The Failure of Dashcon: Q & A

good Sloane I at least choose my old lady picture no you get you get the one that matches all the the herald stock does he have like a yeah she has a proper reason yes she's in like every Herald I thought you took his like real life wife no no no she's not a looker I have no idea how old Harold is by the woman if you like 70 years I think he's in his early 60s yeah she's not terrible he yeah looks like she's giving him a [ __ ] it's photoshopped oh this is the Q&A to the - porn video ironmans news historian and this is internet historian hello and we're going to go through a lot of the comments to to the video because a lot of people ask the same things and we're going to try and answer some of the other questions for example did I ever find that DVD should I just preempt and say before people ask in this who I am yeah just I'm not your sister caretaker kind of I'm not your wife live-in girlfriend is what I'm thinking that'll do sounds pretty good yes well we've been together collection we've been together for about 45 years maybe it's time to settle down mm yeah they wearing wedding rings in that picture nice no neither of them all right so uh just to get that out of the way okay - con with these I actually have taken screenshots of the actual questions own but they just kind of the abridged version so why was it called - con well here's an interesting story behind it so the event started was a fundraiser on on IndieGoGo and I wanted to raise seven thousand dollars and they raised four thousand dollars only and they actually set up the event under the name tumbler con and they got about halfway through that campaign and then it was either their lawyer or someone from tumblr said to them by the way this is a billion dollar company and you can't just use their trademark so they realized that they could be in serious trouble so they change the name from tumblr con - - con - being the dashboard that you get on every social media platform so it became even more vague than the original far too open community of tumblr like saying this have a Facebook con we're going to invite 660 million peoples all right who was the official promoter well I think they mean well they mean because most conventions have sort of someone who you know gives it out to the public I think so who was behind the convention basically this group of people always said what you mean yeah yeah we hated it who they wanted to the community it was a bunch of people who a little bit prominent on tumblr or he used tumblr a lot oral exams were they prominent they were known beforehand sort of they were I think some of them are well-known in this super wholock community which is a cross of supernatural Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes yeah basically I don't want to say these these people name to these people's names although you can find them pretty easily online they are most they were at least at the time mostly teenagers 18 19 and a couple people in their early 20s and one girl in particular seemed to really have everything who was 32 although she the largeman charged when you see on the panel not a redhead she was the right-hander Maggie there was no one who had any real or substantial experience running an event like this or really invent some events in general so it was no wonder that it was a disaster most people have the sense to just start fall but they don't kind of went big guns straight away immediately carried away and just started spending spending spending spending yeah so the next one is $65 is pretty expensive for a brand new convention basically was this a mistake did they have any justification given as to why would be $65 I know it was a weekend kind of thing yeah I think it was a combination of greed and naive optimism they thought oh we know how to do this and we'll have so many people demanding to come to this convention and it's going to be so great as you know we know everything that they thought they could justify that price obviously you know if you're going to start a new event you've got to you've got to start small and then build up let a reputation build over time people know that this is a good thing whatever they didn't bother with any of that that we're just going to jump straight to this is [ __ ] Comic Con to even just working on quality and going this is what we'll have this will be the space this will be the max number of people making it more exclusive and then having them give good feedback for next year are you imagine how how well we've been received if they had just made a modest convention and say they had sold out the tickets and then people know next year you've got to be in quit yeah yeah that's a that's what a well-thought-out new convention I think would do but mmm greedy that's when you can start a jack up the price but I think a lot of it came down to they started seeing cash coming in they are very young and then they would spend it realise they're you know hey we're spending a lot of money so that some justify themselves may go oh well more people will come more oh we're going to sell out so it's fine are you okay we're spinning like eighty thousand dollars but that's okay because we'll get this amount of money with absolutely no certainty that they ever would get so the next one is how do you run a