One of my friends (whom I didn't see till today since she didn't go to the con with me) said she got tripped out on the water, and apparently several other people did as well, any idea on what exactly was in the that stuff?

This was brought up at closing ceremonies. The water just tasted nasty, it wasn't alcohol; they probably either imagined they were tripping, or were just high on lack of sleep or too much bawls. XD

Yes it was. With roofies, or date rape drugs rather. I know this because I tripped and got really tired (which btw I was wide awake before). My roomates were concerned about me. I had another friend try it and yes, it was in fact spiked. Our eye pupils were HUGE, I mean effing giant, and I started to hallusonate. I did not drink any bawls and I had food to eat that day as well. My friend even said "You don't do drugs, and I can safely say, you are fucked up."

Not only that, but if you drink orange juice, the citric acid reacts with the remains of the drug. Because I had a fucking freak out on Monday when it was still in my body. I got EXTREMELY angry, then miserable, and ending up forcing myself to go home and then paniced about nothing.

I'd like to thank whoever did that as an april fools joke. Real fucking fantastic

I'd also like to thank the staff for being PISS DRUNK half of the time and the Rent-A-Cops for NOT WATCHING THE DRINKS STAND. THERE WERE FUCKING MINORS HERE!! Learn how to host a fucking event!

But yes, the water was spiked.

All I know is what was brought up at closing ceremonies, I was watching the DDR room during most of the dance. If that is the case, someone else would probably have more to say on the subject.

(Me, I never touched the water jugs at the convention, but I'm paranoid.)

I don't know, but chances are, some of the water didn't taste very good, I had some before the cosplay event, and more or less, trying to keep what was left of my sanity during certain events, but then again, I didn't notice a difference with the water, but, I did have way to many bawls, so I couldn't tell actually.


But Ada, I do feel for you actually, and on your circumstances, I will have to agree with you.

The water did generally taste like shit.

But if this many people are reporting it to be spiked, why didn't anyone report this to con-ops or a staffer when it happened? I know soon as I tasted the water Saturday morning/afternoon, I promptly spit it back out and refused to drink any more of it until I got a fresh pitcher.

I'm not directing this at anyone, but I'm slightly agitated that all of this is coming up now, and not when it should have, when we could've done something about it instead of getting fingers pointed at us. :/

yeah this is the sort of thing that needed to be brought up the moment you noticed it so say we could have gotten more water.

At this point, it's your own damn fault for not doing anything about it.

Waiting until after the fact so you can yell at us not only gives us no chance to fix the problems, it makes us wonder if people are jumping on the 'hate the staffers' bandwagon.

we must destory the bangwagon for the greater good!


goddamn it i've gone T'au

i'm actually very paranoid about drinking anything that isn't bottled water or i personally broke the seal off of. i saw a girl reaching for a pitcher because i guess she was thirsty on the upper atrium, i cringed at the sight of her taking a sip straight from the pitcher.

i think all weekend all i drank was gatorade and vault.

the water wasn't that bad, Columbus's water is by no means the best in the country but at least it isn't New Jersey.

Wow, that's kind of shocking to hear, especially since Saturday was the day my diet had consisted of cereal, a donut, a slice of pizza, gummies, and pocky, from, like, 9 in the morning 'till 5 the next morning. So I was, like, guzzling water at the rave, but I really didn't notice anything strange about it at all... I guess I'll have to ask my friends if I was acting like I was drugged up, heh. I'm thinking I got lucky and got the untainted water, though. Still, kinda freaky.

wow, so I wasn't hallucinating. When I went to take a drink my cup had a sweet-sticky powder along the bottom and the edge. I was like "oh, wtf" so I got another one from the middle of the stack. Same sweet-tasting powdery shit. Passed it to a friend who's a.... Er, conisuer, and they responded with "uhhhh, put that back. put it back now."

So. I wasn't imagining things. And I guess it wasn't pixie sticks, lol. I didn't drink enough out of my cup to know if it affected me, because the music made me hit rave headspace. So if I was a bit loopy, I have no idea.

I had a fair amount of the water too, and didn't notice anything weird.

The fact remains though that our staff CAN'T be everywhere, and regardless of if you think they are "drunk off their asses" or not, they need to be told when you see something afoul. This is YOUR convention too, and you are responsible for keeping us informed of things too.

If you walked past a room and saw a girl getting rapped inside, would you wait until thursday to bitch about it on the forums, or would you go get a staffer or someone and help her out? Same difference with drugs or anything else. If you noticed something weird and DID NOTHING then YOU ARE JUST AS MUCH TO BLAME!!!

I don't know how it could be more obvious than that?

Oh, and BTW, they were REAL FUCKING COPS, so if the Columbus police aren't good enough for you, then I don't know what else to tell you! Maybe next year we'll invite the FBI or Interpol, since you're too fucking irresponsible to do anything but complain a week later about it!!

Fuck that. Get the Dirty Pair for con security.

Could always ask the Stormtroopers next Ohayocon. XD

Ok, and now what makes it right to point all fingers at the con-goers?


