TanaCon: The event being called the Fyre Festival of YouTube conventions

Fans were stuck in the blazing Anaheim sunshine for four to five hours, all before the entire event was shut down

An attempt to create a rival to VidCon - a massive convention connecting YouTubers and fans - has ended in disaster. A brutal lesson in poor organisation, now being compared by many to the infamous Fyre Festival.

YouTuber Tana Mongeau created TanaCon in hopes it would become an alternative to the event, held across the street from VidCon itself, on the same days (22 and 23 June), with the presence of some major social media stars - including Shane Dawson, Belle Thorne, and Casey Neistat.

The reality? Fans stuck in line for four to five hours in the blazing Anaheim sun, sunburnt and infuriated, before the entire event descended into chaos and was shut down. The second day was later cancelled.

Held at the Anaheim Marriot Suites hotel, which has a rough capacity of around 3,000 people, the event sold around 5,000 tickets, according to Mongeau. On the day, she claimed 20,000 showed up, many unticketed, and that fire marshals eventually arrived to shut the convention down.

However, police told BuzzFeed News that only 4,000 to 5,000 people were at the convention and that the fire department did not shut the event down. Authorities arrived to the event in the afternoon after the crowd had become unruly.

TanaCon's ticketing system does appear to have been a major issue. The YouTuber partnered with Good Times, a production company, to run the event: "free" tickets, costing $1, sold out in two minutes back in May, though VIP tickets were available for $65, with NYMag stating the price was meant to come with "concerts, gift bags, private signings, and personal pictures".

What the gift bags actually consisted of were "stickers and a condom". The floorspace itself consisted of a single hallway and ballroom, with little entertainment outside of the merch stand.

Furthermore, vlogger Swell Entertainment, who had attended the event, claims not to have seen any attendees with the "free" badges. Instead, it appeared as if shelling out for a VIP ticket made no real difference to how you were treated.

Around noon, security reportedly started to shut the event down. Good Times released a statement on Twitter stating that TanaCon was cancelled until further notice, reiterating the claim that 15,000 people had shown up. "We are working on a way to make this up to every single one of you," the statement read.

TanaCon was born out of Mongeau's own personal frustration over not being granted a "Featured Creator" badge when attending VidCon in the past, despite being scheduled to attend several events at the convention.

She claimed that the lack of access and extra security made it impossible for her to navigate the event and safely meet fans, so she attempted to retaliate with her own rival convention.

In TanaCon's aftermath, Mongeau has promised to refund fans, including travel expenses, even if it comes out of her pocket. She wrote on Twitter: "my intentions with Tanacon were incredibly pure & i truly thought that i had everything on lock. i was told a lot that didn't end up happening. i was truly under the impression that we were selling to capacity & took it as far as speaking with several ppl very high up at marriott."

"But to be real- i didn't expect that many people to show up outside. which in hindsight was dumb as f*ck. it was the same days as vidcon and i should've prepared better. regardless of if people were telling me different, tanacon is attached to ME. and i take full responsibility."

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