A surpise announcement was made on Friday that actor Kevin Spacey would be appearing. For a long time Spacey was one of the most celebrated actors until scandal rocked his career. In 2017, Spacey faced several allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment. On October 29, 2017, actor Anthony Rapp was the first to accuse Spacey of sexual misconduct. In the following weeks, other accusers came forward, including actor Roberto Cavazos, filmmaker Tony Montana, Richard Dreyfuss's son Harry, and at least eight people who worked on House of Cards.
In the wake of these claims, Netflix cut ties with Spacey, shelving his biopic of Gore Vidal and removing him from the last season of House of Cards. His completed role as J. Paul Getty in Ridley Scott's film All the Money in the World (2017) was reshot with Christopher Plummer. Spacey has denied the accusations and was found not liable in a 2022 civil lawsuit filed by Rapp in New York. In a separate criminal case in London, he was acquitted by a jury of sexual assault charges in 2023.
Spacey is now unable to find regular film work, and his home recently was foreclosed on. Steel City Con made the announcement quickly and abruptly. Some vendors backed out of their appearance, and according to the vendors Steel City Con officials said those vendors will not be allowed back. My concern is there are a lot of children that go to the convention. Personally, I would not let anyone younger than a teenager go, and even though Kevin Spacey has only been accused of the misconduct, I don't feel he is a person that should be making an appearance at a convention like this.
I wrote to Steel City Con requesting an interview. I received no reply to the interview, but I told them this would make me not want to go to their convention in the future. Their reply back to me was "We looked you up and can not see that you have bought a ticket to the convention in the past". So it looks like the convention does not care about it's vendors and customers, they just look at the potential money they will make from having a controversial star like Kevin Spacey appear. Who is next - Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein?