DashCon

Concept

DashCon was originally announced in mid-2013 under the name Tumbl-Con USA; a convention catered to users of the blogging platform Tumblr, and was touted as the "largest gathering of Tumblr users to date". The convention was to focus on works that have developed significant followings among Tumblr users, such as Doctor Who, Sherlock, Supernatural, and the podcast Welcome to Night Vale. The convention raised money through ticket pre-orders, along with a crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo. Prior to the start of the convention, the name of the event was changed to DashCon (alluding to the site's dashboard feed) to indicate that it was not officially associated with Tumblr.

Convention

The convention was organized by DashCon LLP, a Hudson, Ohio–based limited liability partnership owned by Megan Eli and Roxanne Schwieterman. DashCon was held from July 11 to 13, 2014, at the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center Hotel. Among the guests originally scheduled to attend were actor Doug Jones, webcomic artist Noelle Stevenson, and the cast of Welcome to Night Vale.

On the evening of July 11 – the first night of DashCon – early reports began to surface from attendees that events occurring at the convention were poorly planned and attended, a vendor had left due to poor sales, and minors had been admitted into 18+ rated panels. The convention itself also began to experience unexpected financial difficulties: the staff of the Renaissance purportedly informed a DashCon staff member that they would need to pay $20,000 upfront for the use of the facilities, or shut the convention down. DashCon organizers had previously and contractually negotiated to pay the venue gradually throughout the convention, using ticket sales, rather than issuing an upfront payment.

At 9:00 p.m. CT, as a result of this unexpected development, organizers began to publicly solicit donations among a crowd of around 1,000 attendees (itself much lower than the original estimate of 3,000 to 7,000 attendees), and online via PayPal, to cover costs, with a goal of collecting at least $17,000 by 10:00 p.m. to prevent the convention from being shut down. Organizers suspected that the abrupt change in plans was because the hotel's management "[did not] like the people at the con". Attendees were seen performing a three-fingered salute from The Hunger Games and chanting lines from High School Musical. While organizers managed to raise the necessary funds, the incident raised suspicion among attendees over the possibility of the crowdfunding drive being a scam (which included disputes over the authenticity of an image of the bill, printed on hotel stationery, which was released by a staff member), or being further proof of the alleged mismanagement.

Several guests – including Noelle Stevenson (who was forced to moderate her own panel because the scheduled moderator was absent), the Baker Street Babes (who produced an all-female Sherlock Holmes podcast), and the Welcome to Night Vale cast – were also informed by the hotel that they would be responsible for paying for their own rooms, despite previously being told that the rooms would be paid for by the convention itself. Stevenson would ultimately join the WTNV cast for the night in accommodations obtained via Airbnb. The appearance by the Welcome to Night Vale cast was ultimately canceled; organizers reimbursed those who had purchased tickets for the panel with tickets to a raffle of various autographed collectibles, admission to a concert with the Chicago-based Doctor Who–inspired rock band Time Crash, and an "extra hour with the ball pit".

Reception and aftermath

The ball pit – roughly the size of a kiddie pool, in an otherwise empty concession hall – and the notion of an "extra hour" in it, quickly became a meme among attendees and other Tumblr users, inspiring parodies. Users envisioned other large quantities of items that could have been purchased with the $17,000, and a video game developer created Dashcon Simulator 2014, a comedic simulation of the convention's ball pit. Convention guest Mark Oshiro explained that the ball pit was "not a point of interest, it wasn't something a single soul talked about, and it was just a quirky thing that existed", and that "in order to support the idea that DashCon was a full, 100 percent disaster, every single detail was used to paint the con and the people at it as horrific failures of humanity".

In the aftermath of the convention, a staff member of the hotel stated that the facility did enjoy their presence, while DashCon's staff promised to provide a more thorough explanation of what had occurred. The Baker Street Babes reported that the hotel payment issue was, according to organizers, a mistake. Stevenson, whose hotel payment had not yet been resolved, defended criticism of DashCon by other users, arguing that they were unfamiliar with what typically occurs at a convention in the first place.

Emoti-Con

In September 2014, The Daily Dot published an article where they reported on concerns that DashCon had renamed/rebranded itself Emoti-Con. The writer noted that the two conventions were nearly identical in their themes, that Emoti-Con was to be held in the same venue that the second DashCon was to be hosted at, the Emoti-Con website contained much of the same text as the DashCon website, and that it was being organized by one of the co-creators of DashCon. DashCon later denied that the two cons were the same via a post on their official Tumblr account, where they stated that while Emoti-Con was being organized by two of the three owners of DashCon, the two events are otherwise unrelated to one another. They also stated that Emoti-Con would be "functioning under a very different infrastructure than DashCon did, with a more experienced and well-rounded staff". Emoti-Con was later canceled, with their official Tumblr account citing "personal, financial, and safety" issues.