Prominent YouTuber and inventor William Osman is expressing his anger towards a tech company for reportedly sneaking into his event, Open Sauce, and selling $700 robots without his consent.
William Osman’s technology-driven event, Open Sauce, has now concluded, showcasing a variety of unconventional gadgets and special appearances from popular figures like Adam Savage.
Despite the intention of the event to honor ingenuity and imagination, the atmosphere was tainted by a single company that reportedly snuck into the showcase in an attempt to make a profit.
On June 15, ‘Bantam Tools’ shared a photo on X of their booth set up at Open Sauce. They expressed their gratitude to Open Sauce for allowing them to set up in the YouTube museum and mentioned that they are targeting YouTubers, making them a perfect fit for the event. They invited everyone to come by and say hello!
Despite Osman’s statement, the YouTuber responded with a critical tweet five days later, reaffirming that he had not granted the company permission to feature at Open Sauce.
Additionally, he alleged that Bantam Tools not only refused to sponsor the event, but also attempted to sell an expensive robot to those in attendance.
“We did not do that,”he wrote. “It was wrong of you to decline a sponsorship and then secretly set up a booth in my creator museum to sell drawing robots for $700.”
For when the cowards delete @bantamtools pic.twitter.com/Tl5uaxVaU4
— WilliamOsman (@WilliamOsman) June 20, 2024
During the event, Bantam Tools featured a robot capable of creating portraits of attendees, several of whom had their pictures taken with their artwork and shared on the company’s official X account.
Despite Osman’s harsh words, he proceeded to refer to the company as “cowards”and even included a screenshot of their post as proof, in case they were to delete it. However, as of the time of his statement, the company had not yet taken any action to remove the post.
Shortly after Bantam Tools’ posts on X, netizens quickly came to Osman’s defense in the comments, accusing the business of sneaking into Open Sauce.
“Wow, I had no idea you guys brought in your equipment without permission to sell them!”one user commented.
“It was pointed out by another person that all of these should be deleted as the resulting PR will not look good with the comment sections enabled.”
Following the incident, Bantam Tools issued an apology to Osman through a tweet response, referring to the situation as a “misunderstanding.”
The company stated that the initial sponsorship offer did not align with their brand, as they believed that sponsorships were typically reserved for large corporations and that exhibitor booths were more suitable for DIY creators.
After expressing our intention to attend the event and share our art with the featured creators in a respectful manner, we were placed in the YouTube museum by your team. This was because our art consisted of machine-drawn portraits of YouTubers, which we were told would not cause any disruption.
“We appreciate the kindness of your team in accommodating us. Looking back, we realize that OpenSauce is a fantastic event and we should have made the effort to find our place and secure a booth.”
We apologize for the misunderstanding. We’re sorry. When we were approached, it was for sponsorship, and that didn’t seem like the right fit. Without experience with the event, we thought sponsorship was for giant companies, and exhibitor booths were for DIY creators. We planned…
— Bantam Tools (@bantamtools) June 20, 2024
As of now, Osman has not yet responded to Bantam’s apology, and despite the company’s explanation, it continues to receive backlash. Confused commenters point out that exhibitors are typically required to pay for booth space at most events, as seen in this tweet from AmigurumiMan: https://x.com/AmigurumiMan/status/1803893703477743907.
During our conversation earlier this year, Osman and I discussed Open Sauce, and he shared with me his unexpected friendship with Adam Savage. He also revealed that his YouTube success was something he never could have imagined, even in a thousand years.
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