convention for such a niche thing don't they have to be very general things the ones I've been to are all sci-fi and anime which I I'm not sure why I included this question because if anything it's the complete opposite it yeah yes it was like a bit of everything but yeah sort of the other way around it was far too broad so a you could have a convention for reddit but if people people go on all sorts of different sub reddits and it's a very similar thing with with tumblr although it's all done with tags in community and I don't know I don't really use it but so maybe I'll just take that question and go how did they get people to come if it's such a broad thing man tumblr I think they just appealed to the most stereotypical type from their community the the young girls who are really into the handsome British boys and all the shows that go along with that the feminist stuff the genderqueer stuff all that business they really cared to with their speakers and they're they're talking everything else it wasn't as though someone was suddenly going to show up you know with an alien's theme or for an x-men costume or whatever people had an understanding of what the themes of the convention would be because they they knew who was giving talks or you know what what other people are doing I'd love to know that how they chose because when I actually think about it I have no idea i Q see people dressed up and go what the hell is that and yeah having sort of the gay-lesbian I'm only going to try and attempt that acronym I can I can do this one oh no you can go ahead but you have to say what they are - which you did no one knows oh no I know what they Ola its LGBTQ qi p - SI a+ take your word you could be lying and no one's gonna pick you up and i cuz no one cares lesbian bisexual trans oh I forgot gay um and I cut this hole here and then the other Q is oh no I forgot BB q what's that extra cute no cute the other q is for questioning um i is in six he is heinous no I can offer my point was it seems completely random to have okay we love these TV shows let's throw in some LG whatever LG banana I guess oh do be do Q panels yes yeah oh there's earth is a they have in one panel guy markers here and he clean yeah well he was that the Mexican gay dude who they thought it was a straight white male talking on the panel and they we would mean to him it was they were giving him death threats my point is what's the thinking behind what you choose sex em and TV shows and then some guys dressed up as the devil and there's like night Vale and steamed pumpkin yeah and like there's a BDSM panel at one point yeah it's like what why cuz all gay and lesbian and transit things want to do BDSM - that's like a whole different level people yeah it might intersect but why was the actual question um how do you want a convention something so nice you should hey yeah yeah that's right I think I think if you're going to run a convention make it [ __ ] specific yeah make it nice um next question is steam powered giraffe is there no never they they never even signed an agreement to show up although they didn't stop DEFCON from advertising it on all of its marketing materials and charging extra fees for four tickets to the concert steam powered giraffe never showed up and never agreed [ __ ] I can say which is the first sort of point where you go I mean they could sue you for using their material and saying that they'll show because then it looks like they haven't shown up to something in that sort of defamatory and you know there's so many things these people should have been sued for well we'll see in America well every time something went wrong they immediately deflect the blame onto someone else but it wasn't it wasn't just that it was no one knew that steam powered giraffe wasn't coming until people showed up on the day and then they'll go alright I'm ready for my steam powered giraffe concert I've been excited for weeks and then they also it's canceled and anyway the ball pits over there and it was it was basically home so that sort of also leads on to I think who did show up that they said would show up which ended up being no one I guess so welcome to night Vale showed up and they they actually fulfilled about half of their contracts I will not believe it it didn't have a proper contract but they they fulfilled half of their act so on the Friday they were supposed to come in and and do signings for these hundred people who had won like a raffle sort of arrangement and they went in and they they did that and they hadn't even received payment at that point they were supposed to receive the funds well and dance but that that's that's - my management point I think these acts have managing yeah like the most that's why you have a mattress to get a contract and agreement that's probably why they couldn't do is if they didn't have an actual contract and it was gone yeah buddy yeah yeah you know these aren't these aren't huge acts so some of these things they consider is just binding through emails or or something else are they they you know they have a lot of goodwill especially to new conventions so they they think if someone says look I'll pay you on this date you know as soon as you arrive at the convention we will pay you I don't want to say the amount of money although you can find out how much it was I