Go to many fan conventions and there will be dealers who's main stock are buttons, pins, stickers, keychains, etc of licensed characters. Often the images used aren't even ones they produced themselves. I remember going to conventions in the 90's and early 2000's where there was almost always a dealer or two selling pirated video tapes and later on DVD's with no attempt to hide what they were selling. Nobody would consider the latter ok these days, but the thing is, it's exactly the same as the first case.
A convention of 400 could probably allow that with no issues. MFF pulls in over 8000 and has a lot more attention focused on it. Part of what comes with that is having to have some 'cover your ass' policies to limit liability. They've had the same policy for years and have been fairly strict about it in the art show where they are actually acting as selling agents for the artists. They do not have the staff to inspect every item at every table in the dealer room and I'm not even sure how one would go about policing sketch drawing in the Artist Alley. Not only that, but if they actually did try policing the items and missed something, that could very well leave them open to more liability. Having the rule, enforcing it where there's something blatent, and more or less ignoring the rest is pretty much the status quo now and has been for years. People trying to get their items pre-approved are just being silly. It's not going to happen. If you feel your art/items could be in conflict with this policy, it's maybe time to re-evaluate what you're doing, but don't blame MFF.
Go to many fan conventions and there will be dealers who's main stock are buttons, pins, stickers, keychains, etc of licensed characters. Often the images used aren't even ones they produced themselves. I remember going to conventions in the 90's and early 2000's where there was almost always a dealer or two selling pirated video tapes and later on DVD's with no attempt to hide what they were selling. Nobody would consider the latter ok these days, but the thing is, it's exactly the same as the first case.
A convention of 400 could probably allow that with no issues. MFF pulls in over 8000 and has a lot more attention focused on it. Part of what comes with that is having to have some 'cover your ass' policies to limit liability. They've had the same policy for years and have been fairly strict about it in the art show where they are actually acting as selling agents for the artists. They do not have the staff to inspect every item at every table in the dealer room and I'm not even sure how one would go about policing sketch drawing in the Artist Alley. Not only that, but if they actually did try policing the items and missed something, that could very well leave them open to more liability. Having the rule, enforcing it where there's something blatent, and more or less ignoring the rest is pretty much the status quo now and has been for years. People trying to get their items pre-approved are just being silly. It's not going to happen. If you feel your art/items could be in conflict with this policy, it's maybe time to re-evaluate what you're doing, but don't blame MFF.