Ohayocon Is Suing Sekaicon Over Alleged Theft of Trade Secrets

It seems that Ohayocon is incapable of refraining from controversy. Some of you may remember that prior to last years event there was a staff strike in protest of the removal of several high level members from the con’s organization. Quite a few things happened in the following months, and we did our best to summarize them more than once.

In the end the striking staff members and Ohayocon’s owners CESI could not come to an agreement, which shocked no one. The leaving staff decided to start a new convention, Sekaicon, organized by a new nonprofit Sekai Guild.

All of this is a story as old as time. People who supplied volunteer labor for a fandom convention getting in a disagreement with other organizers and starting their own convention instead. This isn’t uncommon, and we’ve seen it happen many times. Heck, we’ve arguably seen it happen with Ohayocon before with the creation of MatsuriCon. Usually folks just move forward and continue on with their lives. That’s generally what happens.

So, anyways, Ohayocon is suing Sekaicon.

The suit is filed as case A2500277 in Hamilton County, OH, and you can read the full forty-seven page filing here. The suit alleges that Sekaicon took Trade Secrets from Ohayocon. Now none of us are lawyers here at Nerd & Tie, but some of the allegations within are frankly confusing. For example, CESI’s suit alleges that Sekaicon’s use of badge ribbons is somehow “stealing” a marketing strategy. Badge ribbons have been a part of convention culture for literal decades, and predate Ohayocon’s usage of them.

As a person who has attended and staffed conventions for over thirty years, this entire suit honestly befuddles me. I can’t think of anything Sekaicon has done that isn’t common convention running knowledge. Heck, half of it you can probably find in a webcomic if you look hard enough. Ohayocon seems to be blaming their low preregistration for 2025 on Sekaicon as well, which is difficult to understand as the convention also relocated to an entirely different metro area about seventy miles away from their old city for 2025. Moves that like almost always see a drop in attendance.

Now the real issues Sekai Guild might face are under the allegations of “hacking.” While Sekai Guild members often assert things like the Discord never actually being under the ownership of anything other than a volunteer, the website and some of the social media was taken down by one of the now former staffers during the “strike.” Whether this constitutes “hacking” under the law is unclear, but it doesn’t exactly look good. The thing is, while current board members of Sekai Guild may have supported the actions or even been involved, it’s hard to claim that all of them are responsible or to claim the unrelated nonprofit Sekai Guild (which would not be conceived of until months later) should be held responsible for an individual’s actions. But as many of Sekai Guild’s members are directly referenced as defendants in the case in addition to the nonprofit, someone may find themself having a very bad day with this part.

But again, I am not a lawyer.

In any case, CESI has filed for a temporary restraining order against Sekai Guild demanding they cease operation of Sekaicon. We’ll be following this story as it progresses.

We’ve reached out to both CESI and Sekai Guild for comment on this story, but have yet to receive a response.