Buyer Beware! Bogus pendants at the Hukilau...and in NZ! Major Update Pg. 5!!! - General Tiki

P Paipo Member Aotearoa / NZ Joined: Jun 22, 2006 Posts: 1886	P Paipo Posted posted on Wed, Jul 2, 2008 4:16 PM I'm stoked to see everyone is still fired up about this, and my apologies for not keeping up with it as much lately. To tell the truth, this whole thing has snowballed into something massive, and at times, almost overwhelming. I had no idea how prevalent this is (particularly here in NZ) and I've had a huge amount of correspondence going on outside of this thread with various buyers/collectors, artists and their agents. Make no mistake - if people keep buying this cheap crap, artists will go under and peoples' livelihoods are at stake here. It's up to retailers, consumers and artists to stand firm on this - consumers by asking how and where the product and its design has been sourced, and the artists by refusing to supply galleries or deal with businesses that support the sale of bogus goods. I have been in touch with the vending manager of the Hot Rod Hula Hop and am yet to get any response, but as far as I know, being in Ohio, City Buddha is a regular vendor there. Otto is taking a "wait-and-see" approach with Oasis, which is all well and good, but if this guy brings a huge bag of his shitty knockoffs it's unlikely anything can be done until it's too late. I really wish these guys (event organisers) would just take some sort of ethical stand on this and realise that the vendors who sell NOTHING but imported junk are hurting all the other hardworking artists that vend at their events, REGARDLESS of where they are sourcing their designs. Let them stick to ebay where they belong! I will also state here that I fully support (and appreciate!) any direct or indirect action (within legal boundaries) people are willing to take on this issue. The more voices that are heard on this the better as far as I'm concerned.

I'm stoked to see everyone is still fired up about this, and my apologies for not keeping up with it as much lately.
To tell the truth, this whole thing has snowballed into something massive, and at times, almost overwhelming. I had no idea how prevalent this is (particularly here in NZ) and I've had a huge amount of correspondence going on outside of this thread with various buyers/collectors, artists and their agents.

Make no mistake - if people keep buying this cheap crap, artists will go under and peoples' livelihoods are at stake here. It's up to retailers, consumers and artists to stand firm on this - consumers by asking how and where the product and its design has been sourced, and the artists by refusing to supply galleries or deal with businesses that support the sale of bogus goods.

I have been in touch with the vending manager of the Hot Rod Hula Hop and am yet to get any response, but as far as I know, being in Ohio, City Buddha is a regular vendor there. Otto is taking a "wait-and-see" approach with Oasis, which is all well and good, but if this guy brings a huge bag of his shitty knockoffs it's unlikely anything can be done until it's too late. I really wish these guys (event organisers) would just take some sort of ethical stand on this and realise that the vendors who sell NOTHING but imported junk are hurting all the other hardworking artists that vend at their events, REGARDLESS of where they are sourcing their designs. Let them stick to ebay where they belong!

I will also state here that I fully support (and appreciate!) any direct or indirect action (within legal boundaries) people are willing to take on this issue. The more voices that are heard on this the better as far as I'm concerned.

Post #391271 by Paipo on Wed, Jul 2, 2008 4:16 PM