CORGI EVENTS STATEMENT FROM BOILER

 

This is my Corgi Events LLC statement, with the full facts as I know them, because I'm seeing my friends and fellow ex-Corgi events staff get hurt by bad actors and misinformation. To watch them get beaten up and used by the events unfolding via Corgi and then get punched again because people just HAVE to be involved and push their hurt at literally anyone who will respond is too heartbreaking for me to bear. This issue is NOT black and white. I can NOT summarize it in a twitter post, and to attempt to do so would be ludicrous.

As many people know by now, I have been with Corgi Events for six years. I was part of the group that took down RMFC and kicked Nazis out of the Denver spaces (and boy that wasn't easy. We started DenFur with a tiny group of extremely dedicated group of people, those of which included myself, and Koi. We spent endless nights, crying, worrying about our safety, and fighting against the Furry Raiders to get DenFur to happen, and push the Raiders out of these spaces. Most of us, including myself and Koi, received death threats to our HOME ADDRESS from the Raiders because of what we were doing. At the time, Corey, who was known as Ponyville Bronies LLC, stepped in as someone who had worked for events, owned events, and was the financial anchor we needed to start an event in Colorado that was FOR US and for OUR COMMUNITY. People think it's great now, but during the time period it happened people shat on me for even asking about Raider armbands or for me insisting that we keep them from furmeets! It was a HUGE stressor on my mental health, and I still have unprocessed shit from it to this day. I hosted a bowling meet & Foxler's boyfriend was punched by a man who saw his very Nazi-esque armband, for starters...which I was also blamed for inciting! A large swath of the community was angry with specifically me for a very long time because I stood my ground against fascists.)

Corgi Events was supposed to be the replacement we all were hoping for, and for a long time it was. We were building community, we were helping dealers, helping creators, musicians.. we were on a roll. We had amazing local staff and staff all around the country that were dedicated to throwing an amazing show. We were always figuring out new and better ways to do things. I was promised by Corey Wood (Treble) that we would go non-profit after year 3 of DenFur, because I kept insisting that we accomplish this. The first conversation revolving around switching to a non-profit actually happened in 2018, where he agreed we should look into switching. I don't like working for corporations. I'm a librarian at a city funded community college, and if you wanna know someone who's big about non-profits and community-driven and community-focused spaces, that's literally my job! (In fact, I got my library and our adjoined public library to stop doing fines/fees for overdue and late books because those fines disproportionately punished those who couldn't afford them! But that's another story...) - as people well know, the non-profit status never did work out. Another broken promise, on top of many others. DenFur was supposed to be how we healed. DenFur was supposed to be a shining star in the Corgi cap. I love this convention. This is MY convention. It has my heart, my art, my love, my blood sweat and tears, my sleepless nights. I never ever wanted to hurt it. I never wanted to see it talked about the way it is. Myself and the community put so much into this show, and if something happens to it I will be devastated.

To summarize for those who do not know, and to clarify, Corgi Events is an LLC with a single owner. Corey Wood, or Treble. He owns DenFur, Sin City Murr Con, Painted Desert Fur Con, Golden State Fur Con, and AquatiFur. There is, or was, a full board of members who helped at the top level overseeing each department for each con we ran. Corey was the owner, and was responsible for contracts, finances, bookkeeping, asset management. Koi was the operator, and she oversaw the rest of the board and all departments. I was incharge of anything creativity wise, so art production, dealers, artist alley, art show, and theming. Chai was facilities, so she arranged everything with our hotel in regards to food and beverage, rooming, billing, renting, and layouts. Sparx was AV and ran anything AV related and also maintained our websites. Kiggy is the events board, overseeing panels, dance comps, charity, ect. Rory is operations, overseeing registration and security. Last being Nova who oversaw HR and hiring. Maxwell as SCMC Vice Chair and Zeno as PDFC Convention Chair recently joined but their positions and roles were never explained to me. It was the con's intention to pay us (the idea was that ALL staff would be paid! Everyone working for the cons!) I even received a contract, but after Covid that became something of a pipe dream. Covid affected the cons deeply financially, it was a huge hit for Corgi Events to miss out on hosting these events. In order to make up for this, we hosted our events in fairly rapid succession: DenFur, then Aquatifur, then PDFC, then SCMC, then GSFC (upcoming in April). We were even told again, recently, that contracts and payments would begin again with payment due during DenFur, since this was the show that often took in the most funds. So I CONTINUED to work for free with the idea that I would be paid for all the work I have done with this coming DenFur. This took an ENORMOUS toll on all of us as far as energy reserves while a pandemic was still raging, all of us had other jobs to mind as well, and to run five conventions was an enormous heavy lift for the board members that were organizing everything for their departments. But, we were ALL very dedicated to our work, job, and the community, so we worked tirelessly to make sure these events still happened.

