the above commenter left out soem details and had some inaccuracies. it’s way more wild than that.
dashcon actually took place in july 2014, which places it in the era of tumblr where superwholock had fully fallen out of fashion. it was even more of a trainwreck than previously described. this post gives a great rundown of all that happened and i definitely recommend reading through it. there’s also a wikipedia page! and a knowyourmeme page! and a fanlore page! but here are some highlights:
the wtnv panel was cancelled because the con didn’t pay the wtnv team’s transportation and performance fees before their panel, so wtnv walked out as they had full right to imo. here is their apology. well-known artist gingerhaze apparently didn’t have her hotel room paid for and had to sleep on wtnv’s pull out couch. yikes!
the con was run by a few people who were superwholocks (and the dregs of it) the homestucks in the ball pit was simply one of the first iconic images out of the con. tickets were $65 for a first time con that was basically empty by saturday afternoon - all the vendors packed up and left.
okay, the $17,000 bit? not to be glossed over, because what happened was at the end of the first night of the con the organizers made a speech to the crowd asking for $17,000, or else the hotel would kick them out. so they passed around a hat and people just dumped money in - no signing of names, no nothing - until they got the money. then there was loud wailing of “we are the champions.” there was a lot of suspicion, and basically everyone considers it to be a scam.
here is a screenshot of informative panels one could attend:
apparently, names and descriptions were changed by con staff - reports from the “homoerotic subtext” panel actually said the panel was about queerbaiting in the media! which is cool.
following it, there was speculation on the con’s llps, allocation of payment, and just a whole bunch of stuff that could easily pile into a bunch of lawsuits. i havent heard anything about any of them coming to fruition… pity.
anyway, here’s a pretty good description of the whole affair (warning for volume and flashing in the link)
possibly the greatest and worst weekend of 2014.
