On the weekend of November 22, 2024, Mr. Gordon’s Leadership students were given the opportunity to work at the FanFusion Convention that was held at the local DoubleTree Hotel. “My hope was that students would get to experience a little Hollywood in Collinsville and get some experience with planning and executing a large event,” said Mr. Gordon.
The main selling point for most of the students was the talent. Some of the talent featured at the event were Alexis Knapp and Hana Mae Lee (Pitch Perfect, 2012), Jonathan Lipnicki (Stuart Little, 1999), and most of the kids from The Sandlot, 1993). Students were promised one free autograph/photo opp, so the demand was high.
“[My] Celebrity came and asked if I could sit over there [off to the side of the ballroom] for a minute so she could get her stuff together, and then never came back or talked to me again,” Senior Volunteer Kate Harris claims.
The entire event was frustrating and nobody knew how to handle it. However, it wasn’t all bad. “My experience is pretty positive. I thought the whole thing was actually pretty funny,” Senior Volunteer Henry Bauer said. “The management tried to withhold lunch for a while. That was pretty annoying.”
The owner of FanFusion, Dan McGinnis, promised an action-packed weekend. He spoke of autographs and opportunities to engage with the stars in a more personal setting like a trivia night, a late-night marshmallow roast, and a pool party.
In addition to the stars, booths were set up for vendors to sell various “Fandom” items like figurines, posters, and stickers.
Thirty-one leadership students volunteered to work the event, and let’s just say all of them were less than pleased with what they saw.
Four ballrooms, two with vendors, two with celebrities at tables filled with photos to autograph… and no fans to sign them.
Throughout their time at the event, leadership students noted only seeing a few small groups of people walking around.
So what went wrong?
“The program provided a great opportunity to meet some Hollywood celebrities, but apparently people did not know that the event was happening and attendance was low,” Kyle Gordon remarked. “Marketing your event is crucial. I would suggest anyone trying to get people to an event spend a lot of time and energy on this aspect of preparing.”
Students agreed that there was little-to-no promotion of the event aside from the event sponsors speaking at the high school. “I would not have known about the event if they had not come to our class,” Harris said.
Bauer shared the sentiment, stating, “I didn’t see any advertising for the event at all. They could for sure have more in the advertising department.”
I also spoke with several vendors at the event, and they were all incredibly disappointed. Many of them travelled to be at the event, with one vendor flying in from Las Vegas. The most any of the vendors sold was three items a day, and that sale was made to one of the Leadership students, not an outside customer.
In a statement by Ashley, volunteer coordinator for FanFusion, it was revealed that Dan had no credentials and set up the event on a whim.
Ashley said, “Dan was/is an Assistant “RM-Restaurant Manager” at the same Denny’s. Dan had spoken frequently about his time as a writer for Yahoo (political commentary and entertainment writer) circa 2009-2014.”
Ashley, who worked at the same Denny’s, had no idea what she was getting into. She, much like the CHS students, was promised a plethora of things that Dan did not manage to fulfill.
“I was so fascinated by this whole experience. I now wanted to be involved as much as possible,” Ashley stated.
According to Ashley, the entire set up process was incredibly rushed. Talents’ flights were being purchased just two days before the event was set to take place. Due to a lack of volunteers who weren’t students, Ashley ended up taking on the brunt of the work. She ended up handling money, assisting stars and students, and directing the flow of traffic.
“Dan did not come out of the office to mingle with anyone. He did not try and smooth over the fact that there was virtually NO ONE coming to see the talent. I felt horrible, I didn’t know what I could do to make things better. I was getting questioned and I didn’t know the answer to anything. I just tried to make the best of the situation at hand. I was just about the only ‘employee’ face that anyone has seen the whole weekend,” remarked Ashley.
Many student volunteers confirmed this, stating that they never once saw Dan over the weekend.
All in all, Ashley was an innocent bystander who had no idea what she was getting into. She was just as confused as the students.
Ashley concluded our virtual interview with this: “I do want to take the time to thank the celebrities that did come for putting on their best faces and not taking it out on anyone that didn’t deserve it. I know that some of you witnessed some of the upset, and boredom during the weekend. For that I would like to apologize that this wasn’t the experience you had all hoped to gain. My only hope is that this didn’t ruin your thoughts on ever jumping in to try and experience something like this in the future, maybe just do a little more fact checking than I did. I think that everyone of you were great and understanding in the situation you walked into. You all will go far in life and I am personally proud of you all!”
Dan did not respond to a request for comment.
