Supernatural is in a state of flux at the moment, what with the show runner checking out after the next season and a new channel pick up in the UK. Things haven’t been easy on the fandom either with a couple of events splitting the SPNers right down the middle.

First off, Virgin pick up Supernatural to feature on Living UK. They give it a nice juicy prime time slot mid-week, unlike ITV3 who stuck it somewhere near dawn. They also unveiled a massive media campaign including press, TV and bus stop ads, culminating in a piece of visual marketing which made Marble Arch appear to be on fire. Then there was the ARG….

ARG stands for Alternative Reality Game. Virgin drafted in Holler Digital and Candyspace to run this, and named it Fight The Apocalypse. The prize was a trip to the Supernatural set and a possible walk on part. Unfortunately Virgin misunderstood the Golden Rule of Fandom. DO NOT PIT FANS AGAINST EACH OTHER.

I’m going to say that again because it’s so important. DO NOT PIT FANS AGAINST EACH OTHER.

The game required fans to find online and real world ‘sigils’ and register them at the site to get points. Of course the thefts happened pretty quickly, with some sigils having to be moved because wily players were simply removing them, and the possibility of anyone getting further points from that sigil. The other element of the game was building ‘armies’ of people – ie getting them to register on the site and generally amassing a group of potential customers for Virgin. The top ten players were listed on the site, so that everyone knew what they were aiming for.

Now, there are many reasons why pitting fans against each other (DON’T DO THAT!) is a risky prospect, but the most obvious is the amount of vitriol it can rile up within fandom. When you give someone the opportunity to ‘prove’ that they love their show the most, you create one winner but millions of losers. The great thing about fandom is that it’s a group activity. Fandoms do have hierarchies but they are democratic in nature, they are based on respect and  time served. Points and league tables don’t sit well here. Aren’t we all supposed to be on the same side?

After allegations of cheating, miscounts, theft and bad management, Fight the Apocalypse went into a mini meltdown.  We approached Director of Communications at Virgin Patrick Robinson over claims that cheating was widespread, and he  told us the following;

“Unfortunately, a tiny number of players have been extremely vocal in their criticisms, and it seems that nothing we can say is allaying their concerns – in spite of many hours of phone calls over the last week!

We’ve said – loudly and clearly – that we’ll be thoroughly verifying the winner, to check that they’ve played fairly and haven’t used underhand tactics to gain an advantage. Throughout the game, we’ve been monitoring play and investigating any activity that looks fishy. Our monitoring doesn’t reveal cheating to be “widespread” at all – but as with all of these things, there have been some people trying to bend the rules. We’ve spotted them, and taken action as required.”

The response from the fans came from Noo, who has been contacting Virgin Media on behalf of disgruntled fans. “They may have thrown some money at this, but what they really needed to throw at it was brains. We could’ve all accepted some teething problems, but a complete breakdown in communication is just not going to cut it.”

On the upside there was the recent Jus In Bello convention in Rome which boasted both Jenson Ackles and Jared Padalecki as well as Misha Collins and Jim Beaver (Castiel and Bobby).  Reports were mixed though, with some attendees left disappointed when Jared Padelecki left early and the very expensive group shot all of a sudden contained neither of the much loved J2.

Attendee Emma was upset at the bad organisation “On the Friday I was there at 11am, and the first thing I managed to get was one autograph at 7pm due to the bad organising that meant all the people with the Angel pass (their version of a gold ticket) got to get their autographs first, so nothing was staggered. Then there were the talks on the Friday that I couldnt go to because they didn’t offer a Friday hall pass, so those of us without an Angel or Demon (Silver) pass couldnt go in at all to the talks on the Friday.”

Other terms were changed after the convention started, including guest Jake Abel being removed from the guests covered by the ticket price. The line-up of an expensive group photo shoot was also changed after payment had been taken, and suspicions were raised after three guest cancellations were only announced after the online ticket sales ended. Supernatural fans are going to start wondering if they’ve picked up some kind of ancient curse…