See? This is a stupid combination of one truth (organization was horrendous) and a lie (they 'oversold' the photoshoot tickets).
To make it clear: the Land Con is not a company, according to its very particular French legal framework. It is an NGO, based in Forbach:
Forbach is a town in the French department of Moselle, which has been under German occupation between 1871 (when France lost two historic provinces, Alsace and Lorraine, after being defeated at the Battle of Sédan, in 1870) and 1918 (after France was among the Allies who won the First World War). Thanks to this historical quirk, the two former provinces of Alsace and Lorraine are governed by a different legislation than the rest of the country, which is way more flexible, especially concerning NGOs:
For instance, a French NGO must be a non-profit entity. An Alsace-Lorraine NGO can include and declare in its by-laws a for-profit activity, which is exactly what the Land Con did, even if it has declared zero employees (see first screenshot). Fun fact: all the Landcon's staff are volunteers, who pay for their trip, accommodation and meals - the only perk, as I mentioned, is the free pics and autographs with guests (no C this year, though). Also, while a French law NGO cannot do whatever its members want to do and must stick to its declared activity, an Alsace-Lorraine NGO can do any legal transaction its members see fit, and that includes sharing profits between them.
Moreover, according to the same by-laws, Land Con has declared itself to be a 'social and solidary economy' entity, which automatically granted it a public utility status:
[Source: the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies' SIRENE portal]
That means, in a nutshell three things: an obligation to reinvest a share of their profits, a friendlier taxation regime and finally the ability to negotiate with the Courbevoie Municipality a lower rental fee for the events it organizes every year at the Centre Evénementiel (which is the property of the same above Municipality), via CourbevoiEvent, a subsidiary of the City Council:
As you can see, the number of participants to these events is capped at 1200 people and I think this year the Landcon sold about 1000 passes. None of those included C's photo session, as she was a Gold Special Guest, or something along these lines, so the number of available slots was even lower than that. One of the reasons it is always so has to do with fire safety regulations, which are very strict, in France. In fact, the local Fire Brigade's vehicles were permanently parked nearby, along with an ambulance (it was used during the registration hullaballoo, last Friday, when a lady fainted while standing in line for extras), and the management of the fans' lines for extras was borderline paranoid.
How do I know this? Simple: I was a friend's (💖) special status ('Station Debout Pénible'/Difficulty Standing) assistant. As such, not only were we seated closer to the scene, but we were also whisked through the waiting lines. While waiting for her other extras, I had the opportunity to chat with a very nice staff person, who explained why I should not stand near the ashtray on the terrace, but only near the stairs. And blamed it on the Fire Brigade people, who were monitoring everything, just in case.
If you think that the Land Con people, who went to great lengths to make their organization the most lucrative possible (as I just showed you) would risk an enormous scandal by overbooking extras despite the local fire safety regulations, then you are either naive or misinformed.
Sorry, @i-ship for hijacking your post, but I think it had to be cleared up.
