When I first came upon the headline “YouTuber’s anti-VidCon convention TanaCon was such a disaster that fans are comparing it to Fyre Fest”, I only saw the first half of the headline before it was cut off. I initially thought of the similarities and differences between TanaCon and VidCon; aside from the obvious that both events are conventions, the only thing that came to mind was that TanaCon was a one-time, ill-prepared complete failure, and VidCon is an established, well-oiled machine working correctly every year. So I clicked the link to learn more and then saw the comparison to Fyre Fest. Something in my mind just clicked. A floodgate opened of comparisons between the two failed events. I watched the Fyre Festival documentary on Netflix around a week ago, so the details regarding that travesty were still fresh in my memory. And as I read more into the details of TanaCon, it was like I was experiencing déjà vu.

TanaCon and Fyre Fest have a wide array of similarities in the way they were planned, the people who organized the events, the promises they made, how the events went down, and how they ended. To begin, both events had way less planning then a music festival and convention respectively need. Both Tana and Billy, (Tana of course regarding to Tana Mongeau, the mastermind behind TanaCon, and Billy referring to William “Billy” McFarland, the ringleader of the Fyre Festival), only allotted around 2 months for planning before their events actually took place. This led to the events lacking preparation and failure to meet the promises they made in the months prior.

More similarities are apparent when you look at the promises made for the events and the lack of these promises being met. Fyre Festival promised high profile acts such as the Blink-182 and the Migos who didn’t show up. They promised a private island even after they were relocated to a non-private island. They even promised a luxury experience when people really ended up sleeping in wet tents leftover from a hurricane relief effort. TanaCon also promised high profile content creators to make an appearance, such as Shane Dawson and Casey Neistat, but never came. They promised gift bags worth quadruple the price of the VIP ticket when all the bags contained were a wristbands and “TanaCondoms”. I could go on, but you get the idea that promises were made before the events happened that were never fulfilled.

Even more similarities come up when you look how the events actually went down, and subsequently ended, abruptly. Both events oversold tickets and couldn’t fit all the attendees. The poor attendees of each event were also left waiting hours before they were let in. They were also left with a lack of supplies, including food and water among other things. And the icing on the cake, both events were cancelled only one day in. Shockingly, both events couldn’t support the amount of guests they had due to overselling and underpreparing, a fatal combination.

On top of the many similarities I just went over, there are a few differences following the two events that I think distinguish the levels of “evil” of Tana Mongeau and Billy McFarland. For one, Tana offered refunds to the people who bought tickets, not after a legal battle or being forced, but because she thought it was right. Billy, on the other hand, is still going through a $100 million class-action lawsuit and the ticket buyers have yet to receive and refund. Another big difference was Tana apologized and admitted she made stupid mistakes. On the other hand, Billy apologized for his failure of a festival as well, however it wasn’t genuine, because months after the failure of his festival and with the eyes of the FBI closely on him, Billy tried to scam Fyre Festival ticket buyers by trying to sell them fake tickets to big events such as the Met Gala and movie premieres. I think these few differences show the real intentions and type of personality of Tana and Billy. Tana made mistakes but had good intentions and appeared sincere in her apology, while Billy never stopped trying to take money from people he saw as gullible.

TanaCon article in reference:  https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/26/17500590/tanacon-disaster-fyre-fest-tana-mongeau-youtuber

Fyre Festival article: https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/28/15471112/fyre-fest-instagram-hailey-baldwin-bella-hadid-sponsored-posts