We received the following press release.--RL Note: This regards the convention in CANADA. Historicon 2001 in Lancaster, PA is still being held! A new advertiser asked me if it was true that Historicon 01 haad been cancelled! It is a strong rumor in CANADA. I asked him where the rumor came from - expecting that it may have come from some contender for BOD Office that had an agenda. He researched it and came up with the following. This is why we should register our trademarks in Europe whatever the cost. Dick Bryant In a message dated 3/28/2001 5:02:53 PM Eastern Standard Time, dgreg@microfigs.com writes: I phoned my friend about it after I got your message, and he sent me a URL with the information on it. The address has a UK based tag to it. After having been reassured by you as to Historicon being alive and well, I checked out the site and found the following information listed: We regretfully have to announce the cancellation of Historicon 2001. This is not a decision that we arrived at lightly. We have tried so hard to prevent this but in the end we could not. The basic problem lay in the low number of memberships we had attracted. This was compounded by the venue we chose. Though an excellent venue it had a number of commitment dates for deposits which had to be met. This gave us target membership numbers, which of course we did not reach, nor were anywhere near reaching. Reaching those targets was becoming ever more difficult as several other conventions were also announced, many of whom would attract the same fans. These factors together with the other costs such as securing guests, which is a huge cost, catering deposits etc., left us with no alternative but to cancel. As we say it is not a decision we have taken lightly. The truth is that the worry was beginning to affect the health of committee members and was spilling into our everyday lives and the lives of our families. We understand that this is a huge disappointment for you, it is for us too, we had so looked forward to sharing a great convention with you. Perhaps someday in the future we may be able to do so. We would like to thank all of those who had booked and paid up for their support. Over the next weeks we have no doubt that there will be many varying tales of what happened, we can only ask that you believe in us. We will make every attempt to return all memberships. We have already had to pay deposits, but we will continue to run auctions to raise the money to replace that. If there is any excess left in the fund after that, it will go to the charity. We also intend to run the charity auction using the items that were donated for that purpose, so at least Historicon can still make a contribution. We will keep the list and the web page open in the meantime to keep you updated. We hope to see you all at other Highlander events in the future. Yours with very heavy hearts, the Historicon Committee. Now at the bottom of the site it talks about having a parton charity in Scotland, which would cause most people to probably assume that it was another convention held in the UK with the same name. It doesn't alleviate to that in the message, but that may not be as a result of any bad intentions. I think this, like most rumors, is just a case of a mistake being made. I did do a web search though, and the following listing usually appeared before your "official" listing. Historicon 2001 - A Fantasy/History convention URL: http://you.genie.co.uk/jette.goldie/ While we are on the subject though. Since you are involved in the convention, I would like to request details surrounding Microfigs attending the con as a dealer. Cost, terms and conditions. We'd planned on attending and are all relieved that the con is indeed up and running. Thanks again! Sincerely, Duncan Gregson President Microfigs Inc. 16 Morning Dew Drive Brantford, ON, Canada N3R 3P2 Back to 2nd Quarter 2001 List of News Items Back to Master List of News Items Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by Coalition Web, Inc. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com