A WRITE UP OF JIB 11 + JIB5 ('JIBWEEK')
I thought I’d write an account from the perspective of someone who is NOT a regular of JIB conventions. (Hello everyone I am editing this post to fix some formatting and possibly adding some details)
POSTPONEMENT AND FACEBOOK DRAMA
Me and my friend booked JIB11 way back in late 2019, we also got our tickets during the handover process.
The first red flag should have been when I almost got banned from the convention because the guy I was buying my ticket from filled out something incorrectly in the handover email and we weren’t allowed to ask what the mistake was, because that would also lead to us being banned lmao.
JIB is also the only convention where I’ve had to give them my social media @’s when ‘purchasing’ a ticket so they can monitor if you are talking badly about the convention. This rule pretty much makes everyone scared to death of going against Daniela before/during the convention, because then she can just straight up ban you on a whim.
Of course we couldn’t have predicted a global freaking pandemic so the con got postponed a good 4-5 times over the next 3 years.
It's important to note the last time it was postponed (which was late 2022) is that there was a ton of speculation going on:
1. If the event didn’t happen before July 2023 Daniela (the organiser of the con) was legally obligated to refund everyone due to a certain law put in place in Italy during Covid (Events, even those paid for by ‘donations’, couldn’t be postponed any longer under the guise of ‘covid’)
2. The reason it was postponed in late 2022 was due to certain actors not being able to attend due to ‘filming schedules’ (Presumably Karl urban and/or Jensen)
I’m not a lawyer so I can’t tell you if Daniela had to obey that law or not (though at the time she admittedly said it did not apply to her)
And to go further about why I have added point 2. to the list, is because Daniela promised us that the date she chose in 2023 was the only date/weekend that ALL guests could attend. Jib5 also got shortened by one day because of this reason.
Keep in mind, she then went on to do another round of handovers in late 2022 and many people I know personally got tickets because Karl Urban was supposed to be attending.
Everything was silent until less than 2 weeks before the convention when it was announced that FOUR of the guests would be unable to attend.
LIST OF CANCELLED GUESTS: Tom Ellis, Karl Urban, Richard Speight Jr and Reeve Carney.
REPLACEMENTS: David Ramsey, Alexander Vlahos, Drake Rodger and Jojo Fleites.
Many people were upset that the replacements were not ‘well known actors’ Daniela went on a long rant about how other conventions wouldn’t get replacements at the last minute (Every other convention I’ve been to actually has gotten replacements or offered a refund, but okay?) No Refunds were offered at this point either for photo ops or autos, only swaps.
I’d also like to add that it’s most likely that Daniela knew Karl Urban, Tom Ellis, Reeve and Richard weren’t going to be attending when she chose the new 2023 date, because it’s not like actors get given their filming schedule last minute? (correct me if I’m wrong) For example: Tom and Reeve were already booked for other events before their cancellations were even announced.
Another important thing to note is that Daniela mass deletes/bans people on the facebook group for posting anything negative or asking her questions (unless you are very polite and basically sucking up to her) hence if you are looking to attend the con you won't see anything negative about it lol.
THE 'CON':
JIB is very different from the UK SPN conventions I have attended and the biggest difference is PRICE.
For me and my friend, JIB was a ‘once in a lifetime’ convention. For full transparency, I will share that we both paid around €800 for angel passes and the hotel was something like €600 + flights and other expenses. Basically 2k each.
Another red flag was when we turned up and were given pieces of ribbon as lanyards (even starfury in the UK sometimes offers ACTUAL lanyards, you’d think for the price we paid, especially as angel passes, that they could have included something)
I will also admit this is not the convention's fault, but the hotel is extremely outdated IMO. Why it’s held there? I don’t know (I guess convience to the airport?) but I don’t blame the actors for not staying there anymore.
Like I said above, we paid for angel passes but we were good 15 rows at the back. At any starfury event I could have sat closer to the stage for free lmao.
Not to mention there was a spotlight directly in our eyes for the entire convention during the panels/karaoke which blinded me and my friend. When posting about this on facebook to bring it to their attention we were told this would be solved by them dimming the lights, which never happened.
The sound was also at full blast and put my teeth on edge every time someone spoke, my friend ended up with ringing ears. Due to these issues we ended up not attending many of the panels. (Not ND friendly!)
Another note, on our first night we saw Daniela walking around outside in a full designer outfit, followed by 3 people carrying designer bags to her private car. It definitely set an image of where our money actually went. (Not the mention the gucci jackets she gifted to J2M) I guess there was no money leftover for the lanyards.
AUTOS & OPS
Jensen: seemed to be in an off mood. He didn’t look up or talk to most people, including me and my friend. This kinda was our final “wow this entire convention is shit” moment.
We’ve spent all that money, to attend this once in a lifetime convention, just to be ignored. I don’t care about all the people on facebook or twitter that said we ‘built up the moment’ or ‘your expectations were too high’ (Sorry but eye contact or a hi/bye is too high?) because I honestly feel like that's just making up excuses for the actors. People pay to see them, some polite curtesy would be nice in exchange.
Also less than 2 weeks later at 'Starfury Crossroads 6' we had a great interaction with Jensen for £150 lmao. Maybe having a soul-sucking homophobic woman following you around all day is just draining?
Misha: was the same, but he's been sad everytime I've met him :(
Jared: was actually great and had a small conversation with us.
Other actors: were happy/interactive I will say that.
Our one and only photo op (which was included with our pass during handover) was just…. Strange. We both planned to just do a normal 'standing pose' but the actor basically forced us to touch him up during the photo op. Now I know people go to the rome con because they allow more 'touchy' romantic poses, but it was just weird because we weren’t looking for that kind of interaction at all and he wouldn't listen to us when we kept saying no.
There was an attendee dressed as the impala who had excitedly told us her plan in the elevator to ask Jensen during her photo op to “ride her like baby” (if she went through with it I don’t know, but I feel bad for the man)
Said person has been banned from starfury, but apparently Daniela doesn’t give a shit if crazy people like her attend the convention and harass the actors. (It’s all about the money right? Sorry ‘donations’)
OTHER NOTES
The con was not well organised, they use the excuse of "JIB time" or "italian time" (meaning everything is late) Nearly all the panels started late, which just slides in ops/autos running late. We also never knew where the heck we were meant to be going or what room we were meant to be in, there wasn't any clear signs. Again, for the price we paid.... It wasn't going great.
Also most of the security and workers were personal friends/family of Daniela. The money just seems to be being funneled back towards her or people she deems worthy to hang out with her.
This all happened almost a month ago and this is just kinda a vent post, but if you are thinking about going to a JIB con. I'd discourage it.
The regulars of JIB seemed to largely be people putting themselves into debt to be there. I overheard so many people talking about maxing out their credit cards (not only to be at the current con) but to attend the next event and to get touchy photo ops with the actors.
The entire con is just taking advantage of people.
There's so many other things I could add, but I feel the list is long enough and I think I'll already get some backlash, so I'll leave it as this.
