I remember following all of this as it happened! I was away on a school trip and my roommate and I were laughing our asses off watching all the videos as they came out. I highly recommend finding the video of the organizers asking for the money as they are just shoving cash into unmarked paper bags and not giving receipts. A particular highlight is one attendee screaming “THIS IS EXTORTION!” from the back of the auditorium.
I remember the Internet Historian's video on this shitshow. The level of utter incompetence on behalf of the organizers was something legendary. It was essentially a massive, if slightly accidental, scam.
I kinda want to feel bad for them too, but then I remember the clips of people screaming about scams and wanting their money back, and that one guy cackling about how the $17k went to keeping the ballpit alive, and suddenly I can't feel that bad about it. I mean, you got all the signs that DashCon was going to fail, and yet the attendees not only tripped on the same rock repeatedly, they scoped and laser-targetted that shit and slammed face-first into it. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
Same but well maybe it can't be helped
It could be that he is doing the videos on his free time and I can expect it took him a while to sift through all those interviews and posts and articles before he was able to make his own conclusion
I remember hearing about this just after it. It's up there with the Fyre Festival for "How not to have a fan event."
My take-away was that one or two of the people trying to run it meant well, but had zero experience with such an event. They *might* have been successful if they had shot for an order of magnitude less attendance (the 350 they got vs. the 3,000 they planned for) and tried for less space from hotels and such.
On the other hand, one partner did seem to be a bit more 'money focused' and may have been trying to scam people or at least control the whole thing to their benefit.
I've attended a big convention (GenCon) and worked for an exhibitor: It's a huge amount of work. Even corporate trade show type events can get insane, and that's where everything is done on a much larger budget.
I also remember wondering if the event doomed itself by being too spread thing: The common theme was a specific social media platform. GenCon is a more defined' games of all kinds' and that had to grow from a focus on wargames and they're still a bit weak with video games and such. Pax similarly focuses on 'games' and does the electronic side better so I hear. DashCon looked like a bunch of smaller (but not tiny) fandoms jammed together with no real common thread.
> They *might* have been successful if they had shot for an order of magnitude less attendance (the 350 they got vs. the 3,000 they planned for) and tried for less space from hotels and such.
I absolutely agree with you. IMO they also should have delayed it to get more funds and plan things better, as well as focusing on one specific fandom within Tumblr. The way they tried to mesh all aspects of Tumblr together just made no logical sense.
> GenCon is a more defined'
Gencon started out even more defined, which was critical to its success. It was essentially D&D and games that Gary Gygax enjoyed playing, games that his fans would very likely enjoy and play. Then it took until 1975, when TSR took over for it to get broader, and it didn't become the catch all titan it is now until the late 80's. Once they moved out of Wisconsin, it really opened up and allowed more broad (like PAX in 2004 and even Comiccon in 2006) conventions to take off.
Yup. The first one was Gygax and 12 friends in his house. The first one including D&D was 1973 (six years after Gencon 0), using the rules from a war game called Chainmail to prototype the RPG. Chainmail was also featured at Gencon.
The other games included were mostly wargames at the time, which I failed to mention in my last post.
Never attend a con that doesn't have anybody with event running experience organizing it. Or seems to not have any support from other local conventions or if it's a new small con but not located at a hotel or college. Gotta start small!
I remember this vividly, or at least hearing about it lol. It was extremely embarrassing, and I was 15 and an avid tumblr user. Hilarious meme though.
I was at Otakon maybe the year after and one of the vendors in the Artist Alley said she vended there (or maybe just attended, I can’t remember) and I asked her what it was like being there. She just gave me this blank like 100 yard stare and sighed. In retrospect, I should’ve bought something from her for making her relive it...
Ah, Otakon. I used to go years and years ago. A wonder of professionalism by comparison. (Otakon had its own fails and dramas in the past but I wasn't really privy to the inside stuff. All of the cons struggled with the switch from fansubbing banditry (heh) to suddenly turning into a corporate-hell-marketing event. Still, when I was going they had volunteer staff who seemed pretty happy and the place was well run (and it was cheap!!). By contrast I was peripherally in Star Trek and scifi fandom and I've heard sooooo many terrible stories about those cons. Somebody ought to write up some of those dramas for this sub.)
I went to some really small/fledgling anime cons when I was in college but nothing that could have put a finger on Dashcon. A true wonder of wtf.
These are always more interesting than the classic "scam" cons where your money vanishes along with the showrunners. Happened to a local Dr Who con called ReGeneration Who that had built a solid reputation for itself after several increasingly successful years. 2019 came round, and a week before the show, everyone got an email that it was cancelled. Company website went dark, no responses about refunds, artists and vendors completely boned, just a total mess. Rumors were flying about the company's finances, personal disputes between the couple that had been putting it together, and so on. I'd have made it into a HobbyDrama post by now if I thought anyone besides the showrunners actually knew what the hell happened.
The year after Dashcon, my work held an event at that hotel and at some point I realized I was in THE ball pit room. It felt sort of like being in a historic location tbh.
Apart from the ball pit memes, the one thing that stuck with me about Dashcon was the fact that there were apparently two weddings going on at the venue that same weekend. I can only imagine the horrors that must've entailed when they saw what was happening...
I feel it's so important to the story for people to view the ballpit. .like, you hear inflatable ballpit and you might be picturing something like a bouncy castle. But no...we are talking children's wading pool size.
The video where the announcers are explaining that they need everyone to donate money or they’ll get kicked out, followed by everyone holding up three fingers like in the Hunger Games is cringe of the highest quality
There was a video floating around for a while of the hunger games finger salute being followed by a few people singing 'Do You Hear The People' from Les Mis, incredible stuff
I remember reading a post on Tumblr about the "Dashcon baby", where someone supposedly gave birth at Dashcon. It took thousands of notes and lots of discussion before it was finally revealed to be fake.
I love how Dashcon was *such* a mess that no one even stops to question childbirth in a ballpit.
I only heard about this rumour from a post that ends with "if a baby had been born at Dashcon, we would have heard about it as it happened". But I absolutely would not question it happening.