Covid also affected how much staff we had to assist with these large events - Omicron made everyone very nervous (rightfully so), and we had a number of events run with not enough staff. Also, after the stress of the pandemic, everyone was looking to attend a convention but not work a convention, and I can't blame folks for seeking out escapism after such a traumatic event affecting everyone for over two years and that is still ongoing! If we could have, I suspect we would have declined to host a number of these events but we both needed the income and were contractually obligated to do so. Corgi tends to book out their contracts with three years built in. Not only did staff that weren't on the board get overworked because of it, the board never stopped working. I know this even is a fact for other furry conventions like MFF and BLFC, as I have had many reports of conventions operating on extremely low staff numbers.

So, the facts were: we were running multiple events with little staff, with the board doing most of the heavy lifting when it came to larger decisions and overall event-running. I was often seen in registration. Koi was often seen helping the den. Rory and Nova pulled almost all-nighters to make sure things ran the way they needed to. Everyone had a hand in making these events go off so it was fun for all of our attendees that supported us by attending these cons. We supported each other. We were determined to put on a good show and support our community through difficult times. Even if we were exhausted, miserable, and overworked, we stood there for everyone to make sure that it happened. Dealers needed income too, especially after Covid, and I personally was sharply aware of this.

But there was a problem.

What I know about people who are owed money:

There are a lot of people who have come forward stating that Corey has promised payments to them, and have not delivered. I am holding Corgi Events and Corey accountable by ensuring that those who have past due balances on services rendered or borrowed funds are paid. If you are scared to post, I am happy to advocate for you on this matter. I am happy to send past due balances to remaining Board members as they have stated they will help hold him accountable. I know many on the board had payment arrangements, contracts, and funds promised. I know there are people who are counting on payment today, or have requested refunds. I encourage you to keep emailing and pushing for your payments, so they are not forgotten.

What I know about the staff that stayed: These people are still my friends. They care deeply

for this community if they are willing to stick by Treble just to hold these events. By leaving, I have put some of them in a very precarious position and for that I am sorry. But I cannot stay in that hostile environment constantly left to bail out a boat while holes are just being added continuously without thought to the boat's inhabitants.

I do not agree that staffers who are staying should lie for Treble, or try to cover for him. I know in the past that he has used people to "save face" so the conventions would not be affected. This I do not agree with. Please stand up to him like we all did, and make these conventions better. Hold him accountable.

My own personal apology is thus: I am not blameless with how I left. I am sorry I left so

abruptly, but there was no way I could stay after what happened. I apologize to the dealers who are now left to deal with the ultimately broken system we left behind and were trying to save. We were the ones that held a lot of this show together, and without us there will be problems. There are dedicated staff who will absolutely be there to help, and I am assisting those staffers with as much information as I can, but I do not have access to any of my former files as I was locked from my accounts shortly after leaving. I don't believe my email even exists anymore. If you are looking for refunds, please simply be patient and let refunds@corgievents.com know. I do know they are working on processing these from what I've heard - Just keep an eye on it. I am very hopeful the events will continue to survive and thrive beyond us, and as far as I am aware there is absolutely no need to panic.

I'm sorry this is affecting dealers, I will do anything I can to promote those with lost sales that I can, and I'm sorry but I can't stay silent on this matter (I am a whistle-blower I guess!) - I am a victim of this situation as well, and too many people are being hurt and hurting each other because of misinformation.

Koi and Chai finally decided an emergency board meeting was needed (this was on the last day of SCMC on Sunday afternoon). Someone had to be the captain, someone had to be the adult in the room and be honest with the other board members regarding the current state of finances. We had to come up with ideas for funds. We had to come up with a way to make up a $5K disparity. We needed to brainstorm as a team, because that's what we were: a team. It was towards the end of this meeting that Corey finally rushed in, only to tell us things like "they can take me to court". There was no money. The GOH rooms were going to be left unpaid, $700+ ish per GOH stay. This was unacceptable, we told him. He needed to do something. WE needed to do something.

At this point, Corey pulled me out into the hallway to reiterate that he believed Koi was still somehow at fault for all of this financial disorder. Koi, who had been running the show while he

was drunk, Koi who had been the only support system, Koi, who had tried to make things work despite his problems. He said, "We had a conversation back in 2019 when we were both drunk and I have four witnesses to that fact, and the fact that Koi said if the con went under, she would be financially responsible for half the short comings"

 Because Koi was not financially tied into the cons, it was easy to blame her? I couldn't make sense of this. I recall she asked for partial ownership of the convention, with this stipulation, as I was there too. To my knowledge Koi is not on any contract for hotels or earns any money directly from income from SCMC, so how is that

fair?

