Hasta La Ideas

The notorious no-show David Carson has done it again. Despite being the winner of nearly 200 top design awards, designer of the infamous RayGun magazine, and a client list that would make any designer drool, it’s no secret that when you hire or ask the famous Carson to come speak, there’s a good chance he just might never show up. You might recall our reporting from when he did this back in 2007, when he agreed to appear on Debbie Millman‘s “Design Matters” show only to never show up, which landed him some sharp (and funny) criticism from both Millman and the internet at large. Now in New Zealand recently, Carson was hired to come speak to two groups in the cities of Wellington and Auckland, where attendees would be paying $300 apiece for the opportunity to hear him speak. He was to be flown business class, put up in likely very nice hotels, and paid $10,000 per appearance. Only trick, of course, is that he never showed up and now the event’s organizer, Gary Hewlett, is out $35,000. Hewlett has promised that he has “lawyer in the US who are ready to act” in getting the money refunded from Carson. Here’s a bit:

Mr Carson postponed in February, then again in March, claiming he had lost his passport. However, Mr Hewlett doesn’t believe him.

“He was judging a set of awards in northern Spain over the weekend he was supposed to be in New Zealand,” Mr Hewlett says. “So how that happened I don’t know.”

For further reading, to get a sense of how regular a thing this seems to be for Carson, we recommend scanning the comments on this story about his New Zealand no-show from 3 News. A dozen notes about no-shows across the world and even an alleged drunken appearance at one lecture that he did decide to show up for.

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