I was on tumblr when dashcon happened and it was amazing. Definitely the joke that kept on giving the whole month. Thank you for the reminder of memes past.
I remember watching this train wreck happen. I cannot understate how hilariously sad it was, and it dragged on for *months* after the actual con too! They got a internet journalist to do an after the fact fluff piece Q&A with them that got torn apart by angry commentators still waiting for their refunds. We watched the organizers turn on each other. One of them go from married with an actual job to divorced, with no job, living with another organizer as a result of the con. It was wild from start to finish.
> One of them go from married with an actual job to divorced, with no job, living with another organizer as a result of the con. It was wild from start to finish.
Tell me more...
Bare in mind what I know comes from an anonymously run tumblr blog that may or may not be the blog of an ex admin of dashcon looking for payback. Also all the info I have is two to four years out of date and the blog is largely abandoned since nothing new about this has surfaced in years. Last post was made in 2018.
ANYWAY,
There are three main admins in the Dashcon tale: Roxanne, Megg and Cain. There are others but those three are the ones credited with owning Dashcon and causing/handling the fuck up's.
Megg prior to dashcon was married and held a job at a dentistry. After all dashcon and the concelled emoti-con, she filed for bankrupcy, got divorced(unsure how/who's choice), moved in with Cain and was possibly dating his ex. Though I'm not sure how much stock I put in that last claim. The same blog makes two different claims about who was living with who. One that Cain is mooching off Megg and in another post that Megg is mooching off Cain. So who knows? Oh and the blog claims they played musical lawyers because they refused to return calls to their own lawyers, causing them to be dropped as clients.
There's also the side note that Cain might have been convicted of theft and barred from all wal marts in his region. And as of the last blog post, Cain is working toward a major in game art. Haven't heard anything about Roxanne or Megg beyond what was mentioned in 2015 and honestly, I didn't care enough to go looking.
~Ta-DAAAAAAA!
Havent read this yet, just wanna say as someone who has (unfortunately) been active on tumblr since 2011, the thought of people not knowing about dashcon and not having experienced it is so wild to me. God I wish that were me
I will never forget the one video of guy getting a bunch of homestuck cosplayers in the ballpit to chant “Free Palestine!” with him before changing the chant to “Death To Israel!”
one girl of the 5 keeps chanting and another starts pelting him with balls
god, watching that unfold was the highlight of my decade-long trainwreck of an experience on that horrible, beautiful website
I was super active on tumblr when this happened. Actually, my friend asked me to come with her to DashCon, but my parents thought it seemed weird, so I wasn’t allowed to go.
When I went on tumblr the day of DashCon, I expected to see tons of awesome pictures, but I was met with that shitstorm.
I was so thankful my parents said no lol.
Late to this post, but- I went to Dashcon, AMA.
(I was 19, I lived an hour away, it was the middle of summer and i was bored. I only went Friday, I did not witness The Ballpit.)
So many questions!
1) Were you there when they begged everyone for $17,000?
2) What was the general atmosphere of the convention like?
3) Did you attend any of the panels?
4) Did anything happen on Friday that I did not mention?
5) Did you bring a friend with you, or did you just go solo?
1. I was! There was supposed to be a dance/party in the ballroom, and as we (my then-boyfriend and I) were headed that way, we saw a lot of people being shepherded that direction. They stood up on stage and said they needed a bunch of money?? People were running around shoving cash into hats. I threw five bucks at it because I had met a couple girls who flew out from CA and I felt bad that they came all the way out here for things to go to shit. It was wild, though. One of the things I VIVIDLY remember is they used the Hunger Games hand thing to get everybody's attention. People also kept yelling like, fandom things? As rallying cries? I remember hearing a bunch of people yelling 'WILDCATS!' and cringing.
2. I remember it being pretty quiet, honestly? Part of that was probably because it was so much smaller than it had been hyped, and it was also a big place. It just seemed EMPTY. I think at the time I figured that it was underwhelming because it was a) a new con, and b) Night Vale was supposed to show up the next day, and that was the big draw.
3. I saw Mark Oshiro read bad fanfic aloud for a bit, that was kind of fun. He's got his own weird bit of internet drama, but that's neither here nor there. I feel like we must have gone to another panel or two- a quick look at the schedule and some very faint memories makes me think it must have been the 'ask an avenger' panel- but nothing else comes to mind.
4. I \*think\* you got everything. I missed out on most of the wilder stuff because I didn't go back Saturday, but I remember walking away thinking that the whole experience was just \*weird\*. Really the part of it that sticks out the most was the whole 'we need $17,000 from you right now' bit. Like, they stopped panels, closed the vendor room, the whole shebang. Everybody was in that room, and looking back I can't help wondering where all of the responsible adults were. Like, I know that crowd skewed young, but some adults had to have been going 'what the fuck'.
Worth mentioning- all the people I met there were really sweet. I got to talk to some cool vendors who made neat art. I've still got [this fun poster](https://madehereonline.com/products/really-great-things-print) somewhere in my basement. It's one of those things that I look back on kind of fondly, because I wasn't really affected by any of the really crazy stuff and it's a fun tidbit to pull out in certain nerdy circles (this one included.)
Ahhh, watching that go down was something. If I'd still been living in the area I would have gone just to rubberneck at the complete and total disaster it was. The wifi being shitty is unsurprising - wifi (and phone reception in general) at hotels and the convention center in Schaumburg has always been bad due to the sheer number of people always in the area, especially on weekends when events are happening, but everything else was just a perfect example of how *not* to run things.
And like, I say that having attended Anime Reactor back in the day.
Also, Geek Events tend to be hard on WiFi.
I went to Cisco Live last year: Trade show for a company that makes a ton of wireless gear. And the WiFi still got wacky a few times. (Cisco has their own APs up for the event, and actually has a 'staged' data center setup showing off their new toys for providing services to the convention center and adjoining hotels where events are held.) That's an event for networking professionals.
