#dashcon2k14

Holy shit. Holy Shit. Ho-ly shit. So, it's been decided that Tuesday - yes Tuesday the 22, not some other fucking far off Tuesday no one gives a shit about, this upcoming fucking Tuesday - I'm running all the Final Destinations and Stay Alive and possibly Would You Rather and maybe some more shit idk I can't control time i cant make 72 hours of death fit into an afternoon I'm not hermione fucking granger. BUT WAIT THERES MORE the next day. the next fucking day. i'm going to run a shit ton a wedding comedies or as I like to call them the fucking best movies in existence. This includes but is not limited to Bride Wars, Bridesmaids, Made of Honor, My Fake Fiance, Revenge of the Bridesmaids, 27 Dresses, maybe that other wedding movie with rebel wilson in it idk shits crazy. why am i telling you this you ask? why should you care? because im inviting all y'all fuckers to come and watch the massacre of life in two different genres and eat some food and get liquored up - YES MARY IM BREAKING OUT THE GODDAMN GODIVA - and sleep at my apartment. dont want to? fine fuck you nightmarev's coming so that's all i really care about fuck the rest of you bitches.

So hello everybody! While Sarah and I are still working on getting the next update up (we have decided to double post so that Sarah can really give the pages the care and attention to present) but I wanted to address the last con we attended which was DashCon.

While there are a bunch of speculations on Tumblr itself I would just like to recount mine and Sarah's personal experience so that we are all on the same level. 

Our first day walking in was nothing out of the ordinary. We arrived and went to get our badges and set up the booth eagerly awaiting for people to come by. The day went on as normal as possible. We met some other lovely artists but mostly focused on the table. 

This is where the first problem came up however. Even for a Friday I didn't see much attendance. I assumed it was just because it was a Friday and it was early. I didn't think much of it and moved on to the next day. 

Saturday Sarah and I arrived on time to open up and waited for the day to start. Throughout the day again I noticed attendance seemed to be low. The con was said to be huge and we did not see that reflected. 

Then the bad news began. We had several attendees tell us that Night Vale had walked out. We thought that was awful but we weren't sure the details. Then another artists told us about the $17k debacle. That really set off some alarms for me. Conventions are supposed to have contracts where they are able to pay for things well in advance so that things like that don't happen. This was not okay. The money they collected in bags (which did happen) cannot be properly redistributed. There just is no way humanly possible. 

Sunday after disusing with other artists and vendors we were told about LLP not being registered in Illinois. And finally the icing on the cake for me we were informed that the doors to the hall had been open since 5 AM. This was completely unacceptable. Our entire stock was left in the hall. We were told explicitly in our contract that the doors would be locked after we had left and that they would not be open till 7AM. So we, us including other artists and vendors, decided to go to the con admins and ask for our money back. If things went as we hoped we would have taken our refund and kindly left the convention with no ill will. But instead we were ignored for and hour and a half. When we were finally able to speak with the head admin she tried to say that another artist was blatantly lying about the time they came in and the fact that the hall was completely unguarded. And I don't mean in a firm way I mean she was practically stomping her foot about it. 

The head admin, Roxanne, found out that we wished for a refund and said that she would get back to us in 30 minutes and went to discuss with the other admins. After waiting for awhile we still did not receive a response we again tried to talk to her or another admin they said they would come and get us. We went through the rest of the day and packed up ready to leave. 

At this point to me it was clear they were hoping we would leave and forget about this. I was not willing to do this. We went back yet again and they refused to speak with us because they were preparing for final ceramonies. We wanted to speak to Roxanne again. A voulenteer said that she was unable to come talk to us and that when she was done with final ceramony she would have to leave. 

At this point both Sarah and I were too frustrated with everything. We had to get back home and put our faith in a lovely vendor who promised that she would contact us if she heard anything. The volunteer, another lovely person, also took our information so that they could contact us with information.

As of now the vendor is the only one to tell us anything and what she has said is that after staying and waiting for an admin she was approached by a volunteer and given $40 dollars for her $300 dollar tables and no explanation because the volunteer had no idea why she was giving this money to the vendor in the first place. We still have not been contacted by anyone at Dashcon, admin or otherwise, and we plan on pursuing this to the full extent.

So, to sum this up?

- The volunteers and staff were nice people doing what they were told. I don't blame them for what these admins have done and what they are continuing to do.

-We were not present for the $17k dollar announcement but I was also told by someone that people who were taken to the ballroom about this were not allowed to leave, again this is not something I can confirm or deny since I was not present. 

- The other artists and vendors that I spoke to were told the same things as I was about the con's projection rate and were not happy with the results that were not what we were promised.

-Sarah and I did suffer from this con. Because we were told that the attendance rate was prereged at a very high rate we went to a convention that was well outside our range. This was a risk but with the projected rate so high we thought it was well worth it.  

Overall the attendees were lovely and other vendors and artists were also great. It was however overall difficult for us. We have decided to continue and try to receive a refund and to grow and learn from this experience. 

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