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.
The volunteer coordinator and event organizer did not respond to a request for comment.