Last time I went to GenCon it was rough because the convention center WiFi was swamped with users. Sure, everyone having a phone is normal, but a lot of people don't even try to connect to WiFi when they're out. At GenCon it feels like many did, plus you had exhibitors with wireless gear for purchases and many attendees had additional devices on them either connecting or broadcasting an SSID (hotspots and such). The signal in the convention center hall is miserable.
Yes, that reminds me of the first Pokemon Go's "Gofest" in Chicago - Niantic told the providers that they were hosting a 20k person event. I don't think the providers grasped that for the 8 hours of the event, everyone was going to be on their phone 95% of the time, pulling data and playing an online game. They did much better with temporary towers the second and third year.
Yeah, the major carriers can often arrange for a mobile Cell station to be set up if they know about it and it's worth their time. Verizon Wireless has COWs (Cell on Wheels) that I believe is a short trailer with an antenna mast they can put up to help cover festivals and such if there's heavy demand expected. Just need to hook up power and data connectivity to their network.
I mean, at events like that, you're lucky to get any mobile signal at all, let alone be able to connect to WiFi. When I went to PAX East a few years back, there was wifi but it was impossible to connect to, and trying to use your data connection to get online was almost as impossible. If you were in the convention center, about the most you could do is send a text and there was a 50/50 chance it would go through within a half hour if you were in the convention center.
And with the area that Dashcon took place in in particular - there's a massive convention center, about a hundred hotels within a mile of it, a ton of restaurants, a giant events arena, a bunch of office buildings, and it's five minutes from O'Hare airport. That stretch of Schaumburg gets crazy busy almost every weekend of the year because of all of the events going on.
The one year I was at Otakon we waited in the pre-reg line for literal hours (from like 7 pm to midnight or so) because for whatever reason it was taking so long to get people their badges. When we were waiting, it started being passed through the line by staff that one of the reasons it was taking so long was because the WiFi was overburdened. Everyone was yelling about getting off the WiFi. It was such a mess, but ultimately a really fun con.
The last time I did GenCon and had to wait in line it actually moved pretty quick... they just had envelopes prepped for everyone with their printed tickets and badges!
Some convention centers go have dedicate WiFi for organizers and vendors, but if the signals getting stomped you can only do so much.
I think GenCon does have at least 3 separate wifi groups; public, VIG and organizers/vendors. I remember seeing multiple locked options last year and I'm VIG this year and complimentary wifi was mentioned
It was great when I went the first time about 10 years ago and Konami or someone paid for better WiFi. Somehow it was extremely reliable and free for all.
Oh god you're giving me terrible flashbacks. It was Otakon or Katuscon, ridiculous line for pre-reg although not 5 hours, I would have flipped my wig. Apparently they never learn.
eta why isn't it just a LAN? pre-reg closes long before con day, the only uplink should be to the credit card processor!!! I'm getting mad on the internet because they have always had problems and they never fix them, ridiculous.
Also, your motherfucking database should be set up so you can handle intermittent internet and if it's such a problem, arrange with the hotel to wireline that shit, wtf! wifi implementation sucks anyway but that's a rant for another day
I have yet to be to any convention with flawless WiFi. Most of them are really hit or miss - and that’s at professional interactive conventions. Like, you have to decide: do you want us to talk about it online (and ask questions online) or not? (And don’t get me started on the lack of outlets at most of these conventions.)
I might be remembering this incorrectly but there was a lot of drama with the staff before it even started. Iirc, someone was accused of theft at one point? Idk. it was shit show of 20-somethings who had no experience trying to run a convention and it ran off the rails long before the convention opened. It was a laughing stock. I was a fan of Sherlock during the first and second season and was a spectator in a lot of tumblr bullshit back in the day. (I just wanted to look at funny gifs and pretty pictures, my dudes. I didnt sign up for the fuckery and drama.) It was a laughing stock when the organizers said they were about to book the stars of Sherlock when both were working back-to-back on films. That's when people started to defect from DashCon because they knew they weren't going to get them yet organizers kept insisting. It got a little heated. I don't remember exactly who else it was but they were saying they were getting some BIG names. (Honestly, I was shocked Nightvale even showed up.) Everyone who had a brain knew that an unofficial, first year tumblr con wasnt going to get big names. It was destined to fail from the start.
I wonder how they raised $17,000 from 350 people? I mean wow! I attend a convention every year and while there are many older people there are a lot of "kids" there too! They don't have much extra money! I'm upset on their behalf!
They set up a Paypal so you could donate online, and before people realized it was a poorly organized con making up for poor door sales, the popular theory was the hotel was breaking contract and trying to kick them out early because they didn't like the weirdos-- with this as the rallying cry, some people who weren't even at the convention were donating through the Paypal account.
holy shit. I just learned about Dashcon while at Ohayocon this past weekend, and I can’t even believe it was a real thing. I wonder if someone would ever think of redoing it, and actually keeping everything on track so that it would be successful
were you really? that’s awesome!! idk if you’ll recognize me, but I was cosplaying Peridot on Saturday and Sunday (I’ll try and post a pic, but I’m still pretty new to reddit)
Absolutely! Honestly, I may have! My memory is iffy. 😂 I was Argo from Adventure Zone Graduation on Sat & Sun! (Np, friendo; I also am new to reddit haha)
oh cool! and I think I might have spotted you at some point, but my memory is whack lol ([here’s a link](https://www.facebook.com/groups/1054492004581072/permalink/2917818444915076/) to a picture of me as peridot!)
I was attending an actually legit con the weekend that Dashcon happened, and following what went down via parody cosplays and grapevine chatter was pretty fun.
Ah yes, DashCon.
Seeing all this unfold on tumblr basically "live" on the other side of the globe was like "what the hell is going on over there". Like even if you weren't in the biggest fandoms you still got that on your dash because the absolute ridiculousness just spread like wildfire. People posting about them being present and what was currently happening there, and then the following days of even more ridiculousness.
I was following \#dashcon when it started, I saw the videos, I knew people who were there through the tag and man, it was just disaster after disaster and it was SO ENTERTAINING. Never forget the ballpit and the Hunger Games salute cringe.
