She Said, He Said, They Said
I spoke to six people that attended TanaCon and they all shared their thoughts and experiences with me. For instance, one girl named Zoe told me that while she was inside the venue for TanaCon she could only stay for about 45 minutes before getting kicked out by security.
“I waited for 4 or 5 hours and when the group of friends I made while waiting in line made it right to the front and got stopped to wait for about an hour. Once we finally got in a woman blocked us from the door and made us promise we would only be going directly into the ballroom where all the Q&As and stuff was set up to be in and we did. We all went into the ballroom (it was packed) We saw the wedding and the Emma Chamberlain q&a when all the security started to yell everyone had to leave. There was supposed to be free merch in the bags apparently but I didn’t know that, but after the fact she [Mongeau] didn’t do anything to fix the damage. The wedding [inside] was nice, and I was really nervous for whoever it was for because there was so many strangers there to be able to ruin it yanno? Like if someone yelled something in the middle. But it actually ended up being pretty nice I think because no one was disrespectful or anything. The q&a was really bad, you couldn’t really hear them and everyone was just yelling at tana to ask Emma certain questions and then halfway through the security started to tell people to get out and everyone was trying to get Tana’s attention but she didn’t really notice or do anything."
Another girl that attended TanaCon, Caralyne, told me: “I got a super bad sunburn (because I burn so easily but I didn’t think I was going to be outside for hours and hours, so I didn’t apply any sunscreen) that was extremely extremely red and after a while turned into a tan with awkward tan lines that I actually still have to this day. It faded a bunch but it’s still there on my shoulders where the straps on my shirt were."
Caralyne also told me: "I spent about $300-350. I had to buy a flight there and back and now that I’m realizing it I forgot to include the price for the hotel and for my friend’s plane ticket there and back which would probably make it in the low thousands range."
Many of the girls and the other people that attended TanaCon had high hopes for the convention, but were disappointed in the end results.
Tana went on to comment via 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 people very high up at Marriott."
It is unknown what Michael Weist is doing today. Though, back then in October of 2018, he filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Three documentaries have been made about TanaCon and are free to watch on YouTube. Still to this day, many attendees have not received a refund as promised. There are current lawsuits against Good Times and TanaCon.