think it's been unfair for me to say um we will pay you X amount and cash the moment you show up and then they just don't you know how how can you forget that happening sometimes yeah especially if you've already seen the fans and seen people who are excited yummy that jerk is like well we're not getting paid for this so we're out but you still have to feed yourself - and didn't they they stopped the European tour just to be there yes so it was it was absolutely shocking so well they had booked a European tour they cancelled that halfway through so they could come back to the United States and do this convention so they get to the convention they are supposed to be paid in cash the moment they show up and they're supposed to be given a complimentary room I think food as well and they're supposed to have all their travel expenses reimbursed which from Europe to America I don't know about how expensive it would be but certainly from Europe to Australia's a lot I know that closer but it's still a it's a long trip there's a few of them too it's not like this yeah to people it's like six or seven I think including the management so yes these are unsubstantial amounts and then the day comes when they actually show up so they do their signing on the Friday fulfill that obligation without pay they should have been paid already they stay in the hotel room and they I think they're going to get like one or two hotel rooms when they need more so there's people sleeping on couches it's it's ridiculous and then I know one of them sleeps in a tent usually under usually a hotel only allows a certain number of people per room and they'll give you a cot or something I don't think it actually lets there were four people for local night just like to marry it like yeah when you book a hotel room there's max per room that way they get more room sales so unless they snuck someone in which is easy yeah I'm not sure I remember that some of some of them are sleeping in attrocious conditions so when when they did arrive on that Friday by the way the - con staff took them to the front desk and they put the - con credit card at the front desk saying hello you know here this is all comments no problem the Saturday that the echo house is pitching like a piece of cardboard with scribbled on - con they have the event on Saturday that's coming up and the management is still saying we'll get the cash to you soon we'll get the cash to you soon it will reimburse you will reimburse you then by one o'clock happens when the [ __ ] events supposed to start they still haven't paint and so dancer welcome zero goes well we're not complete [ __ ] suckers we're not going to do this and then be promised to be paid afterwards when you've fulfilled none of your obligations so far so they said you get the cash to us now before we go on stage or we walk and because of the event the night before where they had to raise $17,000 and most of it involved cash they had on hand they couldn't pay them and they couldn't go to the bank for some apparently so welcome to night Vale walked everybody's disappointed and then when welcome to night Vale checks out of the hotel surprise surprise someone has pulled the credit card from the front desk so they get lumped with the bill I think it's also important to mention that it wasn't just welcome to night Vale who had this sort of trouble the Baker Street babes were also left out in the cold with all their expenses they threatened to sue on Twitter it's not entirely confirmed whether they they receive their hotel expenses back from the organizers yes so I think they were a fairly level-headed and they tried to be as good about it as anyone could be but you've been [ __ ] fuming so online everyone knows what's happened and the - con people are really getting [ __ ] on and the people from welcome to night Vale show their enormous amount of patience with them but exactly what happened at the convention happened to them in the aftermath as well so they would say yeah yeah look we're really sorry about what happened but we do owe you reimbursement for XYZ travel expenses yada yada yada and then they would just never pay it and it was like every day there was supposed to be sent this money and they just kept not hanging and after a while yeah they were getting pretty [ __ ] fed up so they were they were on Twitter and they're like this is this is a con this is for I guess is unless they were going to say we're going to see you all here some papers or then you don't [ __ ] they're serious otherwise they have no claim really yes why you have contracts the problem is a lot of these amounts are just so small that you can't do anything it's still their livelihood but this morn out and I tell you one of the things they did pay for and their expenses was a lawyer and so a lot of this stuff they could just say to their contract lawyer you know how much trouble are we really I mean the - con people the - con people had a lawyer really yeah did you do anything apparently didn't draw up any contractors well I didn't get sued okay so that leads pretty well into the next question did anyone sue the convention because it seems like that's something someone must have done no there was no lawsuit I think we're still talking in amounts that are just too small to be worthwhile I think in total the the