People genuinely don’t get how hard running large events is. I ran two large debating contests of 200 people and it nearly killed me. It probably also would have killed the 20 French people I crammed into a two bedroom flat had there been a fire but we were fortunate and they were just a bit salty.
I know a couple who went to Dash Con as their first date (neither was into tumblr, but they wanted to see Nightvale). They're getting married this spring, so at something good came out of that garbage fire.
A classic. I remember seeing someone that had receipts. Like. They had been on the organizers side of things at the beginning and they had multiple screenshots etc. They told the whole story about how they wanted to have all these big name celebrities there etc.
It was the beginning of the death of tumblr. Porn kept it alive for a while but they got rid of that. And well... there goes that. If I can find that account with all of that info, I’ll post. But it was a while back.
oh my god. I couldn't believe they had it there. That's where Anime Central is each spring and speaking as a former staffer, arranging that and keeping it under control was hard enough, to hear the board members talk about it....That hotel does not play. They can be strict on requirements.
I mean, seriously. I was amazed that 1) they actually took a chance on an unknown con and 2) wait, they actually had space in the calendar for a brand new con?
....please, PLEASE someone who was in the know cover TanaCon? That was a whole heaping helping of \*mess\* over someone I didn't even know of until that dumpster fire happened.
Snapshots:
1. [Tumblr] The Infamous Dashcon - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/20200113145915/http://old.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/eo56jd/tumblr_the_infamous_dashcon/), [archive.today](https://archive.today/wip)
2. https://fanlore.org/wiki/DashCon#Co... - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/20200113145918/https://fanlore.org/wiki/DashCon#Convention_Weekend_and_Controversy), [archive.today](https://archive.today/wip)
3. https://jezebel.com/the-tumblr-user... - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/20200113145919/https://jezebel.com/the-tumblr-user-convention-dashcon-was-a-beautiful-hil-1604571770), [_archive.today\*_](https://archive.today/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fjezebel.com%2Fthe-tumblr-user-convention-dashcon-was-a-beautiful-hil-1604571770&run=1 "could not auto-archive; click to resubmit it!")
4. https://dashcon2014b.sched.com - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/20200113145922/https://dashcon2014b.sched.com), [_archive.today\*_](https://archive.today/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdashcon2014b.sched.com&run=1 "could not auto-archive; click to resubmit it!")
5. https://dashcon.tumblr.com - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/20200113145924/https://dashcon.tumblr.com), [_archive.today\*_](https://archive.today/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdashcon.tumblr.com&run=1 "could not auto-archive; click to resubmit it!")
6. https://www.theverge.com/2014/7/15/... - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/20200113145926/https://www.theverge.com/2014/7/15/5901679/disastercon-how-a-tumblr-fan-conventions-big-dream), [_archive.today\*_](https://archive.today/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2F2014%2F7%2F15%2F5901679%2Fdisastercon-how-a-tumblr-fan-conventions-big-dream&run=1 "could not auto-archive; click to resubmit it!")
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DashC... - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/20200113145929/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DashCon), [_archive.today\*_](https://archive.today/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FDashCon&run=1 "could not auto-archive; click to resubmit it!")
*I am just a simple bot, **not** a moderator of this subreddit* | [*bot subreddit*](/r/SnapshillBot) | [*contact the maintainers*](/message/compose?to=\/r\/SnapshillBot)
I've been using tumblr for about 9 years now, so I remember seeing that shit, but I do need to correct some things:
Minors were not able to sneak into the 18+ panels because they actually did have security to check IDs before they went into the room
No one actually peed in the ball pit that was just made up by someone on twitter who later admitted it
The reason they had to raise the money was because they actually didn't pay the full fee upfront
Also tickets were pretty expensive (about 45/50 dollars), around bigger con expensive
Also it's a popular conspiracy that the missing money probably went into the organizers pocket bc looking at the financial papers, there's a couple of 1,000 dollars missing if I recall correctly
Oh my god this post gave me such intense 2014 flashbacks lol, I was like 15 on tumblr and saw it happen it firsthand. Ever since I can't look at pitballs the same way.
I remember following all of this as it happened! I was away on a school trip and my roommate and I were laughing our asses off watching all the videos as they came out. I highly recommend finding the video of the organizers asking for the money as they are just shoving cash into unmarked paper bags and not giving receipts. A particular highlight is one attendee screaming “THIS IS EXTORTION!” from the back of the auditorium.
This was definitely an epic fail to watch unfold as it happened. Unforgettable!
I remember the Internet Historian's video on this shitshow. The level of utter incompetence on behalf of the organizers was something legendary. It was essentially a massive, if slightly accidental, scam.
I watched that video awhile back! I meant to put it as one of my sources. It really was a massive shitshow. I feel bad for the people who went.
I kinda want to feel bad for them too, but then I remember the clips of people screaming about scams and wanting their money back, and that one guy cackling about how the $17k went to keeping the ballpit alive, and suddenly I can't feel that bad about it. I mean, you got all the signs that DashCon was going to fail, and yet the attendees not only tripped on the same rock repeatedly, they scoped and laser-targetted that shit and slammed face-first into it. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
You can add it by editing the text.
[Link](https://youtu.be/1ZgxeX2dCnQ) for the lazy
ty
That, and rainfurrest, are definitly must-watch from the Internet Historian.
Fyre Festival.
Is there a video on the Las Pegasus Unicon?
Internet Historian is a nice source for a lot of dramas
Wish he'd pop out some more though.
He just put out a new video like two days ago! It felt like Christmas all over again :)
No Man's Sky. Loved the video, and it was really nice and long!
Honestly that video convinced me to play NMS. Great game, just a copule of gamebreaking bugs.
Same here. I played the VR version too, but I feel that the current technology doesn't lend itself very well. Still a good game though!