Koi and Chai pulled funds from the con store, a little over 3K, and Corey somehow convinced a friend to put down another 3K, and another 2k. With those three amounts, the GOH rooms were going to be covered. The meeting ended, and the con ended shortly thereafter.

A singular conversation in 2019 does not a convention make. Having regrets after a convention is done is no one's fault. At no point was there any discussion that Corey did not want to host

SCMC, that he did not want to sign a contract, that he didn't want to put out bids in Las Vegas, I nothing. But, Corey decided to scapegoat Koi instead of, once again, admitting to the fact that

we as an organization were having issues. Corey's name is on the paperwork, Corey was in the hotel negotiations. He is, ultimately, the owner as he stated many times before, and it takes

months if not years of careful communication, promotion and coordination to get a con started. It doesn't just happen. 

SCMC was a con we were all looking forward to and excited about. Just because things didn't go great does not mean this is a singular person't fault, and CERTAINLY not one that has been covering for the con owner despite all the alcoholism.

That was when Treble fired Koi, a day or so after the con.

That brings us to now! 

What I know about the con finances: I know there is money in eventbrite. I know that likely Corey will find a way to host both GSFC and DenFur this year. He is contractually obligated to host these shows, or he would owe a lot more money. I have seen no indication those cons have issues other than our lack of funds for SCMC and Corey's lack of personal money. I hope they go off without any problems! I am wishing them the best.

We were in dire straits. The convention was in enormous trouble. We were about to send 500+ attendees, and 70+ dealers home, the day the convention was set to start. Dealers were literally going to load in in an hour. We were scrambling, Treble was trying to negotiate desperately with the hotel. Treble was not sober and the board was not part of those discussions, but the hotel's stance was clear: they would not let us open the doors or use our spaces until they received full funds upfront. Treble when going through these negotiations even pulled his pants down in the lobby of the hotel, and proceeded to yell at the front desk staff "fuck this hotel, they can suck my dick!"

 

Treble managed to get $25K to the hotel. It was enough to get us into Operations and open dealers den so that they could begin loading in. A person who requested to remain anonymous, one of our dear friends and a staffer, stepped in at that point when he heard what was going on and fronted the convention another $25K of his own life savings in order for the convention to actually operate for the weekend. There was no contract or any agreement for repayment in writing for this person's loan - just a promise of repayment. I sincerely hope he sees his money again. Based on how many people are coming out about being owed money, some back from 2019, I have my doubts but truly hope his life savings isn't lost.

 

Thus, the con was able to run. Other things began to happen: the hotel was beginning to charge rooms upfront for damages, as if they were very concerned they wouldn't be paid in some way. The hotel was a large source of aggrievement, but as these problems arose Chai was left to handle them - Treble was primarily at the bar, or just missing completely. For two days, he ignored her messages pleading with him about the funds the hotel was insisting we pay for rooms. On Sunday, Treble insisted on attending a football game off-site instead of handling the growing financial straits the convention was now facing, leaving it again instead for Koi and Chai to answer for it.

 

Treble pulled me aside midway through the convention (while drunk) and asked me what I would do if he fired Koi, and I told him I would leave. I said, truthfully, that I couldn't do these events without her help - her knowledge, her expertise. I told him it would be a mistake to fire her - she had worked selflessly for him for six years. Corey told me TO MY FACE that he believed that if he fired Koi, he wouldn't owe her any back pay. He also believed he didn't owe her for work she did during Covid because we weren't hosting conventions (... the cons still needed work and attention. ALL of us worked through Covid...). Corey has no money with which to pay Koi and instead of being truthful and upfront, he fired her instead. It was a financial decision that proved to me that again, he only saw Koi in terms of her labor, NOT as a person. He didn't even speak to her about it.

 

He also became agitated with me for ... I guess "picking sides" in his view, and then told me that I was replaceable and he could "work circles" around me. This is what I personally took the most umbrage with. I worked faithfully for six years for these events, even through my own personal hardships and drama that had nothing to do with me. No full time pay, no thanks, just because I could and wanted to give back to a community that had given me so much. Full transparency: I was compensated over the years in other ways so I want to make that clear! Sometimes I had my room paid. Sometimes they paid for my travel. Sometimes I got a free Super Patron gift since I designed and produced all of them myself for each con. I was able to attend the Sponsor dinner some years. So this wasn't without perks - but the promise of being paid for the actual work I had done as a third job year round never came to be. Corey never arranged this non-monetary pay for me, or comps, Koi did. So I knew if she wasn't there to advocate for the work completed, I wouldn't see any sort of comp at all. If Corey didn't need me though, as he stated, I was going to leave.

When the truck broke down at the end of the convention, Sunday night, after attendees had left convention spaces, at almost 12am, it was too much stress for Koi to bear. She had seen all of the other tightly packed and stressful conventions through, even through Corey's absences and even as his drinking problem increased. There was no one who wanted to see these events succeed more than her. She had countless sleepless nights, crying from stress, anxiety. It was all on her shoulders at the end of the day. She stepped up. She made it happen despite this. Was she angry? Yes. Were a lot of us angry? Yes.