expenses for the entire convention were probably less than a hundred thousand dollars lawyers fees for something like this could easily top that yeah so I think the only person who was going to sue them if it came to it would have been the Marriott if they hadn't have paid their bill because they had a contract 40 grand is a lot of money yeah you bet I would have collected that everyone else is just not worth the time yeah what do a bunch of kids going to do anyway yeah next question it's pretty much the same as the last question really why haven't they been charged with fraud I think that's more to do with the donations and I think what the charity was called but the fact that they do random acts random acts they said that they had a partnership with random acts but they didn't know presumably random acts never got any money even if it was donated but we don't really know what was do that that's right so I think there's only really two cases where you can say it's Ford so for there's a fairly specific legal definition it's not as though they didn't hold the convention they held an extraordinarily shitty convention the two things that could be deliberate acts of fraud were the steam-powered draft still happening that on their marketing materials I though that could just be misleading marketing and then the charity random acts is they really did just collect that money they have enough of an excuse though for the charity and that they did fill out the online form but they certainly didn't have any recognized partnership with him and it is not known whether a single penny went to the charity although it is known that some of the donation that some donations were made so where that money's gone it might only be a few hundred bucks my only less no one knows but it was in cash so it's impossible to track anywhere random acts by the way it's just like you have a couple of these bins around the place and you you do random acts of kindness so you just put in cash when you see them as you feel like it but of course no one has any cash left because they just donated it all maybe they went okay the random act of kindness today is going to be paying our fees so we can get our patrons some some actual content it doesn't actually say what the random act will be did the organizers really walk out without any consequences at all I don't think they were real consequences though I think there are anonymous enough that they just were shunned in the tumblr community so what would you say no I mean they were they were all over the bloody news - well there are tons of articles written about the failure of Def Con so you imagine me you're 18 19 20 and people are just [ __ ] on you foot for weeks but people forget I don't think they do you don't talk about it because it's still old though someone says - con it still brings a whole lot of things to mind and if someone ever said Oh years one of the organizers - con and then they said here I heard you does a convention coming up - my play hell no you go [ __ ] off I have experience does anyone know where I can find the full video of the guy trolling - con through the apparently very anti-semitic guide who filmed all the good footage yeah well I don't know is it joke oh no it's all it's all the joke oh yeah no um I actually link to this channel in the description so you can find it there but ah it's it's not in one video it's actually all broken into lots of little pieces so you might have a little bit of trouble tracking it down but now you'll be able to find it there on this channel oh he's a [ __ ] funny dude he's on the discord sometimes as well so feel free to jump in did someone actually piss in the ball pit it's not confirmed so so the story goes because you can't just sit there and piss yourself in the pit it's not going to work he comes whip your deck out so the story is that a couple of people from 4chan went to the convention apparently the murderous operandi was that they went to the bathroom with a water bottle pissed into the water bottle and then when they we entered at the ball pit with it it was like I'll just sort of let it leak out in the corner but it's not entirely confirmed it isn't only the ball pit deflated it is knowing that by Sunday they didn't even bother trying to bring it back who knows but em er sorry just for clarity and mo is something done several times so what's the guy's mo that's what I stole it it had to be sort of a cereal thank you how many things has he pissed in in this man I don't know his usual style Miaka did you ever find the DVD this this gets asked on different videos Oh God every day I actually I think I I took 13 screenshots of this question and I just stopped because they all just asked it go ahead no so it's hard to get confirmation either way but the most likely outcome is that it was never made so after they saw what kind of disaster it was what was the point in making this DVD that being sent here's what we do have there was a photography studio that was going to be hired for the making of the DVD that was already organized and we know the name of that photography studio we also know that there are many cameramen working with many cameras in different places throughout the convention so a lot of the panels were recorded that footage that raw footage exists somewhere out there unedited