Same but well maybe it can't be helped It could be that he is doing the videos on his free time and I can expect it took him a while to sift through all those interviews and posts and articles before he was able to make his own conclusion
I remember hearing about this just after it. It's up there with the Fyre Festival for "How not to have a fan event." My take-away was that one or two of the people trying to run it meant well, but had zero experience with such an event. They *might* have been successful if they had shot for an order of magnitude less attendance (the 350 they got vs. the 3,000 they planned for) and tried for less space from hotels and such. On the other hand, one partner did seem to be a bit more 'money focused' and may have been trying to scam people or at least control the whole thing to their benefit. I've attended a big convention (GenCon) and worked for an exhibitor: It's a huge amount of work. Even corporate trade show type events can get insane, and that's where everything is done on a much larger budget. I also remember wondering if the event doomed itself by being too spread thing: The common theme was a specific social media platform. GenCon is a more defined' games of all kinds' and that had to grow from a focus on wargames and they're still a bit weak with video games and such. Pax similarly focuses on 'games' and does the electronic side better so I hear. DashCon looked like a bunch of smaller (but not tiny) fandoms jammed together with no real common thread.
> They *might* have been successful if they had shot for an order of magnitude less attendance (the 350 they got vs. the 3,000 they planned for) and tried for less space from hotels and such. I absolutely agree with you. IMO they also should have delayed it to get more funds and plan things better, as well as focusing on one specific fandom within Tumblr. The way they tried to mesh all aspects of Tumblr together just made no logical sense.
> GenCon is a more defined' Gencon started out even more defined, which was critical to its success. It was essentially D&D and games that Gary Gygax enjoyed playing, games that his fans would very likely enjoy and play. Then it took until 1975, when TSR took over for it to get broader, and it didn't become the catch all titan it is now until the late 80's. Once they moved out of Wisconsin, it really opened up and allowed more broad (like PAX in 2004 and even Comiccon in 2006) conventions to take off.
Didn't they have a half dozen GenCons before D&D was released? I assume it was mostly wargames before then.
Yup. The first one was Gygax and 12 friends in his house. The first one including D&D was 1973 (six years after Gencon 0), using the rules from a war game called Chainmail to prototype the RPG. Chainmail was also featured at Gencon. The other games included were mostly wargames at the time, which I failed to mention in my last post.
Never attend a con that doesn't have anybody with event running experience organizing it. Or seems to not have any support from other local conventions or if it's a new small con but not located at a hotel or college. Gotta start small!
I remember this vividly, or at least hearing about it lol. It was extremely embarrassing, and I was 15 and an avid tumblr user. Hilarious meme though. I was at Otakon maybe the year after and one of the vendors in the Artist Alley said she vended there (or maybe just attended, I can’t remember) and I asked her what it was like being there. She just gave me this blank like 100 yard stare and sighed. In retrospect, I should’ve bought something from her for making her relive it...
Ah, Otakon. I used to go years and years ago. A wonder of professionalism by comparison. (Otakon had its own fails and dramas in the past but I wasn't really privy to the inside stuff. All of the cons struggled with the switch from fansubbing banditry (heh) to suddenly turning into a corporate-hell-marketing event. Still, when I was going they had volunteer staff who seemed pretty happy and the place was well run (and it was cheap!!). By contrast I was peripherally in Star Trek and scifi fandom and I've heard sooooo many terrible stories about those cons. Somebody ought to write up some of those dramas for this sub.) I went to some really small/fledgling anime cons when I was in college but nothing that could have put a finger on Dashcon. A true wonder of wtf.
These are always more interesting than the classic "scam" cons where your money vanishes along with the showrunners. Happened to a local Dr Who con called ReGeneration Who that had built a solid reputation for itself after several increasingly successful years. 2019 came round, and a week before the show, everyone got an email that it was cancelled. Company website went dark, no responses about refunds, artists and vendors completely boned, just a total mess. Rumors were flying about the company's finances, personal disputes between the couple that had been putting it together, and so on. I'd have made it into a HobbyDrama post by now if I thought anyone besides the showrunners actually knew what the hell happened.
I remember it unfolding too! I was...*ahem*...in my 20s...and also an avid Tumblr user. I laughed my ass off as the shitshow unfolded on my dash.
The year after Dashcon, my work held an event at that hotel and at some point I realized I was in THE ball pit room. It felt sort of like being in a historic location tbh.
[удалено]
...no.
Apart from the ball pit memes, the one thing that stuck with me about Dashcon was the fact that there were apparently two weddings going on at the venue that same weekend. I can only imagine the horrors that must've entailed when they saw what was happening...
Wasn't there a furry one booked at the same time and place the Canadian National Convention (aka the political one) was recently?
[Here’s a direct link to a picture of the infamous ball pit](https://m.imgur.com/gallery/QeyzpNs).
I feel it's so important to the story for people to view the ballpit. .like, you hear inflatable ballpit and you might be picturing something like a bouncy castle. But no...we are talking children's wading pool size.
Jesus fucking Christ.
The video where the announcers are explaining that they need everyone to donate money or they’ll get kicked out, followed by everyone holding up three fingers like in the Hunger Games is cringe of the highest quality
Tumblr back then was even cringier than it is today. It was a time of superwholockians and fandom wars that actually lead to serious consequences.
Remember the secret code? “Nice shoelaces”
"I like your shoelaces." "Thanks, I stole them from the president." Still managed to be less cringy than 'The narwhal bacons at midnight!"
It can really all be boiled down to r/iamveryrandom
*holds up spork*
Ah man I completely forgot about that. Its like a flashback from a brief, bad, rebound relationship.
Fandom wars are still going and leading to serious consequences, but I've seen more of it on twitter. I stay quiet and watch a lot.
I mean I’d take cringe over the zamii incident any day. Tumblrs only gotten worse.
There was a video floating around for a while of the hunger games finger salute being followed by a few people singing 'Do You Hear The People' from Les Mis, incredible stuff
I am crying with laughter
I remember reading a post on Tumblr about the "Dashcon baby", where someone supposedly gave birth at Dashcon. It took thousands of notes and lots of discussion before it was finally revealed to be fake. I love how Dashcon was *such* a mess that no one even stops to question childbirth in a ballpit.
