People were thinking because you’re in the position of being involved in the event and you’re a public figure, you shouldn’t be handling yourself that way.

They’re entitled to say what they want. That being said, so am I. It’s up for debate whether it’s respectful or not, but calling me a con man and a thief without proof… You can ignore something for so long, and then you’re going to go on the offensive, and that’s what I’ve done.

Explain to me your current association with IFC [Productions, the company behind IFCon] and IFC’s current status.

A lot of things were said [implying] that they fired me. I basically had enough of it. I had enough of being the person put in the forefront. Bill was ultra protected in the hospital, nobody could gain access to him. I was the person that was designated as the person to deal with. At that time, we had no idea of the backlash. So I dealt with it, and dealt with it, and dealt with it, and I finally had enough.

Do you know where the money is from vendors and ticketholders?

Do you have any idea what it costs to put on an event of this scale? The operating costs, booking a flight from, say, Chicago to Vancouver return? You have dozens and dozens and dozens of flights. It’s in the tens of thousands, the high tens of thousands just on flights alone. That’s where some of the money went. You have contractual obligations with the celebrities in regards to paying for their fees, which ranged anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 per celebrity. Then you have deposits for the venue. Pearkes [Recreation Centre, the venue IFCon was to be held at] was paid $4,000. Then you have TV and newspaper advertising. There was the venue for the after party for Saturday night, there was the cost of bringing the band in from I believe it was Chicago. Not everyone gets paid in advance; there were contracts, and we were not behind on any payments, as far as I know. The list is a mile long. Money came in and money went out. If people think Bill and I bought new cars and are living in a $3,000 mortgage house, they’re sadly mistaken.

So what about refunds for ticketholders or vendors?

Ticketholders, if they bought their tickets online, they can go back to the place of purchase and get a refund. If they got a receipt, they’re legally entitled to a refund. In regards to us issuing refunds to vendors, I can’t make a comment and I’m not going to make a comment because I had nothing to do with finances. [Nexus is waiting to hear back from IFC Productions about refunds.] I’m going to suggest and this might sound strange, but if you’re in a position where you feel that you’ve been wronged by this company, I’m not out to screw anybody and I’m suggesting that you go to a lawyer and seek legal advice and see what your options are.

One allegation that keeps popping up is that this has happened before.

This is the first convention that I have ever worked on with Bill. I’ve never done a convention myself. We’ve been involved in other business ventures and some of them worked, some haven’t. I’ve never had an event go sour. In regards to Bill doing past events that have failed, I know of one other event that Bill did, and I think it was 2009 or 2010 and it was at the Empress, if I’m not mistaken, and as far as I know it was a success. I tried to look online to see what else there was about Bill in regards to failed events. But somebody’s going to make that statement the same as they’re going to say that I sold $100,000 worth of tickets.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

There were a lot of things that really, really upset me. If I was on the other side of the fence, in their position, I’d be just as pissed off, feeling I’d been ripped off, and it does appear that way. But people have to understand that things are not going to happen as fast as we want. People probably won’t understand why I went on the offensive the way I did, but everybody has their breaking point and I reached mine. It’s a very sad situation for a lot of people, and things spiralled out of control extremely fast and a lot of things were said from numerous people, myself included, that probably shouldn’t have been said. Had I been able to look in the future a few days and look at the repercussions, I never would have said it.