While, true, this should've been reported immediately, you guys should've apparently been monitoring the rave more than what you did.
That being said, there's just something to work on next year- staff needs to watch the rave and water better while con goers need to contact staff about issues.


Also, con staff should never be drunk, period. I don't give a shit that you're in college and you have the "right to party". You're running an event that NEEDS monitoring. You can't really do a whole lot if you're not with it.

eff you see kay you and the horse you road in on...

The con staff has every right to be drunk and any con you goto will have drunk staff members on Saturday night. If there was such a huge problem then the police and staff should have been notified. There is no excuse other than the stupidity of the person who noticed the problem and didn't report it. I did drink the water, in a cup and did not notice anything other than the crappy taste of Columbus city water. If other staff members who may have drank it didn't notice anything wrong, then how are we supposed to know?

Normally, at any other con I have been to, the attendees are smart enough to NOT spike something, or if something does happen, report it.

Because this wasn't taken care of at the critical time it needed to be, then there is nothing that can be done now.

And BTW, the staff were paying attention to what was going on, and we can see that by the quick response to the knee injury during the dance.

So, to reiterate, the horse you are riding, get off it, and STFU.

670 End Rant...
675 PRINT 'END'

END

Censored for the Kiddys...

I seem to remember a call for every staffer that wasn't presently involved with a panel, event, or other necessary duties to be at the rave keeping an eye out for underhanded actions.

You can only have so many eyes. And still things can go unnoticed.

Well, I wasn't even sure of how many staffers were there. It just seemed, based on replies, that more were needed.


Wolf- You can swear at me, I really don't give a fuck. You don't need to be a dick, though. I'm not on a horse, I'm just trying to defend the con goers. I mean, it was a play the blame game on the staffers, then Codi comes in and starts a blame game against the con goers.....and that kinda shit just ain't gonna solve anything.

One side (or better- both sides) just needs to man up and agree to work towards a better con for next year.

You can not blame the staffers for spiked water if the water wasn't spiked. You can blame the person who saw something unusual, decided it must be drugs, ignored all the police badges and red arm bands, and finally spoke up five days later.

As much as I want to say "You talk about the water being spiked like its a bad thing." I won't. Yeah if you thought that the water had been spiked you should have informed the staff immediately.

Indeed, we aren't psychic, we can't be expected to fix problems we don't know about!

Whatever it was that was added (drugs or no) was added after the Protomen and before the rave, because I pretty much polished off any water that was there during the concert. Rocking out is thirsty work.

EDIT: I mean, I emptied the only pitcher that had more than a cup of water in it. If so many people were drinking the spiked water, I assume it must have been refilled between.

Do we know who was helping set up for the rave? Maybe someone was playing a prank? wasn't it already april 1st by then?
(if it wasn't drugs, I assume people were supposed to think it was, and if it was drugs it's a pretty poor prank.)

Actually, I did mention it to one of the staffers. I didn't just sit back and wait five days to say anything about it. I also warned off my friends to the water fountain, but despite mentioning it to the staff, obviously it didn't get fixed since Ada had a really bad experience. Or maybe, novel concept, it wasn't the water but stuff in the cups. We'll never know because nobody took care of it, but hey, whatever. Nobody died. And while I agree that staffers have the right to drink as much as anyone else, NOT while they're ON DUTY! They have a job to be doing, and I know it's not 24/7. I've staffed before at other cons. You work a certain shift and then you get time off. Drink on that time off so you can be correctly doing your job.

And, once again, it's over and done with. Nobody died or got fired for failing a drug test. If you noticed something funny, do that smart thing and don't drink it!

Okay first off...I do not put it past AP to be lazy on security and watching such things...Spiked water was probably true. If it wasn't well alrighty...but I believe it was...got too many people telling me it was.

I would like to bring to the attention of the con chair and those who did this, more to those who did this...that I am diabetic. I have the disease, of diabetes. It means I cannot have too much sugar. It ALSO means that even when I do turn 21, I cannot go crazy on all the drinking and alcohol okay?

Now if say a minor and DIABETIC had drank this spiked water, I want the people who did this to know, that I would be in the hospital in critical care. My sugars would not take it lightly and the fact that my body is ALSO not used to alcohol would have been bad. Seriously, life threatining bad. I know I would have passed out at the convention, and been rushed to the emergency room. Its also a possibility that I would have gone into a diabetic coma.

So to the ones who did this...real fucking mature and real fucking smart. I know for a fact and you know it too, that I am not the only diabetic in the world. If someone with my condition had drank that water...it would NOT have been pretty. And people would have been in legal trouble. I'm not saying that the con staff and con chair would have gotten it, but the people who did it would for sure.

Just to let you know next time you're thinking of pulling that kind of shit...remember that one wrong drink could land someone in the hospital or worse, kill them. And the worst part? Is my friends it would be on your plate. Are you okay with that?

At this point no amount of talking, yelling, finger pointing will change what did or did not happen several days ago. The only thing that needs to happen is for the staff to take the possibility seriously and make plans to insure it can't happen next year.

ie work with the hotel to use containers that can not be easily tampered with and place con security to monitor.

Have a nice day :D

You might also want to have someone in registration mention to each attendee that if they have a complaint, immediately report it to con ops.