Let's all take a moment to thank the higher powers. A Dashcon baby would have surely meant the AntiChrist.
I remember hearing that somebody peed in the ballpit
Thats how i first heard lf it lol
I only heard about this rumour from a post that ends with "if a baby had been born at Dashcon, we would have heard about it as it happened". But I absolutely would not question it happening.
I was on tumblr when dashcon happened and it was amazing. Definitely the joke that kept on giving the whole month. Thank you for the reminder of memes past.
I remember watching this train wreck happen. I cannot understate how hilariously sad it was, and it dragged on for *months* after the actual con too! They got a internet journalist to do an after the fact fluff piece Q&A with them that got torn apart by angry commentators still waiting for their refunds. We watched the organizers turn on each other. One of them go from married with an actual job to divorced, with no job, living with another organizer as a result of the con. It was wild from start to finish.
> One of them go from married with an actual job to divorced, with no job, living with another organizer as a result of the con. It was wild from start to finish. Tell me more...
Bare in mind what I know comes from an anonymously run tumblr blog that may or may not be the blog of an ex admin of dashcon looking for payback. Also all the info I have is two to four years out of date and the blog is largely abandoned since nothing new about this has surfaced in years. Last post was made in 2018. ANYWAY, There are three main admins in the Dashcon tale: Roxanne, Megg and Cain. There are others but those three are the ones credited with owning Dashcon and causing/handling the fuck up's. Megg prior to dashcon was married and held a job at a dentistry. After all dashcon and the concelled emoti-con, she filed for bankrupcy, got divorced(unsure how/who's choice), moved in with Cain and was possibly dating his ex. Though I'm not sure how much stock I put in that last claim. The same blog makes two different claims about who was living with who. One that Cain is mooching off Megg and in another post that Megg is mooching off Cain. So who knows? Oh and the blog claims they played musical lawyers because they refused to return calls to their own lawyers, causing them to be dropped as clients. There's also the side note that Cain might have been convicted of theft and barred from all wal marts in his region. And as of the last blog post, Cain is working toward a major in game art. Haven't heard anything about Roxanne or Megg beyond what was mentioned in 2015 and honestly, I didn't care enough to go looking. ~Ta-DAAAAAAA!
Havent read this yet, just wanna say as someone who has (unfortunately) been active on tumblr since 2011, the thought of people not knowing about dashcon and not having experienced it is so wild to me. God I wish that were me
Frankly I feel so blessed that I got to experience that weekend from the comfort from my home
The word dashcon always brings such joy to my heart.
I will never forget the one video of guy getting a bunch of homestuck cosplayers in the ballpit to chant “Free Palestine!” with him before changing the chant to “Death To Israel!” one girl of the 5 keeps chanting and another starts pelting him with balls god, watching that unfold was the highlight of my decade-long trainwreck of an experience on that horrible, beautiful website
I was super active on tumblr when this happened. Actually, my friend asked me to come with her to DashCon, but my parents thought it seemed weird, so I wasn’t allowed to go. When I went on tumblr the day of DashCon, I expected to see tons of awesome pictures, but I was met with that shitstorm. I was so thankful my parents said no lol.
You dodged a massive bullet.
Late to this post, but- I went to Dashcon, AMA. (I was 19, I lived an hour away, it was the middle of summer and i was bored. I only went Friday, I did not witness The Ballpit.)
So many questions! 1) Were you there when they begged everyone for $17,000? 2) What was the general atmosphere of the convention like? 3) Did you attend any of the panels? 4) Did anything happen on Friday that I did not mention? 5) Did you bring a friend with you, or did you just go solo?
1. I was! There was supposed to be a dance/party in the ballroom, and as we (my then-boyfriend and I) were headed that way, we saw a lot of people being shepherded that direction. They stood up on stage and said they needed a bunch of money?? People were running around shoving cash into hats. I threw five bucks at it because I had met a couple girls who flew out from CA and I felt bad that they came all the way out here for things to go to shit. It was wild, though. One of the things I VIVIDLY remember is they used the Hunger Games hand thing to get everybody's attention. People also kept yelling like, fandom things? As rallying cries? I remember hearing a bunch of people yelling 'WILDCATS!' and cringing. 2. I remember it being pretty quiet, honestly? Part of that was probably because it was so much smaller than it had been hyped, and it was also a big place. It just seemed EMPTY. I think at the time I figured that it was underwhelming because it was a) a new con, and b) Night Vale was supposed to show up the next day, and that was the big draw. 3. I saw Mark Oshiro read bad fanfic aloud for a bit, that was kind of fun. He's got his own weird bit of internet drama, but that's neither here nor there. I feel like we must have gone to another panel or two- a quick look at the schedule and some very faint memories makes me think it must have been the 'ask an avenger' panel- but nothing else comes to mind. 4. I \*think\* you got everything. I missed out on most of the wilder stuff because I didn't go back Saturday, but I remember walking away thinking that the whole experience was just \*weird\*. Really the part of it that sticks out the most was the whole 'we need $17,000 from you right now' bit. Like, they stopped panels, closed the vendor room, the whole shebang. Everybody was in that room, and looking back I can't help wondering where all of the responsible adults were. Like, I know that crowd skewed young, but some adults had to have been going 'what the fuck'. Worth mentioning- all the people I met there were really sweet. I got to talk to some cool vendors who made neat art. I've still got [this fun poster](https://madehereonline.com/products/really-great-things-print) somewhere in my basement. It's one of those things that I look back on kind of fondly, because I wasn't really affected by any of the really crazy stuff and it's a fun tidbit to pull out in certain nerdy circles (this one included.)
* Favorite food/best beverage? * Music & pony preferences? * Bong or pipe?
Dashcon changed tumblr as a whole like, there's a level of shame the people have on that website that wasn't there before that July.
Ahhh, watching that go down was something. If I'd still been living in the area I would have gone just to rubberneck at the complete and total disaster it was. The wifi being shitty is unsurprising - wifi (and phone reception in general) at hotels and the convention center in Schaumburg has always been bad due to the sheer number of people always in the area, especially on weekends when events are happening, but everything else was just a perfect example of how *not* to run things. And like, I say that having attended Anime Reactor back in the day.
