John Allen Price - Malevolent Jerk
John Allen Price is a New York area author and a thoroughly despicable excuse for a human being. He's no longer welcome as a programming participant at Toronto area conventions for reasons that range from going on a homophobic rant on a panel at one con and verbally attacking another panelist, for something completely unrelated to the topic, at another. But this time he's outdone himself. Last weekend he was a "distinguished guest" at Eericon, a small convention in Niagara Falls NY. Before the con he made a point of notifying border guards that "Canadian associates of Peter Watts", aka members of Eeriecon were coming. Think about that for a second. It's completely irrelevant that he's a raving lunatic nobody in their right mind would listen to. His intention was to, at a minimum, cause an inconvenience, with the potential for serious consequences, to a significant portion of Eeriecon's membership. It was premeditated and it was malicious.
It is my opinion that the Eericon concom should be ashamed of themselves for inviting this waste of protein to their convention. They should ban him from future conventions and should apologize to their membership for inviting him in the first place.
And no, the concom certainly isn't responsible for the behaviour of all of their members but they do bear some of the responsibility for the guests they choose to invite.