Anyone well-versed in internet lore will be familiar with the image of a slightly deflated child’s ball pit on a hotel convention room floor.
DashCon (originally called Tumblr-Con, although not officially affiliated with Tumblr) was a fan convention held in Schaumburg, Illinois, back in 2014. It was originally intended to bring the Tumblr community together and scheduled to feature vendors and special guests from fandoms like Doctor Who and Sherlock.
After a string of disasters, the weekend culminated in the 17-year-old organizer, Nessie O’Neil, going around with a paper bag asking attendees for donations to make up the roughly $17,000 needed to keep the convention afloat. Afterward, it was immortalized as one of the internet’s most infamous failures.
In the years since, people have tried and failed to bring DashCon back. And now another group is trying to revive DashCon once again—not as a Tumblr convention, but as an internet history con.
In addition to honoring the original event, DashCon 2 will celebrate “a very specific era of fandom culture,” the codirectors wrote on their website. “We want to bring people together to reminisce on an era long past, and to celebrate the local artists, performers, and creators of today.”
The new DashCon website did not include the organizers’ last names. They are identified as Avis (“Literally assigned tumblr sexyman at birth”) and Simone (“Goddess of audacious emailing.”)
Why now?
None of the DashCon 2 team is affiliated with DashCon’s original organizers, and O’Neil is also not involved this time round. Details of DashCon 2 plans were released yesterday, when the team said they have “no intention of repeating DashCon’s mistakes.”
Organizers say DashCon 2 will be held at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (JCCC) in Toronto on July 5. Tickets will go live on February 22, and vendor applications will be open on February 1.
“Our team of organizers actually have experience in event coordination, or fields with transferable skills,” the organizers wrote on Substack. “We’ve taken our time to plan the road ahead carefully.”
Reactions online have been mixed, from cautious excitement to trepidation.
“I will be buying tickets for Dashcon 2 and if I get ripped off? Buddy you won’t need to tell me so, I will know it was entirely my fault,” one user posted on X.
“I just found out DashCon 2 is occurring,” another wrote. “We cannot escape the curse.”
In fact, there have already been bumps along the road. In regards to the current venue, the organizers admitted, “The JCCC wasn’t our first pick. Our first pick, who we won’t name, dropped us unexpectedly after months of negotiations.”
The date also had to be changed from the same weekend as the original DashCon to the day after the American Fourth of July celebrations. “In our defense, we didn’t really think of that,” the team wrote. “We’re Canadian.”
Of course, the main question is will there be a ball pit? The answer is yes.
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