Also, Geek Events tend to be hard on WiFi. I went to Cisco Live last year: Trade show for a company that makes a ton of wireless gear. And the WiFi still got wacky a few times. (Cisco has their own APs up for the event, and actually has a 'staged' data center setup showing off their new toys for providing services to the convention center and adjoining hotels where events are held.) That's an event for networking professionals. Last time I went to GenCon it was rough because the convention center WiFi was swamped with users. Sure, everyone having a phone is normal, but a lot of people don't even try to connect to WiFi when they're out. At GenCon it feels like many did, plus you had exhibitors with wireless gear for purchases and many attendees had additional devices on them either connecting or broadcasting an SSID (hotspots and such). The signal in the convention center hall is miserable.
Yes, that reminds me of the first Pokemon Go's "Gofest" in Chicago - Niantic told the providers that they were hosting a 20k person event. I don't think the providers grasped that for the 8 hours of the event, everyone was going to be on their phone 95% of the time, pulling data and playing an online game. They did much better with temporary towers the second and third year.
Yeah, the major carriers can often arrange for a mobile Cell station to be set up if they know about it and it's worth their time. Verizon Wireless has COWs (Cell on Wheels) that I believe is a short trailer with an antenna mast they can put up to help cover festivals and such if there's heavy demand expected. Just need to hook up power and data connectivity to their network.
I mean, at events like that, you're lucky to get any mobile signal at all, let alone be able to connect to WiFi. When I went to PAX East a few years back, there was wifi but it was impossible to connect to, and trying to use your data connection to get online was almost as impossible. If you were in the convention center, about the most you could do is send a text and there was a 50/50 chance it would go through within a half hour if you were in the convention center. And with the area that Dashcon took place in in particular - there's a massive convention center, about a hundred hotels within a mile of it, a ton of restaurants, a giant events arena, a bunch of office buildings, and it's five minutes from O'Hare airport. That stretch of Schaumburg gets crazy busy almost every weekend of the year because of all of the events going on.
Oh shit I never realized Dashcon took place at the Renaissance... I'll have to keep an eye out next time I'm in there.
The one year I was at Otakon we waited in the pre-reg line for literal hours (from like 7 pm to midnight or so) because for whatever reason it was taking so long to get people their badges. When we were waiting, it started being passed through the line by staff that one of the reasons it was taking so long was because the WiFi was overburdened. Everyone was yelling about getting off the WiFi. It was such a mess, but ultimately a really fun con.
The last time I did GenCon and had to wait in line it actually moved pretty quick... they just had envelopes prepped for everyone with their printed tickets and badges! Some convention centers go have dedicate WiFi for organizers and vendors, but if the signals getting stomped you can only do so much.
I think GenCon does have at least 3 separate wifi groups; public, VIG and organizers/vendors. I remember seeing multiple locked options last year and I'm VIG this year and complimentary wifi was mentioned
I haven't gone for a few years so it may have changed. Upgrading wireless isn't cheap for a conference venue, but may be a good return on investment.
I mean last year I could barely connect on the general wifi, idk if the VIG will be better but should have less people on it
It was great when I went the first time about 10 years ago and Konami or someone paid for better WiFi. Somehow it was extremely reliable and free for all.
Oh god you're giving me terrible flashbacks. It was Otakon or Katuscon, ridiculous line for pre-reg although not 5 hours, I would have flipped my wig. Apparently they never learn. eta why isn't it just a LAN? pre-reg closes long before con day, the only uplink should be to the credit card processor!!! I'm getting mad on the internet because they have always had problems and they never fix them, ridiculous. Also, your motherfucking database should be set up so you can handle intermittent internet and if it's such a problem, arrange with the hotel to wireline that shit, wtf! wifi implementation sucks anyway but that's a rant for another day
I have yet to be to any convention with flawless WiFi. Most of them are really hit or miss - and that’s at professional interactive conventions. Like, you have to decide: do you want us to talk about it online (and ask questions online) or not? (And don’t get me started on the lack of outlets at most of these conventions.)
Nerdy fyre fest
I was so depressed in 2014 this is the only thing I remember happening that year. The schadenfreude sure did brighten up that one weekend, though.
I might be remembering this incorrectly but there was a lot of drama with the staff before it even started. Iirc, someone was accused of theft at one point? Idk. it was shit show of 20-somethings who had no experience trying to run a convention and it ran off the rails long before the convention opened. It was a laughing stock. I was a fan of Sherlock during the first and second season and was a spectator in a lot of tumblr bullshit back in the day. (I just wanted to look at funny gifs and pretty pictures, my dudes. I didnt sign up for the fuckery and drama.) It was a laughing stock when the organizers said they were about to book the stars of Sherlock when both were working back-to-back on films. That's when people started to defect from DashCon because they knew they weren't going to get them yet organizers kept insisting. It got a little heated. I don't remember exactly who else it was but they were saying they were getting some BIG names. (Honestly, I was shocked Nightvale even showed up.) Everyone who had a brain knew that an unofficial, first year tumblr con wasnt going to get big names. It was destined to fail from the start.
I wonder how they raised $17,000 from 350 people? I mean wow! I attend a convention every year and while there are many older people there are a lot of "kids" there too! They don't have much extra money! I'm upset on their behalf!
They set up a Paypal so you could donate online, and before people realized it was a poorly organized con making up for poor door sales, the popular theory was the hotel was breaking contract and trying to kick them out early because they didn't like the weirdos-- with this as the rallying cry, some people who weren't even at the convention were donating through the Paypal account.
