How Not To Run A Fan Convention: The Worst Cons Ever

Fan conventions (or “cons”) are a thrill for many, with people from across the globe coming together to celebrate their hobbies and beloved films, TV shows, video games, anime, books, websites, you name it. I attend conventions every now and again, both professionally run and operated by fan communities; my favourite being 2016’s “Summer of Sonic”, and my least favourite being my time at the London Film & Comic Con a few years back, due to a lack of information, and, well, ironically, crowds. I still believe hosting LFCC in Olympia, where there are only three elevators and one staircase up to each floor, is a poor place to hold such a large event.

But, not every con goes well, for a number of reasons. It can be due to mismanagement by the organizers and managers, a lack of finances, chaos on part of the attendees, or in some cases, outright lies and manipulation in order to make a quick buck. Let’s go through some of the most infamous conventions in history, or in other words, the worst of the worst.

New York Star Trek ‘76

Held at the New York Hilton, organizer Lisa Boynton seemed dedicated to undermining other Star Trek conventions occurring in the area, particularly the Schuster Star Trek Convention, which had occurred mere weeks earlier. This move was seen as intentional, to cut into the finances and attendance of Al Schuster’s convention. Fans were put off by Boynton’s priority to make money rather than celebrate Star Trek. Most notably, the convention was the first to pay special guests to attend the event.

Needless to say, the press and fans themselves labelled the con as a disaster (or “DisasterCon”). Up to 30,000 fans attended, and the convention oversold, with some having to be turned away when the hotel grew overcrowded. This can be a problem in some cons, and Lisa Boynton’s convention is a textbook example of how not to run such an event. William Shatner, making one of his first appearances at a convention, had a pie thrown at him whilst giving a panel onstage.

Tentmoot

This fan convention is a little different, as it never actually happened, and is just a part of a much darker, disturbing series of events. Tentmoot was a promoted convention celebrating The Lord of the Rings, run by one Andrew Blake, a disturbed, controlling man who took on many aliases. Blake began his shenanigans under the alias of “Victoria Bitter”, founding a website and alleged charity group called “Bit of Earth”. Blake is a man of many personalities and counts of criminal acts, including multiple cases of assault and domestic abuse, a history of fraud, cult building, etc. Blake also claimed he channelled the souls of fictional characters and actors from The Lord of the Rings.

Blake adopted the alias of “Jordan Wood”, claiming he shared his body with Elijah Wood’s soul, that he was even the actor’s cousin, and that Wood’s family was involved in the IRA. He later claimed to possess Orlando Bloom’s soul too. Bit of Earth launched “Project Eleanor”, the sole positive thing the group actually did, creating a children’s reading garden for the Riggs Institute in Beaverton. The volunteering effort was a success, with Sean Astin (aka Samwise Gamgee himself) attending to create the garden, which still stands outside the institute til this day. Allegedly, the charity money raised at a screening for The Two Towers would go to Reading Is Fundamental, a non-profit children’s literacy organization. The money instead either was used for Project Eleanor’s supplies, or simply disappeared, likely into Blake’s pockets.

Blake then announced Tentmoot, a five-day event celebrating Middle-Earth, to be hosted in Portland. Blake, thanks to his many aliases, caused chaos and confusion with many people, including the police, Middle-Earth related cast and crew, their agents, public relations people, and those who had volunteered to run both Bit of Earth and the imaginary convention. Jed Brophy, Paul Randall, and Brian Sergeant arrived at LAX expecting to attend Tentmoot, but learnt it wasn’t going to happen. Lawrence Makoare never made it out of New Zealand thankfully. According to Blake, a deal he had made with New Zealand airlines to fly the celebrities to the convention fell through. Blake asked friends to donate to ensure guests could travel to Portland. But, as it turns out, he never made any arrangements with airlines to begin with. Just one of many lies he had wove to cheat people out of their money.

Las Pegasus Unicon

The Brony community who make up the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanbase, is one of the more dignified ones online, a welcoming and closely-knitted phenomenon that reached its cultural peak around 2012. A documentary, produced by actor John de Lancie, focused on the Brony community and the 2012 Bronycon, highlighting the artistic talents, and integral sense of unity between the fans, never discriminating or isolating anyone from joining the “herd”. Pony conventions were popping up across the United States, and things were looking good for the fanbase.

But, the 2013 Las Pegasus Unicon in Las Vegas nearly destroyed the future of the Bronies’ conventions, and their relationship with the cast and crew of MLP. Needless to say, the convention was a disaster. Held in the Riviera Hotel Convention Centre, the con was such a colossal train wreck, that some feared it was the end for Brony conventions as a whole. The main problem seemed to come down to mismanagement, a lack of expected attendees, and the financial panic that followed. Funds were overextended, actors could not be paid, and some attendees were even kicked out of their hotel rooms, and left with enormous bills for travel expenses. Voice actresses like Nicole Oliver and Tara Strong were left stuck at the  airport without transport, and had to make their own way to the convention.

In the end, the Everfree Network, the Brony community’s radio channel, stepped in and organized a donation to raise money for the unpaid guests. The event’s lone organizer, Sandi Haas, had no prior experience running a con, and disappeared during the second day, allegedly with most of the money. It goes to show that poor management and mishandling of money can lead to disaster. However, Las Pegasus did not kill the MLP convention circuit, as many have been held since, and better organized.

