If there's one thing that bothers me when it comes to doing music, it is working with people who are completely unprofessional. As you probably saw in my previous blog post, I was supposed to perform at a cosplay festival over the weekend. Communication and organization was bad from the get go, but I let it slide because this was their first year and I really love supporting up and coming events. I also love and want to build relationships with everyone in the Nerd and Geek communities, so I am always happy to support such events.
So Sunday rolls around and I head out to Yorkville, IL from Grand Rapids, MI. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive, and when I get there there is literally no one there but some of the staff and they are in the end stages of tearing down. This was around 1pm local time, and the Music was supposed to be going until 6pm. There wasn't a set schedule (this goes back to what I said about the organization), but I was supposed to perform between 12pm and 6pm. The night before I sent a message to the person who was organizing the event advising that I would be driving a long way to get there, and that I would like to know if there are any issues. No response. Actually, I still haven't gotten a response from that person when asked for an explanation of what happened. All of my texts and DM's have been ignored, and the voicemail box for their phone is full.
Things happen, and I totally understand if things didn't get go as planned. But, it would have been 1000 times better if on Sunday I got message advising that things indeed didn't go as planned, and that I should not come. Even if I was on the road headed that way, I would have understood.
1st year Con's are always a struggle, but being professional can go a along way. If i ever do hear back from that person, I will definitively stress this. If you want people to help you out, you have to respect their time. Please keep it professional, folks.