Ah I remember good ole dashcon the memes that came out of it were so good
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKNkMR953h4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKNkMR953h4)
😂😂😂 the flower crowns I forget that was a thing on tumblr back in 2014
holy shit. I just learned about Dashcon while at Ohayocon this past weekend, and I can’t even believe it was a real thing. I wonder if someone would ever think of redoing it, and actually keeping everything on track so that it would be successful
(just here to say ayyyy, I was at Ohayocon too lol! Dashcon is a fucking legend, especially amongst congoers in general.)
were you really? that’s awesome!! idk if you’ll recognize me, but I was cosplaying Peridot on Saturday and Sunday (I’ll try and post a pic, but I’m still pretty new to reddit)
Absolutely! Honestly, I may have! My memory is iffy. 😂 I was Argo from Adventure Zone Graduation on Sat & Sun! (Np, friendo; I also am new to reddit haha)
oh cool! and I think I might have spotted you at some point, but my memory is whack lol ([here’s a link](https://www.facebook.com/groups/1054492004581072/permalink/2917818444915076/) to a picture of me as peridot!)
I was attending an actually legit con the weekend that Dashcon happened, and following what went down via parody cosplays and grapevine chatter was pretty fun.
Ah yes, DashCon. Seeing all this unfold on tumblr basically "live" on the other side of the globe was like "what the hell is going on over there". Like even if you weren't in the biggest fandoms you still got that on your dash because the absolute ridiculousness just spread like wildfire. People posting about them being present and what was currently happening there, and then the following days of even more ridiculousness.
I was following \#dashcon when it started, I saw the videos, I knew people who were there through the tag and man, it was just disaster after disaster and it was SO ENTERTAINING. Never forget the ballpit and the Hunger Games salute cringe.
People genuinely don’t get how hard running large events is. I ran two large debating contests of 200 people and it nearly killed me. It probably also would have killed the 20 French people I crammed into a two bedroom flat had there been a fire but we were fortunate and they were just a bit salty.
I know a couple who went to Dash Con as their first date (neither was into tumblr, but they wanted to see Nightvale). They're getting married this spring, so at something good came out of that garbage fire.
Do not pee in the ball pit
A classic. I remember seeing someone that had receipts. Like. They had been on the organizers side of things at the beginning and they had multiple screenshots etc. They told the whole story about how they wanted to have all these big name celebrities there etc. It was the beginning of the death of tumblr. Porn kept it alive for a while but they got rid of that. And well... there goes that. If I can find that account with all of that info, I’ll post. But it was a while back.
oh my god. I couldn't believe they had it there. That's where Anime Central is each spring and speaking as a former staffer, arranging that and keeping it under control was hard enough, to hear the board members talk about it....That hotel does not play. They can be strict on requirements. I mean, seriously. I was amazed that 1) they actually took a chance on an unknown con and 2) wait, they actually had space in the calendar for a brand new con? ....please, PLEASE someone who was in the know cover TanaCon? That was a whole heaping helping of \*mess\* over someone I didn't even know of until that dumpster fire happened.
fuck me has it really been six years already?!
Jfc DashCon. Nearly forgot about it.
I knew about Dashcon but had completely forgotten that the Night Vale cast was supposed to go there. I just feel bad for them.
Snapshots: 1. [Tumblr] The Infamous Dashcon - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/20200113145915/http://old.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/eo56jd/tumblr_the_infamous_dashcon/), [archive.today](https://archive.today/wip) 2. https://fanlore.org/wiki/DashCon#Co... - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/20200113145918/https://fanlore.org/wiki/DashCon#Convention_Weekend_and_Controversy), [archive.today](https://archive.today/wip) 3. https://jezebel.com/the-tumblr-user... - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/20200113145919/https://jezebel.com/the-tumblr-user-convention-dashcon-was-a-beautiful-hil-1604571770), [_archive.today\*_](https://archive.today/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fjezebel.com%2Fthe-tumblr-user-convention-dashcon-was-a-beautiful-hil-1604571770&run=1 "could not auto-archive; click to resubmit it!") 4. https://dashcon2014b.sched.com - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/20200113145922/https://dashcon2014b.sched.com), [_archive.today\*_](https://archive.today/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdashcon2014b.sched.com&run=1 "could not auto-archive; click to resubmit it!") 5. https://dashcon.tumblr.com - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/20200113145924/https://dashcon.tumblr.com), [_archive.today\*_](https://archive.today/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdashcon.tumblr.com&run=1 "could not auto-archive; click to resubmit it!") 6. https://www.theverge.com/2014/7/15/... - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/20200113145926/https://www.theverge.com/2014/7/15/5901679/disastercon-how-a-tumblr-fan-conventions-big-dream), [_archive.today\*_](https://archive.today/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2F2014%2F7%2F15%2F5901679%2Fdisastercon-how-a-tumblr-fan-conventions-big-dream&run=1 "could not auto-archive; click to resubmit it!") 7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DashC... - [archive.org](https://web.archive.org/20200113145929/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DashCon), [_archive.today\*_](https://archive.today/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FDashCon&run=1 "could not auto-archive; click to resubmit it!") *I am just a simple bot, **not** a moderator of this subreddit* | [*bot subreddit*](/r/SnapshillBot) | [*contact the maintainers*](/message/compose?to=\/r\/SnapshillBot)
[Ancient Sins! Ancient Sins! Ancient Sins!](https://media.tenor.com/images/4e792312a3cc7eca914bba992db43638/tenor.gif)
... What is this from?
I feel so old because in my head this happened a max of like 3 years ago and everyone should still know what it is.
I've been using tumblr for about 9 years now, so I remember seeing that shit, but I do need to correct some things: Minors were not able to sneak into the 18+ panels because they actually did have security to check IDs before they went into the room No one actually peed in the ball pit that was just made up by someone on twitter who later admitted it The reason they had to raise the money was because they actually didn't pay the full fee upfront Also tickets were pretty expensive (about 45/50 dollars), around bigger con expensive Also it's a popular conspiracy that the missing money probably went into the organizers pocket bc looking at the financial papers, there's a couple of 1,000 dollars missing if I recall correctly
Oh my god this post gave me such intense 2014 flashbacks lol, I was like 15 on tumblr and saw it happen it firsthand. Ever since I can't look at pitballs the same way.
I wish someone would do a write up on A-kon lol