The So-Called Hidden Story Behind Axacon Actually Duly Reported Days After

I traveled to Atlanta in November 2018 to try to cover Axacon, the Axanar fan convention.

I say “try to” because I was summarily disinvited after purchasing a ticket. That wasn’t going to stop me; in the words of Captain Kirk in Star Trek III, “The word is no. I am therefore going anyway.”

My plan to publish a “reporter’s notebook” was unfortunately stymied by the holidays, work travel and pressing professional obligations that kept me occupied through mid-January.

So I gladly accepted an invitation from Michael Hinman to appear on his show, Alpha Waves Radio, to talk about Axacon and Axanar. That show was broadcast November 11, about a week after Axacon. Watch here »

Guarding Against AxaMonitor
One poor Axacon volunteer was assigned as a guard specifically to keep me out of every panel.
Of the 22 hours of Axacon’s programming, I was eventually invited to attend one event, the final one of the con. A trivia contest. I did win a bag of the (in)famous Axanar coffee.

Though I was shut out of virtually the whole event, I was invited to sit in on the trivia contest that was the last thing on the Axacon schedule. It was a generally positive experience, as was my encounter on Saturday night of the con at the hotel bar with a number of Axa-folk. Many were people with whom I’d previously had less-than-pleasant online tussles.

Since then, Axanar supporters have complained I haven’t written about my experience because heaven forbid I write something positive about Axanar. As you’ll hear in this interview, I shared my experiences — positive and negative — right after Axacon.

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