Shatner's Production Company Speaks Out

By: Dennis Rayburn
11/16/2009

In September of this year, William Shatner was booked to appear at Dragon*Con and then was to fly to Chicago for an appearance there, being put on by Prestige Entertainment on Sept. 5th. Mr. Shatner made his appearance at Dragon*Con and then stayed on for some extra panels. Reports going around the convention were that the Chicago appearance was canceled.

In a press release dated August 30, 2009, Prestige states that Mr. Shatner's appearance was canceled due to poor ticket sales. According to Prestige's CEO Daniel Bruening, “We've only sold 46 tickets, we needed to sell 1000 to pay his fee.” The press release went on to say that ticket holders had been informed and briefed on the refund procedure.

There have been reports of problems with refunds, including a letter, reportedly from Mr. Bruening, that has been posted on the forum on WilliamShatner.com stating that it may take longer than 90 days to do the refunds. The letter states that Prestige reportedly took a $6000 loss on the Chicago event.

Saturday, Mr. Shatner's production company, Melis Productions issued a statement regarding that aborted appearance in Chicago and the current situation with Prestige Entertainment and refunds due to ticket holders. The statement makes very clear that neither the production company nor Mr. Shatner are doing anything that would prevent Prestige from refunding the tickets for his canceled appearance. I'll have more on this story as information comes out.

See you next time!

Photo:  Wikipedia.org

Author: Dennis Rayburn

Dennis Rayburn is a columnist for Roddenberry.com. His column, "Two Strips of Latinum" appears every Sunday through Thursday.
Contact: drayburn@roddenberry.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/drayburn
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