FedCon Organizer: Problems With Brazeal Started Early

FedConUSA was cancelled Saturday morning while it was already in progress.

However, FedCon's American contact, Marc B. Lee, informed attendees after the problems erupted on the convention site's message board that the German group hadn't been involved in the convention in the last six months, and failed to tell anyone.

Dirk Bartholomäe, the head of FedCon Gmbh, said Brazeal ended up not being the person he thought he was.

"When I first met him two years ago, I thought, 'Wow, this guy is cool, he is running TrekUnited, he knows so many actors personally (which I also do, but I don't make a big fuzz out of it),' so when we first talked about FedConUSA, we thought that would be a wonderful idea," Bartholomäe said in a post. "Our convention experience, our main staff combined with his knowledge of Trek fandom in the U.S., his contacts and his big mailing lists. So we did this contract and put everything in writing."

Among the things Bartholomäe said Brazeal was bringing to the table included a mailing list of 800,000 people from TrekUnited, free flights for all the actors and main staff from Germany because of Brazeal's job with American Airlines, his many contacts with fan clubs and actors, and the fact that Brazeal claimed he could get any "Star Trek: Enterprise" actor "for free" because "they owe him one" for supposedly saving "Enterprise" for a fourth season.

Of course, Brazeal hadn't saved "Enterprise" for a fourth season. UPN has made it very clear that the show was saved because four seasons was easier to sell for syndication and continue to make money on the project than three, despite the fact they could've scored points with fans by claiming they helped save it.

Apparently, however, Brazeal has a habit of leaving people stranded in the airport, and it didn't start with Dirk Benedict, Aaron Douglas or James Callis. It started all the way back in the beginning when Brazeal promised to fly Bartholomäe from Frankfurt first class ... a trip that would cost as much as $12,000.

"I don't need to fly first class -- I never did actually, but I thought, OK, if he can book me into first, why not?" Bartholomäe said. "And this was when all the trouble started. I went to Frankfurt [at] 6 a.m. and there was no Dirk Bartholomae on the American Airlines lists. So I called Tim in Dallas in the middle of the night asking him what BS this is. He then booked me on an afternoon flight economy."

When Bartholomäe arrived, he said Brazeal was very apologetic, and promised he would fly first class home and that it was already set up. Apparently, it wasn't.

Talk about this story