#Clausegate
by Leesa Dean
There’s a big brouhaha happening in the web series community. It’s been dubbed#Clausegate and this is what it’s about:
There are many web series festivals springing up all over the place. But in Los Angeles, there are three fairly prominent ones: LA WebFest, Indie Series Awards (or ISAs) and the Hollyweb Festival which all take place around the same time. Many web series creators have submitted to all three and recently, LAWebFest, when it opened for 2015 submissions, imposed exclusivity requirements, which, web series creators believe are meant to keep them from submitting to Hollyweb and the ISAs. Hmmmm.
Web series creators weren’t too happy about it and there was huge backlash online and LAWebfest responded in kind, by doubling down and actually stating that entrants must withdraw their shows from Hollyweb and the ISAs or they’re be disqualified from LAWebfest.