KnightCon Star Cars & Heroes 2013
Sad news from the organisers of KnightCon, who have released a statement saying that this year’s event was their last.
It is with heavy hearts that we announce that Knightcon 2013 is to be our final Knight Rider event…
This difficult and even painful decision has been forced by recent and behind the scenes events.
The statement “Knightcon has lost its way” has been suggested… this statement is not only hurtful but is absolutely not true, and in reality could not be further from the actual truth. The fact of the matter is the downscaling of the Knight Rider section at this year’s event was for all intents and purposes forced upon us by recent events abroad and the possibility of legal ramifications regarding the Universal licence. This overriding concern has had a huge knock-on effect, meaning the event could not be advertised as a “Knight Rider event” also meaning we were unable to produce unique Knight Rider merchandise including: posters, limited edition prints, programs, items for our guests to sign, thus meaning we could not generate the revenue to finance our usual 3 guests… the only reason Rebecca was able to come this year was because Steve Wilde generously helped significantly with funding her journey here for which we are unbelievably grateful!
This overwhelming concern and fear of legal proceedings caused us great distress as we knew we could not give you the fans of Knight Rider the event we have in the past and the event we so wanted to produce for you!, so instead we devised “Knightcon Intimate” in hopes we could still create a gathering for the fans but on a much smaller scale, once again for the 7th year spending months of preparation, working literary hundreds of hours and personally financing the Knight Rider event, but again we were still unable to display our huge gallery of photo graphics and imagery used at out previous events for copyright infringement fears. But we still managed to provide what I consider our best VIP party ever! and our best ever Q&A with Rebecca Holden hosted by the superb Knight Rider Archive and held in our unique knight semi replica set.
So as you see, the phrase “Knightcon has lost its way” its not only far from the truth, but also rubs salt in the wound…
Other concerns raised where barrier issues, as stated in a previous post. Barriers were 100% planned for the entire KITT section, but we were vastly let down by the venue who did not allocate enough barriers on the day, but please rest assured this issue will be raised! but it still does not change the fact that cars appeared to have been damaged, and for this we are eternally sorry! but i must state for the record that if any concerns regarding barriers were brought to any of the event organisers attention I GUARANTEE we would have gone out of our way to find a solution!
It breaks our hearts that this has to end… but it has become all too apparent with many stating they will never attend with their cars again that we are unable to give you the event you want… Knightcon has never been a simple meet in a car park.. you do not need us to organise that for you… Knightcon is an experience!.. with Knight semi sets… Kitt bursting through a brick wall… Props… HUGE graphics!… the Knightcon exclusive video messages from cast and crew!… meeting fans from ALL over the world!… meeting Rebecca Holden… Michael Scheffe… Catherine Hickland… being the first event in the world to have Peter Parros attend,… And even the man himself David Hasselhoff! from the show we all love!
Next year we will have to re-brand as many have suggested here, so as not too confuse people thinking we are a Knight Rider event to simply Star Cars & Heroes. This again hurts more than you could ever know…
All there is left to do is thank each and everyone single one of you from the bottom of our hearts for your support over the last 7 years!!…its been one hell of a ride! …meeting our childhood heroes! and all the great times we have shared together!…
Rob & Steve
KNIGHTCON…Signing off…