posted at MD.com by John Romano:
Deadline for press passes? Chic is drinking too much Weider juice. As uninformed as usual, what the big lug doesn't know is that Steve was out of town on the "official press pass due date"
"Out of town"? Was he out of town the month BEFORE the date? Or how about the 3 weeks after the deadline? Aug. 15th is ONE day...
and had a conversation with Robin Chang anyway about it. What Steve asked for was "the same as last year" - Apparently, he didn't remember - or chose to forget the incredible hassle we had to go through last year to cover their show. Where has Robin been? He doesn't remember?
He remembers very well, he also emailed Steve back after receiving the faxed request, and asked if TWO were enough passes....sounds like a guy DENYING passes to me...! That email went unanswered. I can post the fax filled out by Steve if you wish, requesting TWO passes...let me know.
I'll refresh their memory: We got four press passes and we had to BUY SIX VIP tickets to accommodate the rest of our crew and that was only after Steve held hostage the release agreements for our athletes to shoot the Okabe video and the other video short Weider wanted to shoot for the show.
How many people you choose to send to cover the Olympia is YOUR choice. What "hassle" was that? Oh, thats right...forgot about that whole "having to write on a piece a paper and fax it over deadline thing.."
This is bullshit on a massive scale.
On that, we agree....claiming to have been DENIED press passes is about as bullshit as it gets. Still waiting for the whole "denied" part BTW
MD is the number one hardcore bodybuilding magazine in the world and this is the crap we have to go through in order to give superior coverage and promotion to Weider's show.
Yep....superior coverage indeed...especially the way you bash the production, the show, everyone at Weider (especially Peter McGough) the results, the Venue, continuously making comparison to the ASC, and how THAT'S the number one show in the world...not the OLympia, etc, etc....it's a wonder they let you anywhere near the building
Deadline my ass. Chang should have called Steve and said: "thank you for doing such a great job last year covering our show, how can I help you this year? What do you need?" Just like Jim Lorimer does and the other 99 promoters of the shows MD covers.
Funny you should mention a number...150 seats in the pit...149 people had no problem and submitted their requests ON TIME. See above for how "thankful" Robin Chang should be....
The coverage is for YOUR magazine lets not forget...for YOUR sales, for YOUR content, we have our own magazine and coverage...so spare us all how "thankful" we should be to MD...
Press pass issuance to our crew is one thing. It's a whole other thing to not offer a press pass to the Senior Editor of the number one hardcore bodybuilding magazine in the world, the Editor-in-Chief of its website, the boss of all bosses,
All those people HAVE press passes...Peter McGough, Alan Donnally, Joe and Ben Weider, David Pecker, etc....ALL have them.
and not to mention Flex Wheeler and Shawn Ray who, while working for MD, also represent two uncrowned olympia kings with perhaps the greatest combined record in the history of the sport.
Both of which are a phone call away from having seats up fron at ANY pro show, or NPC show for that matter, as is not only their right as a IFBB pro, but as the legends they are.
Right or wrong, that's my opinion and that's what I said on NBR. It's also the truth and in typical Weider fashion someone over there has a problem with the truth
No, we have a problem with distorted facts. I'm sure Steve B was totally upfront and truthful with you (as usual)...after all...he's the one keeping food on your table, he HAS to be right.