unprocessed but still probably thoroughly entertaining so the boundary goes unclaimed I'm happy to double it to 200 bucks and if someone can find a couple of hours of good raw footage I'd be happy to pay it you can see some of the people who had cameras in the original Friday video which has been asking for the $17,000 there's like five people up on the stage standing around with cameras a lot of them were recording the panels as well so we know it exists we don't know where it is the DVD itself never produced someone got in touch with me on YouTube and claims to have been in a relationship with one of the main organizers of the event and they described in some detail some of the mismanagement of the convention itself and why things went so poorly and and to sum it up as soon as they started receiving money they started spending it so just extraordinary financial mismanagement they would book hotel rooms for themselves on little trips for no reason whatsoever you know pretending as though it was a a business expense they would have expensive lunches where they would get together and and try to organize things but you know you don't need to do that a couple of them were paying themselves a small salary they were spending too much on on things that didn't matter especially for a first time convention so they must have spent well over a thousand dollars just on things like the VIP lanyards andr stands and and access paraphernalia units don't be wearing yeah yeah yet to make sure you can get in when you know a stamp or a ticket would do but they wanted to be fancy so so but by the time the convention happened they had no [ __ ] money and you know they probably intended to have a pretty impressive wall pet and they they had already booked out the bouncy castle beforehand so they they did have that but they went we've got 20 bucks what do we do how do we create this ball pit jump down to Walmart get a couple bags balls and an inflatable pool yes I did it didn't even look like a new pool it looked like something they had brought from harm and then putting balls in it yeah oh my god yeah found in a swamp just floating around but just disclaimer on that we've never verified this person it just seemed like he had a lot of detail I thought was interesting to mention but there's no way of knowing if any of that is true yeah I know the guys name as well it could just be complete BS because he saw the video and watch it you know why would he reach out but I could see that happening but regulation well he reached out because he wanted to correct some things so so he also disputed some of the numbers that I came to at the end of the video which i think is fair to say so one question that I wanted to address that that we haven't got written down here there's a lot of people who said and must drive me nuts 350 times 20 is not 700 it's 7000 and I know that but I also says in the video 10 percent of the people in this room so a calculated the room is 350 people and about 10 percent of that room so 10 percent of 350 is 35 people so 35 people we think donated cash that's why I didn't want to address it because my thought is if it's answered in the video I'm not going to address it I get that I talk quickly though that sometimes music a little ow yes most people go here yeah see that so many people say that they're being said there may have been more cash donations than that okay what does that really mean they may not have pocketed nine thousand they might have only pocketed 5,000 or something but it still means they pocketed thousands adults the online donations that were given is how they receive most of their money and they were able to do that because not just the people in the room we're giving via PayPal but people online we're giving by paper that's how they were able to raise so much money so quickly because everyone's watching on Tom blogs people are watching on Twitter and they go oh [ __ ] we're going to help these people out this is our community this before they really understand how bad this thing is and how much it is the management's fault also here's our here's a little tidbit the management is always blaming someone else and they said the hotel staff the reason that the convention was going to be shut on the Saturday and the Sunday wasn't because they hadn't paid the $20,000 that was owed by contract but because they were racist sexist homophobic you know they headed into the guests there so they just wanted more money and it was just such an absolute lie and it was also one of the reasons why people donated so much because they saw is like a good try know as if they care what the convention is you let you have BDSM stuff they don't care but I'm sure they hold all sorts of weird [ __ ] there but they want some money for it yeah these convention places will book a BDSM convention next to a wedding they don't care Marriott's hosted adult conventions yeah and if you've got a contract years ago well you can't do that in here yeah hmm yeah was it was an out-and-out lie and I thought actually that was probably the most egregious thing in some ways because they were smearing the name of the hotel when actually the hotel had really given them a break by saying hey we'll do this verbal agreement you can pay us over the weekend that's all the questions I sort of found about - con