How Many Chapters Can A Town Have?

Regional Midwest
1

I Run The Harrisburg Illinois Ghostbusters Of Southern Illinois And I’ve Been Noticing Another Franchises/Chapters In The Area Doing The Same Thing. I Never Really Checked To See About Any Sort Of Logic When It Comes To Franchises, Like A Rulebook.. if that’s makes sense.

Here’s My Questions:

  1. Can More Then One Person Run A Chapter In The Same Town?

  2. Can Someone Claim A Whole State/Part Of A State?

  3. Do I Have To Sign Something Or Do Anything In Order To Cement Ourselves As An Actual Chapter?

Thanks

2

I’m probably going to get alot of hate for this post, but so be it. It’s an honest opinion…

The word “official” is thrown around and truthfully the whole thing was a marketing ploy by SONY/Ghostcorps to promote Ghostbusters: Answer The Call back in 2016. They sent out “Franchise Certificates” Ghost Corps Cadet pins (Two Versions) and hoped to generate buzz for the film.

I’ve been to the firehouse, my old National Guard unit used to do practice drills with those guys. They’re a nice bunch.

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If you have a bunch of Ghostheads in your area and you want to get together and do stuff who or what is stopping you? I live in Buffalo, New York and have zero interest in joining the self proclaimed “Only Official Ghostbusters as recognized by Sony and Ghost Corps” in my city. and I have a blast doing what I love! I do local charity stuff and have found other like minded people who enjoy Ghostbusters just as much as I do.
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I even do a Ghostbusters/Men In Black crossover, chrome proton thrower and all.
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Nickle City Con Buffalo, New York

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As long as you’re not breaking any laws, what’s stopping you from being a fan? There are people with 100% film accurate Stormtroopers costumes that are not part of any organized groups. I do Stargate, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and others and people don’t care one bit. Remember to have fun out there kids!

I met some “official guy” over the weekend who looked down his nose at me. I had to laugh. He honestly seemed like he just needed a good laxative!

So I left him some magnets with my logos…

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You have to power to go out there and do stuff!
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No one owns a fandom. Anyone can be a Ghostbuster. (or MIB, Thor, etc…) Have fun! Be nice!

3

There’s nothing stopping you from starting a chapter, and as posted above “official” is meaningless. It was a marketing thing by Sony in 2016. My franchise wasn’t formed until several years after that promo ended, but we’re no more/less “official” than any other GB chapter. We have fun together, we put on a good show at events, people love hanging out with us, and we raise very good money for charity.

However to think about the other side of this, we would be just a little disappointed if someone started their own franchise in our town without talking to us. It would cause confusion in the community, and we’d wonder why they didn’t want to join us so we can work together. We have plenty of disagreements as a group, just like any other, but we try to stay respectful and work through them together. As a result we always come out stronger with a very positive outcome for everyone. And as a group we can spread the burden around so nobody feels like they need to do everything, it makes it easier to have a presence at more events if there’s more of us. Plus financially we can share costs, and if buying something we can consolidate shipping. We help make each other’s costumes and props (because we all have different skillsets), others handle finances and fund-raising, others do marketing.

I don’t know much about your area, but if you’re just starting a new chapter for the sake of it, I’d reach out to the existing ones first and see if maybe you’ll be a better fit there, or if they’re receptive to your ideas and all the (I’m sure) fun things you’d like to do. But if you’re doing your own thing because you’ve had disagreements with them, or there’s personality conflicts (ego, politics, gatekeeping, etc) you can’t work around, that’s totally fair enough and I hope things go well for you on your own. It’d just be a shame if you missed out on the chance to make some new friends here.

If you need a good example of “we’re stronger together than apart”, just look at the German Ghostbusters and all the insanely cool stuff they’re able to do as a franchise.

Edit: After reading the original post again it sounds like you already had a franchise and yet new ones have started up. It’d be worth reaching out to find out why they started their own, if there’s any way they might be able to join your group instead, and if not then how you can ensure you don’t step on each other’s toes. There might even be some opportunities for collaboration.

4

I guess there are two groups in Buffalo, New York. The other group appears to be made of people from the previously mentioned self proclaimed “Only Official” guys. They broke off and formed Ghostbusters 716.

I guess there are factors that can cause a group to split into two separate groups but there is nothing preventing both of them from existing. Ultimately, at the end of the day, I want to wear my costume, help out a charity if possible and then go have a beer afterwards.

5

I’m of the opinion that a town or city or state whatever can have as many GB franchises as football teams.

6

There’s literally no rules, do what you want.

The area I live in has about 10 teams that cover overlapping areas. It is what it is.

7

Same energy haha

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9

I will also chime in an say the same as others, there is nothing “official”. You can start your own group. Other groups can start up in the same town. There isn’t really anything anybody can do about it. I’m not even sure what legal standpoint you would have if another group started using your group’s name and custom logo TBH. Mooglie is the copyrighted trademark of Sony / Ghost Corp. Just because a group adds a palm tree or a fire helmet to the logo doesn’t make it theirs.

You also run into the issue of some groups not knowing other groups even exist. We aren’t ran by a company like we would be if our franchises were real. My friend and I started using the name “Southern Illinois Ghostbusters” 20 years ago. As far as I could tell at the time, we were the only GB group between St. Louis MO and Louisville KY. Within the last 10 years or so, another “Southern Illinois Ghostbusters” and “Ghostbusters of Southern Illinois” and a few others have popped up, each time presenting like they were the first in the area. It is what it is. Nobody asked us for permission to use the name, and permission is not ours to give because we are not a real company. We have also never been asked if anybody can join us. And, if I’m being honest, I can’t say that I would want to join another group in the area either.

If anything, I think when the fan franchise thing kicked off, a lot of groups went too big. By that I mean, they would name their franchise after their state or a very large part of it. The original concept of the Ghostbusters is that they operated like firefighters. One fire station isn’t going to cover an entire state. In fact, you may have multiple fire stations in a single town or city. Or, more locally, you may have multiple DEPARTMENTS in the same town. Within the city limits of Mt Vernon, you have the Mt Vernon Fire Department, as well as Jefferson County Fire Protection District. And while 3 different towns, Benton, West City, and Steel City share boarders and all have their own fire departments. You also have multiple ambulance services stationed in towns together, and other towns that don’t have ambulance services at all.

Ok, I will reel in the rant here lol. Basically, everybody can do what they want and just try to play nicely with each other. Maybe reach out to the other group and make contact. Let them know you are also in the area, that you have no desire to step on each others toes, and that you will not be trying to represent the other group and hope that they extend you the same courtesy.

If we had a better organizational system in place, we could work out a little better naming system or something. Like all of the groups in the same area and with basically the same name would also have their own “station number” or something. Use their own logos still, have their name, but still be able to distinguish one from the other. But, nothing like that has ever really existed for this fandom.