Rhode Island Comic Con Oversold, Overcrowded

New submitter RobertJ1729 writes The Rhode Island Comic Con (RICC) is in the middle of a complete meltdown as hundreds are turned away at the door or denied reentry due to the event organizers selling far more tickets than the venue can accomodate. The Providence Journal reports that "According to Providence Fire Chief David Soscia, too many people were being let in at a time and the organizers were not correctly counting them. That led to over-congested areas in the building which has a maximum capacity of 17,000 people." Meanwhile the Rhode Island Comic Con Facebook page is being flooded with comments from angry attendees describing chaos both inside and out of the convention center. RICC initially posted, "Hello RICC fans! WE ARE NOT OVERSOLD!," and promised to honor tomorrow tickets sold for today. That post generated several hundred angry comments before eventually being deleted (though it survives in part on RICC's twitter feed). Commenters are alleging that RICC is deleting negative Facebook comments. Users are tweeting at #ricomicconfail2014 to vent their frustration.

Comments

Re:First hand report

[grelmar]

20+ years ago I put myself through U working in nightclubs, and had to deal with prickly fire marshals on a semi regular basis. Time marches on, but people don't change. That wasn't a fire marshal being ignorant and inflexible. [i]That sounds exactly like a fire marshal who wasn't sufficiently bribed.[/i]

Re:First hand report

[hey!]

That sounds exactly like a fire marshal who wasn't sufficiently bribed.

Well, you're probably joking but we are talking about Rhode Island, the most notoriously corrupt state in the Northeast, after maybe Pennsylvania. Some say that on a per capita basis it's the most corrupt state in the country.

I had a colleague whose father was an electrician in Rhode Island. When he saw what the state was paying to maintain the lights on a bridge near his house he figured he could easily do it for less. The contract came up to bid and when he found out the amount he'd have to pay in bribes, he realized he couldn't afford to do it.

I personally like Providence quite a bit. I think Federal Hill is great,Waterfire is a blast, and many times we drove down to take our kids to the zoo or the Children's Museum. But I wouldn't do business in the state. It's not worth the hassle.