I Probably Hate Your Con’s App (and the Company that Made It).

Okay, a lot of you probably know that I am part of the group of people who run No Brand Con. Frankly, if you didn’t, you’re probably new here. It’s an anime con. Wisconsin’s longest running anime con to be specific. We’re holding it May 1st-3rd here in Eau Claire.

It’s neat.

Anyway, because I help run that event (and manage most of its communications), it means that every company trying to sell us something ends up in some inbox I’m in charge of monitoring. The biggest offenders are the folks who make white label con apps and virtual program guides. And let me tell you, some of these folks send us stuff a lot. They all have similar names too, where it’s actually hard to keep track of which one is which for me.

To make things more unpleasant, some of these folks just feel aggressive. Like one company literally messaged our Facebook page today, which is, to me, a step too far. That’s an inbox we keep open to interact with our attendees — that message pretty much guaranteed that we will never do business with that company if I have any say in it.

Of course, I don’t want to use any of these because, as a policy, I don’t reward spammers. If you’re confused, any unsolicited sales email is spam, and that’s what this is. It clogs up inboxes, and puts a foul taste in my mouth.

Let’s be clear — this does not apply to someone pitching a guest to us or a vendor reaching out, my anger is purely “people trying to sell us a service we didn’t ask for.” We ask for guest ideas, even if it comes from the potential guest. We didn’t ask for this.

The worst part is all of these companies selling white label apps and virtual program guides make terrible software. I have never found a single one of these apps where I wouldn’t rather just have a PDF of the program guide, a mobile website, or a Discord server. I have a deep hatred of these apps, and refuse to let them touch my devices anymore (let alone my attendees’ devices).

So. A bunch of apps. That I hate. Keep spamming us. And it is deeply annoying. I didn’t really have a point here, besides “this annoys me and they should cut it out.”

So please cut it out.

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