Rainfurrest 2015

In some cases, it is the attendees themselves that cause havoc. Rainfurrest was a convention for and by the furry community, which ran from 2005 to 2015. The final event marked the death knell for this unusual convention. Mere hours after Rainfurrest 2015 began, there were multiple arrests, guests got seriously hammered, and went on a rampage, and caused much damage to the hotel. Toilets were deliberately flooded, some guests disabled their hotel room’s fire alarm to get high, sabotaged a hot tub, and the swimming pool was closed because some fool decided to do their business within. There were also fans walking around wearing nappies on their heads, or throwing them out windows and leaving them in the halls and rooms, harassing other guests, and causing anarchy. The response from the hotel was swift, warning other hotels in Seattle to not play host to any future Rainfurrest conventions.

Fyre Fest

Fyre Fest was a music festival in 2017, set on Great Exuma in the Bahamas. The event was organized (and orchestrated) by Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule. The idea for the music event sprung from merely viewing the island by flying over it in McFarland’s private plane. Having no experience running a music event, McFarland contacted other, more experienced companies for advice. He was astonished that these gigs cost between $5-12 million to run. Believing it would cost far less, McFarland and his Fyre Fest team continued under this assumption. Tickets were pricey, but the marketing promised a private tropical island called Fyre Cay, with meals prepared by celebrity chefs, a line-up of popular bands and singers, and being a paradise for all who came. Boy, was that a lie!

Fyre Fest was a total wash out, and like a mass recreation of Cast Away. Guests found out that Fyre Cay did not exist, and instead flew to a dump on Exuma Island. There was no sense of security or order, none of the scheduled musical acts showed up, and there were no luxurious villas and gourmet food, just grubby tents on a gravel site, and cheap, pre-prepared food. 

There was no communication between the staff members (no walkie talkies), the only toilets were portaloos, and McFarland and Ja Rule were nowhere in sight. Guests didn’t receive water, but rather free tequila, and lockers were provided by no one told guests they needed to bring their own locks. Eventually, things were so chaotic that the Bahaman government stepped in to close down the festival.

The exodus from the island was just as messy, with guests stuck at the airport for an extended period of time. Strangely, the security guards locked the passengers in the airport terminal with no access to food and water, leading to one person fainting. People were understandably angry, having paid thousands of dollars to stay in a dump. Ja Rule released an official apology, but took no blame for what went down.

Fyre Fest’s organizers did offer refunds for all, but also the absurd invitation to get tickets for the imaginary Fyre Fest 2018. As for McFarland, he claimed that, get this, a storm had somehow changed the digital marketing into exaggerated lies. Yes, a storm. Can rain, wind, and thunder somehow edit a website? Then, eight different lawsuits were thrown against Fyre Festival, on various counts of fraud and other criminal charges, one seeking more than $100 million in damages. Then the feds got involved, arresting McFarland for one count of wire fraud. He ended up confessing to two different counts of wire fraud towards investors and a ticket vendor. McFarland was sentenced to jail for six years for his actions, and hopefully will never be allowed to plan a convention ever again.

Dashcon

And finally, we have Dashcon 2014, perhaps the most infamous doomed convention. A fan convention “for Tumblr fans, by Tumblr fans”, Dashcon may have been created with good intentions, but was an unmitigated disaster. Within a weekend, the organizers took $17,000 from the attendees as part of an emergency fundraiser to pay off the hotel bill, were unable to pay for or even accommodate guests (or chose not to), and disappointed ticket buyers were offered hotel mints and an extra hour in the pathetic children’s ball pit as compensation. The convention was originally named “TumblrCon”, but had to rename itself since it was unaffiliated with the website.

On the first day of the convention, organizers found themselves overwhelmed, and the entire convention would be booted out of the hotel that night, unless $17,000 was paid to the hotel. Dashcon’s organizers claimed hotel management didn’t like the people attending the event – in direct contrast to the hotel, who publicly welcomed the convention. Attendees agreed to pay for this “con” directly from their wallets, not really stopping to think if the organizers were pulling their legs. The vendors couldn’t make any profit because the attendees had just given all of their cash away to the desperate planners.

The organizers had expected around seven-thousand people to show up, and only about 1500 did. It seems odd that a hotel owned by the Marriot would let a first time convention to go ahead without paying up first. Pacific Rim was illegally screened in a panel, the Dr. Horrible Sing Along Blog listed on the schedule was cancelled since they didn’t have the rights to do it, and the highly anticipated panel of the event was for Welcome to Night Vale, pausing their national tour to attend. But, upon arriving, the Night Vale crew found out their rooms and transport had not been paid for, forcing them to sleep elsewhere.

Other guests, the Sherlock podcast group, the "Baker Street Babes", quit the convention on day two, and were forced to pay for their own hotel rooms. When Night Vale were announced to have bailed, the organizers pathetically offered an “extra hour in the ball pit” as compensation. Yes, really. The headline panel was cancelled on the fault of the organizers who attempted to pin blame on Welcome to Night Vale, who they had invited and offered to pay for, and then couldn’t due to their own incompetence. The reward was an extra in the ball pit, which was about the size that a six-year old could fit in. And even after that, it deflated, and someone apparently urinated in it.

Oh, and during the wait for Night Vale, the organizers sneakily altered their website, so that they would not be offering any refunds to the attendees. Pathetic. Utterly pathetic. And there was also Dashcon’s claim that it was in a partnership with the charity Random Acts, but RA responded that they had no such affiliation with the convention.

So, what went wrong? It appears to be a mix of the organizers not anticipating the responsibility and finances needed to run a convention, and the amount of attendees was shorter than expected. Asking the guests to pay for the convention’s finances pretty much killed it, leaving vendors and attendees unable to spend money, as there was nothing to spend. The organizers literally blamed everyone but themselves. There were rumours that the whole operation was a scam. Whether or not it was, Dashcon is without a doubt one of the worst planned conventions in history, and could be used in classrooms on how not to run a business!