Pirate Party Invited To, Then Banned From Gaming Exhibition

esocid writes with this excerpt from TorrentFreak: "Despite having booked and paid for their booth at Gamex, Sweden's largest gaming exhibition, the Pirate Party have been excluded from the action this week. The party, who say they were nagged for 2 to 3 months to book for the event, were this week informed they were too controversial and no longer welcome. ... [Pirate Party leader Anna Troberg] says that after the sales people from the exhibition pursued the party for months to participate, they decided to book and pay for a booth. ... 'I thought it was a bit strange, but in the afternoon, the pieces fell into place when the fair manager, Bear Wengse, phoned me and kindly, but firmly, announced that the Pirate Party was no longer welcome at the fair.' Wengse informed Troberg that the exhibition is a meeting place and not a venue for political conflict and the party's presence could cause problems, particularly since some of their work "could be perceived as criminal."'"

Re:Obviously.

[esocid]

They were popular enough to win 2 seats in Sweden's parliament. The SSU (Swedish Social Democratic Youth League) are still allowed to attend the event, and they support the decriminalization of non-commercial file sharing, so I don't buy the political exclusion claim. Most likely it was pressure from the big Corp. attendees.

Re:Obviously.

[rwa2]

The point is: why would they even try to invite them? It isn't like three months ago the public opinion of something named "PIRATE PARTY" would be any diferent.

The point is, even if they were banned, why would they not show up and occupy a booth anyway? I see much opportunity for hilarity here :-D

Re:Refund?

[Rone]

Will they get their money back?

Even with a refund of the booth fee, the Pirate Party could still be out a significant chunk of change.

Exhibition-grade booth displays and paraphernalia cost thousands of dollars (even tens of thousands for large booths), and if the Pirate Party invested money on materials specifically for this show, they may have just flushed a significant portion of their yearly budget.

The paranoid might even think that this invite-then-ban manuever was done deliberately.

Re:Refund?

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Yes, the Pirate party will not have to pay to attend since they got banned even though they was on the billboards in the subway on the events ads.

No, they had not had any big expenses from this.

Pirate Party youth section was there and gave away their t-shirts outside the doors, The ban meant alot of goodwill for the Pirate party and some good press.

So all in all this made the pirate party the talk of the event and got some good press.
Kinda strange that getting banned gave the pirate party more positive attention then attending the event would have.

seriously obvious and expected, from the beginning

[holophrastic]

I'm sure the organizers never wanted the pirate party there at all. But inviting them was a brilliant business move. For a whole host of reasons, from inflaming other exhibitors, getting those other exhibitors to spend more, encouraging another segment to exhibit, and impressing sponsors in the first place. Then, finally, supporting those that wanted the pirate party gone.

I'll bet it was the best period of business activity for the organizers. Welcome to playing one side against the other, and getting news-level advertising fory our show in the process.

Why is any of this surprising to anyone? It's just a gossip-tree and a rumour-mill at the business level.

Ooh, guess who's coming to dinner. Oh, sorry, they cancelled at the last minute.

Re:Obviously.

[mmcuh]

They have one seat in the European parliament. They would have one more in the expanded parliament under the Lisbon treaty, but even though the it has been ratified for years and all the bits of the treaty related to the commission and the council are in place, the bits that govern the only institution in the EU that is actually elected apparently aren't that important.