 

Koi let Treble know how she felt when he approached her about re-unloading the truck. And walked away from the truck - leaving it to Corey and the other staff to handle a single thing after she had supported them all through so much over the past two years. She had reached her mental limit. For Treble, this was tantamount to treason. He made that apparent in our "Corgi Corp" chat when he decided to belittle and degrade her to everyone.

 

He insisted that as a paid employee, Koi had no right to walk away from any situation. That as an employee, she couldn't have those boundaries. She was supposed to help no matter what her feelings were no matter how exhausted she was, no matter how much stress she was feeling. No matter how angry she was, she was under HIS employment and thus, none of that mattered. You were not allowed to have feelings, and problems needed to be solved by her, and her alone. This, to me, indicated that he simply didn't care about her as a person. To ask that of anyone, paid or not, is insane. It's the collateral from capitalism. You don't see people as people, but simply as labor. Further, Corey PUT the conventions into these issues due to his addiction, never addressed them, and then was angry at us for reacting to his actions.

His problem with alcohol, his mistreatment of his friends, and his dishonesty got us into this situation.

After PDFC, there was bad blood all around. Corey was angry with Koi, Koi was angry with Corey. However, we had to put a lot of that aside and focus on SCMC which was coming up directly on the heels of PDFC.

SCMC was already showing signs of dysfunction. The convention hotel had changed management part way through when we signed the contract to when the event was held, and the new management did not (for reasons NONE of us know) seem to want us to host the convention. It may have been the kink element, it may have been the furry element, we really don't know. But two days before the convention was to be held, the hotel demanded full payment for the entire event upfront. There were additional contractual problems going on, the hotel seemed to be changing their demands & prices & procedures every day in the week leading up to the con. Very weird, very not good stuff. We have no idea if there was something going on behind the scenes that led to this.

This was something on the order of (I'm guesstimating here) $45,000 or so. We did not have that amount, and our events usually ran on a model where we would pay for Food & Beverage upfront, and then the rest of the balance after the convention was over. We had funds sitting in eventbrite, but the amount they were asking for immediately to open the doors were unavailable. It takes eventbrite a number of days to drop funds.

Over the past two years, Corey Wood, the convention owner, was increasingly MIA from running these conventions. Koi and the rest of the board were left to somehow manage in his absence. We messaged him often, we understood when he said things were difficult. Even when outside attendees, dealers, performers, and staff not on the board were frustrated, upset, not being responded to, we stood by and tried to get him to respond and keep his word, or send promised payments. He would even often say things were completed, but we would find out later on that it was not. But at the center of this was a problem with alcohol.

This is why I tell you this is not a black and white issue. Corey is a friend. Koi is a friend. Everyone staffing these cons is a friend to me. All the dealers that came to vend with us are my friends. I have always stood against decisions I thought would negatively effect the Dealers, and always ensured everything was taken care of for him. This has not only affected Corey but everyone else that this problem extended to.

I want him to get help. I am begging him to get help. I am hoping that this current situation illuminates how dire the situation really is, if nothing before has.

Corey was hospitalized five times (at least that we have been told, who knows the real number) in the past two months or so from what I have witnessed and been told due to alcoholism. This is a serious, and awful thing. But these hospitalizations have deeply affected the convention's ability to run and move forward - Koi was left to organize the truck, communicate with the hotels, adhere to the budget, and get the doors open and the hotel running among so so so so many other items. This was not in her job description. She did not HAVE to do this. She did this because she did not want to see Corey fail, lose money, and get stuck with hefty penalties from the hotel. She wanted to make sure the community had a convention, even if we were lacking equipment that was far away in Wisconsin. She took on as much work as she possibly could and asked for nothing except the pay she was promised by Corey.

At PDFC, the truck was late because there was no one to help load it, Corey was hospitalized once again the day before the con was set to begin being set up. Instead of sitting back and focusing on getting himself better, he insisted that he attend PDFC - which is nothing BUT alcohol and partying and temptation. He promised all of us he would be sober. We needed him to be sober. We needed him to be a leader for us.

He was not.

He lied to us.

He disappeared a lot.

He lied that he was sober, instead drinking secretly throughout the convention. While I personally know that going cold turkey after a severe drinking problem can have massive negative effects, he never once sat us down and explained what was going on. He never admitted to his problem. He never admitted or acknowledged the negative impact it was having. It was all swept under the rug like nothing at all was wrong, and everyone turned a blind eye to how dire the situation had become. Somewhere along this point, because Koi was angry with him for lying, Corey decided that Koi was an enemy to him.