Boston Sci-Fi Con Arisia Stumbles Again, Faces Huge Arbitration Loss
While our team was picking up our press passes at TerrifiCon Saturday morning, the president of Arisia Inc. posted on Facebook that the organization that runs one of Boston’s longest-running conventions just got hit with close to $125,000 in two arbitration judgments — an amount that would drain all of its reserves and then some.
In the Facebook post, president Nicholas Shectman described how the organization found out it had lost two arbitration decisions brought against it when the convention decided to move the 2019 event this past January from the Westin Waterfront and Aloft hotels in South Boston to the Park Plaza in Boston’s theater district. That move was because there was a strike going on against Marriott-owned properties in Boston, and Arisia didn’t want to have attendees cross picket lines. Unfortunately that decision apparently breached contracts with the Westin and overflow hotel Aloft, both Marriott International Inc. hotels.
Even more frustrating for Arisia, and indicative of the way things have been going for the convention lately, the strike was called off just one day after Arisia made the announcement of the move to the Park Plaza.
That run of misfortune (or karma, some may say) started late last summer, as I outlined in my article about Day One of Arisia 2019. As I said then, “Back in October, a former attendee and volunteer staffer of Arisia wrote a blog post accusing Arisia of not only doing nothing about the person they say raped them, but making him president of the not-for-profit corporation that runs the event. Ultimately this led to the resignation of the then-president and his ban from the convention completely. New board elections saw the replacement of nearly all board members. And more people accused of violations were either banned from holding any staff positions or banned from the convention completely.”
That was followed by a series of major problems getting the convention set up at the Park Plaza, including a broken elevator, a broken truck and, on the con weekend itself, a sleet and snow storm in Boston that made travel a dangerous mess.
Jump forward almost a year from when the problems with Arisia as it was then first reached a boiling point, and we come back to the recent news post by Shectman. On the morning of Friday, Aug. 9, the arbitration judge Peter M. Lauriat awarded Aloft $44,417.50, then $16,731.71 in fees and interest. Later that day the arbitration judge Bonnie H. MacLeod awarded the Westin $50K, with fees and interest yet to be decided.
Shectman noted that Arisia would have to engage in some form of fundraising to meet the roughly $125K it owes, even if it is successful in working out a payment plan with Marriott executives. He didn’t offer any specifics, but one could assume it would be some form of crowdsourced fundraising like GoFundMe. If 5,000 of the conventions fans and attendees chipped in $10, Arisia would be halfway to covering the bulk of its obligation.
Arisia 2020 is already on track, with guests announced on its website — and the Westin as its location once again. So there seems to be little likelihood the convention will be killed by this financial hit. But will the combination of the bad press from its poor (arguably horrible) handling of assault complaints, and the financial damage from the recent arbitration decisions become a one-two knockout punch? That remains to be seen, pending the attendance numbers for Arisia 2020.
Management mistake
And while I referenced karma up above, make no mistake — both of those two punches were the result of actions taken (or not taken) by Arisia. The organization decided to take a moral stance against crossing a picket line, thinking that its contracts allowed it to cancel without out penalty in the event of force majeur actions, which included strikes. Unfortunately for Arisia, the judge decided that force majeur only applied when such actions rendered it impossible to use the hotels for the stated purpose in the contract. Both hotels stayed open and hosted guests and events during the strike.
What’s worse, the contracts stated that Arisia had 10 days from first being made aware of a force majeure action that made it impossible to use the hotels to notify the Aloft, and only five days to notify the Westin. But it didn’t inform the hotels of its decision to cancel its contracts until 44 days after the strike started (and it was clear Arisia knew of it the day the strike began). That seems to be poor planning on the face of it.
For years, Arisia top executives refused to perform the actions it promised staff, volunteers and attendees who filed assault complaints. That led to a complete overhaul of the executive board and top management. Then that new top leadership and board decided to gamble more than it had in the bank on an interpretation of its contract that turned out to be an incorrect interpretation. And make no mistake, it knew it was risking at least $94,000 — 50 percent of the value of its contracts with Aloft and the Westin.
I’ve been a small business owner, and have also reported for decades on businesses of all sizes including Fortune 100 corporations. That kind of risk — assuming it ever made it past a board of directors in the first place — would be a job-ender if not a career killer. And if that didn’t bring someone’s career to a halt, the mismanagement of failing to meet a 10-day deadline by more than 30 days surely would have. It would be a shame to let what appears to be poor management end more than 30 years of sci-fi and fantasy fun for thousands of Arisia’s regular attendees.
