By Jessica Paolucci
VidCon: a convention dedicated to fans, creators, and industry leaders to share their love for the almighty YouTube. VidCon is like ComiCon. Rather focused on superheroes, fans pour in the thousands to take selfies, ask for autographs, even just breathe the same air as the best of the best YouTube stars. It’s like Disney World for all things YouTube.
The 2018 VidCon was held last week in Anaheim, CA, with a whopping 30,000+ people in attendance. With over 300 influencers invited with “feature creator” status, the welcome mat was not rolled out to 20-year-old influencer, Tana Mongeau. With over 3.5 million subscribers and 300 million views, Tana was not very happy to be left by the wayside.
Tana ended up attending VidCon anyway. Upon entering her hotel, she was met with a mob of over 300 of her fans. Security actually asked her to leave because of the “disturbance” and security concern she caused. Security asked Tana to leave because of the mass amounts of fans she attracts, yet YouTube will not give her “feature creator” status. Confusing, I know.
So, Tana took action. She created her own convention: TanaCon. She held TanaCon nearby, and around the same time as VidCon. TanaCon can be summed up with one word: Trainwreck. She had a list of celebrities that were supposed to attend, but all had to bail due to scheduling conflicts with VidCon. Therefore, TanaCon was basically a bunch of empty rooms. TanaCon tickets went on sale for $65, yet Tana made admission free so all of her fans could attend. There’s the first red flag.
Those who purchased a ticket had to wait in line to attain their admission badge and goodie bag, whereas the rest of the fans could enter free of charge. The venue holds 5,000 people, and according to Tana’s twitter, there were over 20,000 people in attendance. This left fans waiting in the California heat, with no water or supplies for relief. Some fans waited in line for over four hours. Yes, four hours. Many people even suffered heat stroke! (Red flag number two!)
The event was shut down due to overcapacity, and all 20,000 fans were sent home – not too happy either! Fans were in line chanting, “Refunds! Refunds! Refunds!” The fire marshall and police showed up to shut TanaCon down. TanaCon fans drove home with crispy skin and empty bank accounts.
TanaCon made a statement alright. Maybe next year she’ll be invited to the party in the first place!
If you would like to reach Tana or other YouTubers, find out how through our free demo.