did you want to say anything else um yeah yeah actually was there another attempt at a - con yes there was nearly a - con 2015 - gone to shame a chicken Boogaloo yeah so um essentially what happened was I think there was a small profit and the people who owned - con LLC decided look let's let's give this another go despite the enormous backlash that they were smart enough to realize that they couldn't just do the exact same thing so they changed the state and tried to hide their identity when they when I started the second - one called - ha yes in the very beginning immediately they started getting death threats where's my [ __ ] money so they went our [ __ ] okay ah we'll call it emoji con no no it gets better than your way the exact same thing happened at the beginning with the IndieGoGo campaign oh hey um emoji con is already a trademarked thing you can't just take that is it really yeah like the word emoji is emoji Connors for sure so they changed the name to emoticon which sounds like something else [ __ ] Milius odd and they sieve it and I can't remember but I think it was New Mexico everyone does a second round of this thing t-thanks ago is soon like a you know a different different part of the country people realized that it's still the same people involved and again they received a bunch of death threats and what the [ __ ] are you doing they still started the IndieGoGo campaign they're still receiving angry emails they started selling tickets did they get any money on indiegogo they got I guess they got a little bit of money from IndieGoGo and this and they sold a couple of presale tickets and then they went on our [ __ ] fest this isn't going to work and they shut it all down so they returned the money for the tickets they sold absolutely not not so they they liquidated the company - con LLC ceased to exist in 2015 and they sold all of their furniture on Craigslist and all that sort of stuff clearly they haven't held a convention since they sold their furniture oh no no like they didn't go homeless don't say we're sorry what I mean is you know sometimes you end up not renting everything you buy things or you whatever you may be in an office yeah like you know you remember like a bunch of assets sometimes left over after a convention you know you might have 5,000 paper cups or something and and they anyway they sold all of that and they liquidated the company but when they liquidated the company I believe it was insolvent so the liabilities out laid the assets so who knows maybe maybe it'll wins well maybe they did lose money and we can only hope that'd be nice alright so that's that's - con let's the Q&A we're going to try to cover all of the other videos as well because there's always so much more than happy that never makes it in I appreciate you checking out the patreon we've got a couple reward tiers now so the first one is like if you come join the the discord you get a discord rank and you can access the the latest video on the main channel the day early although somehow that starts being shared out or something you know because a lot of my videos in up on Facebook and into the me on reddit yeah and I'll work out yes that's fine yeah if that starts happening then I'll just have to release it but there's other stuff in the top tier in the first tier - those so even if that doesn't work at some point there's other stuff in it and maybe you'll add something else if it has to be taken away but yes yes that's what I'm going to China yep and also if you are the second here as well where we have like a bi-weekly movie night sing with all patrons and we we jump on YouTube and we have like this we have we sigh - I think it isn't it it's like all sync together so we can watch they really shitty Lifetime movies and in the room yeah so I'm trying to do this full-time and eventually I'd like to get to a point where I cannot say myself full-time but I can bring on a second person and would actually be a historian just with me and I've done a tiny tiny bit but 99.9% of everything is you but I added a little bit oh no you do all these q A's and well they're not difficult to do so pretty yes so that would mean that we would be able to come up with videos more often and yeah we have some some pretty substantial long-term goals to that so yeah check it out if you if you wanna check that um so if you have any other questions leave a comment and then I'll probably pick it up yeah leave it in the comment for that video because we definitely even if there's 5,000 comments on that thing already we go through all of them so yeah leave a comment and throw it up yep firstly don't mind listening to my voice I know it's not as smooth as the historians but he didn't like talking to himself so I'll be possibly in the next one let me know today's walking around talking to the cat and Babli voice so that's true

Channel: Internet Historian: Incognito Mode

Views: 2,898,947

Rating: 4.9193349 out of 5

Keywords: ballpitt, ball pitt, dashcon, dash con, tumblr, convention, failure of dashcon, meme, family friendly, chicago, emojicon, emoticon, welcome to the nightvale, baker street babes, steam powered giraffe, q and a, internet historian, q & a, podcast, tumblrcon, dashboard

Id: 5vfZqByi808

Length: 35min 9sec (2109 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 29 2017