Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comic con, Comics, new york, new york comic con, NYCC, volunteers

When New York Comic Con Employees Were Assaulted

I had a very enjoyable, if hard working New York Comic Con. But for some, it was rather difficult. Here's a report by one volunteer working at the show, about their experiences.

I was assigned to work the main theater, ushering, and maintaining the VIP seating area. A guy with an exhibitor pass came in and sat in the VIP section just before the Chucky panel was to start. I politely asked him to leave, that this was not his seating area. He proceeded to completely flip out and say he had a panel in the room tomorrow, that he was told he could be there, he wasn't leaving. At this point I walked away to get my manager. As I was doing so, she changed the direction in the aisle she was walking and in order to catch up with her, I had to turn around and walk past the guy again. As I passed him, he started coming towards me, provoking me and shouting. He had his phone in his left hand, with his right hand he reached up and grabbed the back of my head and shoved my face towards his phone. I broke free of his grip, told him in no uncertain terms was he allowed to touch me and "I don't give a fuck about your panel" ! and left to get security. Some of my fellow crew saw what happened and was in the process of getting security while I walked away from the guy. The guy quickly booked it out of the area, but security eventually caught up with him. They removed him from the theater but did not revoke his pass because of his exhibitor status. I don't have a name or what booth he was with so there's no way for me to press charges. I'm really upset because security did not eject him from the con because of his exhibitor status. I've been talking with staff of Reedpop and they've been really great about the whole thing and agree, he should have been ejected regardless.

The second assault I know of occurred in the autographing area when a male crew member asked a middle aged women to please clear the area because she had finished getting whatever she wanted signed. Not clear on details but the woman slapped the crew member across the face.

The third happened in the queue area for The Walking Dead panel. I'm not sure of what the assault was, but another female crew member was assaulted by someone in line when they were told the room was filled and they would not be getting into the panel.

Have you guys heard of the FroggyPhotos fiasco that happened on Sunday? Over 700 photos waiting to be picked up on Sunday were stolen from the photo opps area. Photos of every celebrity that day. Why someone would steal pictures of other people with celebs is beyond me but it created nothing by chaos when 800-900 people showed up to get their pics at the end of the day. There was no ID numbers or anything on the tickets. The crew wound up creating a long line of tables and laying all the reprinted photos out for people to walk by and try to claim. It was a total mess!

It's hard enough working as a volunteer, but being assaulted for doing your job at a comic convention is the lowest of the low. I've had a little experience of that myself…

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