BILE AND BLUSTER on display in the Axanar: Confidential live chat February 4 results in a short-lived boost to Alec Peters’ flagging Patreon campaign, as new donors and pledges end up crawling to a halt.

FEBRUARY 8, 2019|3 MINS READING TIME

Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing?

Peters on Track for Losing Large Warehouse, Moving to Small Warehouse

Ground to a Halt

The sound and fury exhibited by producer Alec Peters and blogger Jonathan Lane against their critics on February 4’s Axanar: Confidential appeared to signify … not so much, as it turned out.

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Three days later, whatever spike the pair’s bile, bluster and vulgarity (watch clips) sparked during their two-hour YouTube livestream had dissipated as the number of new donations and contributors dropped to zero for the Patreon campaign to keep the warehouse Peters calls Ares Studios open past May.

Awkward

One can only ponder what the physiological effect might’ve been on Axanar’s detractors upon hearing news of the Patreon effort’s detumescence:

  • Monthly pledges remained stuck at $1,421, with zero new dollars on Thursday, following a $135 spike the night of the livestream.
  • The patron count also halted at 154 after climbing by nine the night of the livestream. Even with that positive blip, the daily increase hasn’t grown beyond single digits since January 23.
LOOKING AHEAD Without a change in the Patreon trends, Alec Peters will likely have to move to a smaller warehouse. Click image to view graph full size.

What's the Future Hold?

Unless something major changes the campaign’s trajectory, AxaMonitor’s regression analysis of its prospects puts Peters on track for about $2,500 a month by April, the last month of Peters’ lease.

That’s not enough to keep the $4,000 a month, 6,000 square foot Georgia warehouse Axanar currently occupies. It is sufficient, though to pay the rent on a nearby unimproved facility about half the size.

Why it Matters

Dwindling numbers puts the number of patrons by April at 275 — less than the 300 who contributed the last time Peters tried to raise money to save a studio in his failed 2017 Indiegogo campaign. The low donor numbers don’t bode well for his upcoming private effort for donors to pay for Axanar.

  • Where did all the donors go? The meager number of Patreon donors compared to the 15,000 people who donated to produce Axanar. All of their money, of course, is long gone.
  • Low conversion rate: The Axanar YouTube channel boasts 74,548 subscribers. The conversion rate of those subscribers to patrons is 0.2 percent.

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