Home » Convention News

Another Victim of a Dragon*con “Powers That Be” Power Trip?

1 January 2010 by

Earlier this month, popular web cartoonists Blind Ferret posted on their forums that they had been “booted” from Dragon*con 2010. There had been some difficulty regarding their vendor table for 2009, but the issue had been resolved, and they signed up to attend in 2010. But they never heard anything back, despite repeated attempts to contact D*C about it. Then they heard they were being uninvited for 2010 because of the “incident” in 2009. The internets exploded over the news.

Now Roddenberry.com is reporting that Dragon*con’s director of Star Trek programming for the past 17 years, Eric Watts, has been let go. Below is Eric’s e-mail to his friends and associates:

As I’m sure many of you are, I am surprised, disappointed and more than a bit confused by Dragon*Con’s decision. However, I wish to express only my deepest appreciation to Dragon*Con founder Ed Kramer and current chairman Pat Henry for allowing me the opportunity to bring my unique vision of quality Star Trek programming to Dragon*Con for the last 17 years. I am enormously proud of my work and what I have accomplished, and I believe my legacy of interesting, entertaining, educational and intellectually challenging discussion panels, workshops, presentations, celebrity interviews, theme parties and signature events like the Miss Klingon Empire Beauty Pageant and The TrekTrak Show will remain well-regarded far beyond my tenure as Dragon*Con’s Director of Star Trek Programming.

I am enormously grateful to the dozens of Star Trek actors and industry professionals with whom I have had an opportunity to work for nearly two decades, as well as to the many thousands of fans who have supported TrekTrak for all these years. I also wish to thank the many hard-working fans who served on my volunteer staff during each year’s convention, without whom TrekTrak could not have been nearly as successful as it was.

I wish Dragon*Con in general and their new Star Trek programming director in particular, whoever he or she may be, only the very best for continued success in the years to come.

Eric L. Watts
Former Dragon*Con Director of Star Trek Programming (1993-2009)

The only thing I have to say to that is “WTF Dragon*con Powers That Be“?

I was a panelist for Eric back in 2008, along with three friends of mine. We had no problems what-so-ever with Eric, and found him organized and supportive of our panel. And as the Roddenberry article points out, this is a man who brought us The Miss Klingon Empire Beauty Pageant, one of the most popular events at D*C.

How could D*C just ax the man who essentially ran a full Star Trek convention inside of Dragon*con for 17 years?

Roddenberry.com hints that another well known D*C director got the ax. All of this negatively does not bode well for D*C’s future, at least in my opinion. And after our experience at the con in 2009, 2010 may very well be my sixth and final year at this convention.

Tags:

 - 

Comments are closed.