Rizzlescon

Convention
Name:	Rizzlescon
Dates:	2012
Frequency:
Location:	Anaheim, USA
Type:	Fan convention
Focus:	Femslash
Organization:
Founder:	Liv Moreno
Founding Date:
URL:
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Rizzlescon was a fan-run convention focused around the Rizzoli & Isles series and it's femslash pairing from Rizzoli/Isles. The con was slated to have many of the cast and crew from the show appear as guests, however all guests, bar Tess Gerritsen who is the author of the books that inspired the TV series, canceled on short notice. The cancellation is thought to be mostly likely due to the LGBTQ+ focus of the con brought about by the Rizzoli/Isles pairing.

Cast and Crew Cancellation

In 2016, Liv Moreno was interviewed about the cancellation of the Rizzlescon guests.

"As the convention started to come together, Joy and I quickly realized that this convention was more than about the show. It was about the Rizzles community, and the Rizzles community was LGBTQ+. Period. That was and is the community. Are there heterosexuals who enjoy the concept of Rizzles? Sure, of course. Do they contribute to the Rizzles fandom? Absolutely. However, at the core of the fandom, at the very essence of Rizzles, it was about the LGTBQ+ community, and, specifically, the lesbians and bisexual women who were searching to find a bit of something of ourselves in the media landscape around us. With that feeling in mind, we geared some of the content toward the community. We had a panel come in to speak about LGBTQ+ representation in the media. It had Sophie B. Hawkins and her partner Gigi Gaston, Adam Bouska who is the photographer for the NO H8 campaign, Kat Brooks, a few others of some renown, and Trish Bendix as the moderator. The No H8 campaign also scheduled a photoshoot at the convention, which was well received."

"Needless to say, there was interest in a convention for “Rizzoli & Isles,” especially one geared toward lesbians and bisexual women. Joy and I were over the moon when Sasha Alexander agreed to appear. The next was Lorraine Bracco. Eventually, we had almost everyone in the ensemble on our roster of attendees as well as some people in production who were willing to come in and talk about their craft and how it applied to the production of the show. All of this, of course, with the understanding that schedule conflicts might prevent them from coming, which is par for the course for any convention. We even had the executive producer, Janet Tamaro, on board to come, and Tess Gerritsen herself was going to be there, which was such a thrill."

"Then someone at Warner Brothers, by our best understanding it was the head of PR at the time, decided that this was not an event that they were in any way okay with. We had almost all of the main cast with the exception of Angie Harmon, many of the guest stars, and a good number of the production team onboard, and, one by one, each actor had something come up. It took two weeks for all of the actors to find an excuse to bailout, and my heart dropped each time.

The last to drop was Sasha Alexander.

You see, in the land of Hollywood, if you’re an actor and the PR team from the production house who is in charge of your show says no, then you’re not going even if you want to, unless you have some insanely good contract.

Joy and I received an email from the Senior Vice President of PR for Warner Brothers the night before the first day of the convention. I distinctly recall it was 6:30 pm, and Joy, some fellow convention goers, and I were at IHOP when the news dropped. The email was short and sweet. It read, “We regret to inform you that none of the cast and crew from ‘Rizzoli & Isles’ will be able to attend RizzlesCon.”"

"The production house who owned the rights to the show had never been friendly to us, especially after they learned our lineup of ‘other’ things at the convention. The network had completely ignored us. We knew both had a history of using the Rizzles fandom to get clicks on their site and ratings every Tuesday in the summer. All the while, half their talent had gone around being dismissive of us as a fan base without ever really having any repercussions from being so flippant about us.

We knew our community wasn’t actually taken seriously, and I think that was our flaw, or, at least, it was my hubris. Deep down, I figured they were ignoring us anyway, so the likelihood that they would bother with a small little convention that wasn’t making any money off of their product wouldn’t cause them to bat an eye, but I was so wrong.

They didn’t just blink; they balked.

I’ll never be able to prove it, of course. Executives are smart enough to never put anything down in writing and actors know how to cover themselves even when they don’t agree with what they’re being told they have to do, but I will never doubt for a moment that our convention was lessened by Warner Brothers and TNT because it was, basically, a lesbian convention."