^^ Agreed there. Whats done is done and bitching about isn't going to help. My post was for the ones who did this (if they did it at all) just so that they realize what a problem this could cause. So I do hope they read it.

^^ Annnnd Im done

Kikki you have every right to be concerned and upset. I think voicing your specific medical concerns will open some eyes. Hopefully of any idiots that would consider doing something so foolish as to spike the water.

Well, for my part, I know that you can always play "where's ConWaldo" if you have a problem. I'm never busy at AP. :( (poor underappreciated ConWaldo.)

Even if I don't get any official responsibility, I'd be happy to help someone with serious concerns. you can trust me not to be an asshole when serious stuff is going down!

I wasn't much of a staff member this year, but I'm definitely going to try harder next time. Partially because I feel guilty that this kind of stuff happens (even if I'm not responsible for it) and partially because I missed SO MUCH COOL STUFF by not making it to AP on friday.

Some of you may be wondering why I'm even bothering to post in a 2 page topic that most likely has already been declared a dead topic? Because I have some words of advice for all of you.

Since I wasn't in attendance to this convention, I can only take what is going around as here-say. I'm not saying it did happen, but I'm not denying that it didn't either. The only way to know for sure is to have tested the affected individuals for presence of barbituates/Rohypnol/GHB and-or the glasses themselves. Unfortunately that's too late. If there is ever a question about contamination and you have in hand the suspected source, for f***** sake, don't throw it out. Columbus Police were on hand, tell one of them and give it to them to check out. Evidence like that goes miles in comparison to here-say.

Rule number one about clubbing of any sort: never ever drink from a glass unless you know where it's been. DO NOT ASSUME IT IS CLEAN UNLESS YOU GOT IT FROM A SEALED CONTAINER OR STRAIGHT FROM THE DISH WASHER. That is the simplest and easiest method to avoid these pranks (or attempts at using date rape drugs) known to man.

Something else to mention: if you are in a position where you are responsible for the safety of a group, drinking/getting high on the job is a big no-no (same for being in said state when hours of responsibility are occurring.) Should something happen, God forbid, those under the influence not only risk lawsuit, but having the convention shut down by the hotel/event site. Not to mention the bad rap they'd get from event goers for being so stupid. So it does matter that when a staffer is on the clock that they are sober. What they do on their own time is up to them and how close they wanna flirt with the law.

And if what was said really did happen, to the @$$hat who spiked the water, be very happy no one died because of your stupidity. It doesn't take much to overdose on some of those roofies, and it can be their first exposure that does them in too. And I'm not even getting into allergies or other complicating factors. Keep your chemical entertainment to yourselves, plzktnx.

That's all I got to say about this. I hope everyone involved/reading/whatever about this whole debacle learned something from this.

Maybe they can make you a nice pretty hat to wear, so that everyone can find you ;)

I didn't drink it, but my friend did. She said it tasted nasty, but she didn't react strangely. We just declared Ohio water to suck.

The water that came from the faucet at my old apartment in Queens was cloudy and may have had some sediment in it, but it was fine to drink. Can't go by what water looks like, either.

And I watched the girl with the pitchers fill them in the bathroom. Unless she added some shit to it on the way down that hallway, it was clean. Can't say anything about any other pitchers, though.

That's all.

Sorry if I'm necro-ing this thread. Just wanted to add some information.

^.^ Thats what I wanted, my friend! I would like them to be able to read that and go "O_O Oh man...we could've done that? D: " They need to realize the true meaning of its all fun and games until someone gets hurt.

For the record, I would like to point out that my staff was NOT drinking while on the job, in fact most of the people on security for the rave don't drink in general. There were a few off duty staffers who were at the rave dancing, and they may have had a few drinks, but no one on duty would either A) be so irresponsible, and B) have the time to be drinking.

We are looking into this situation as best we can, but honestly there is very little chance that the pitchers were actually spiked. Our people (both on and off duty) were dancing all night, and drinking lots of the water. The pitchers were being refilled frequently, and when it comes down to it it just doesn't make sense for someone to spend nearly 100 dollars a pitcher for some lame-ass prank (the approximate cost of how much acid it would take to have ANY effect).

So far the symptoms reported are inconsistent with each other, and the duration of the effects is WAY too long. Not that we're discounting anyones testimony, but at this point in time it sounds more like something psychosomatic, or perhaps even a fever.

We're doing everything we can to figure out if this is true or not, but at the present it appears that this is all just a lot of hype.

-Michael

If you had a complaint you should have, oh I don't know, made it? That's not pointing fingers, that's common sense.

You can't expect something to magically happen if you don't say anything. We try our best, be are not godly and all knowing.

I don't think you realized how many staffers we had at the rave. That place was packed with staff members.

Ohio water does kind of suck.

Moreso the river water. Lake Erie water isn't so bad. ^_~

Cleveland city water is the best, even though it comes from the most disgusting and disturbing body of water in existence. Well water and the water out in Cleveland's suburbs is nasty, don't ever go near it.

no, best water in the country comes from Memphis TN and the surrounding area. I don't understand how bottled water actually sells there since its higher quality.