the fact that the BOOK side of tiktok can't write a website without numerous typos tells me everything I need to know about how serious they are about their hobby and made-up events. there's nothing wrong with enjoying your bad novels with your friends online but god don't make a DashCon out of it!
I mean I read atlas 6 it was not worth my time. Booktok is filled with so many bad authors and people who seem to think editing isn’t important? *sighs*
Booktok care more about aesthetics for their feed than their actual books. Notice how they hype up books with the most pretty covers and tiktok aesthetic buzz words in the blurb. "this is a dark academia book!" Like yeah okay? That means nothing to me tell us what it's about and how it's written. This ball is just the extension of that
@@alienjesus796 and that's why I don't go anywhere near a book with bones, shadows, crown, snake, smoke, darkness, queen, king, court and similar words in the title. There are exceptions I'm sure, but I'll not be the one to go through all of them to pick the good ones for sure. It's aesthetic over story
Booktok is not a monolith. Like ANY online space, the people at the top are the ones with the most accessible, approachable, and aesthetically pleasing content, but there are tons of creators who make thoughtful recs and read critically. BookTube and bookstagram are the same, people have just had more time to settle in and find their community.
yeah honestly, as an event marketing person, "and more" is usually something along the lines of "we have more than this, but contracts haven't come through yet so we can't actually promise anything more than this"
Exactly, say what it is in order for people to know what's going on..not to mention the quality and the grammar from book side of TikTok, the readers, and authors 😅
So I am a Development and Event Director professionally and have been for 10+ years. There is something that I have deemed as "The Baby Shower Effect" that exists within the event world and it's basically when someone (usually a very confident and delusional woman) has planned a friend's baby shower and maybe a birthday party or bachelorette party or two, and then suddenly thinks they are capable of planning *MASSIVE EVENTS* that cost tens of thousands of dollars (usually more) and the effort of dozens of people's tireless work over hundreds of hours..... but *nEwS fLaSh! tHeY cAn'T* 💁🏻♀️
I planned leadership events for awhile as part of team working for an education nonprofit., nothing on that kind of scale but big enough to realize the huge numbers of resources from people to paper, to furnishings and spaces, AV technology and people who can run it, programming, decor, activities and their supplies, logistic after logistic looked at from all angles its wild. I commend you and everyone who has gained the skills and resources necessary to actually turn it into a career. I've seen a couple people do this exact thing and try to start wedding planning or something similar and I'm like, I hope you have a lot of time and capital
In high school I was part of our literary magazine, and we put on regular "cafe nights" where people would perform and we'd serve food and drinks. Even planning those was a big undertaking, and that was _with_ the school doing a lot of the networking for companies to provide products for us. I can't imagine trying to plan a big event without lots of time and resources set aside for it. Heck, I've already decided if I ever get married I'm hiring a planner so I don't have to deal with all that stress. 😅
Adding to this as someone who has worked on events- treating your vendors and special guests (authors) like this is absolutely going to ruin any chance you have of doing the event again in another year. If you don't have something huge draw like a celebrity, then those guests and vendors ARE the majority of the draw for events like this. The only policy I've ever seen in place to not refund vendors who withdrew is if they withdrew within 24/48 hours of the event. At that point, we'd have already printed guide maps or put up finalized event graphics that were now incorrect and it would be too close to opening to make it worth re-doing them. So I've seen policies like that in order to encourage vendors to let us know at least 3 days before (out of more than a year of planning and taking applications) if they couldn't attend. But what these organizers are doing basically guarantees that vendors (even new ones they haven't worked with) will likely avoid them in the future even if they manage to continue putting this event on.
I’m also a dyslexic English major!! The errors here are killing meee bc I wanna be a proofreader editor 😭 you would think BOOKtok wouldn’t have this many errors
Even without dash con you should always fo research. I once did a con called Eye Con. I had read very mixed things, went anyways, and it baaarely occured. Worst con I ever did. If there are no reviews or they're iffy at best stay away
@@Thurston86 yeah all you need to do is post about how much “spice” your book has and then add a quote about his “length” or “hardness” and then boom. Author. /s
Just make a small event as your first event. Don't advertise it as a big established thing if it is your first event. Limit the amount of tickets. After AT LEAST your 5th event, you can start trying to make things bigger.
The amount of events that rely almost exclusively on unpaid volunteers to work is horrible. I used to work in cons and I do have so many horror stories from that time. It's a shame for that ball though, it sounded neat!
@@midnightsunnn1850 HAHA! I won't go into specifics but having to fight for water cans to be into rooms for my (Unpaid) staff, having to justify giving my staff a weekend pass instead of a pass discount (When they worked a whole day during the con), another con where food and beverage were for the con goers only (and staff would not even have a meal coupon), to just...being a volunteer that has to work 8 hours shifts all weekend without any compensation whatsoever... It's a mess. If you ever think about volunteering, think about your time's worth. Maybe you'd like the experience and then, go for it! But if it is just to save the price of a ticket? I would not say it isn't worth it 🙂
There is exactly one con I know where this works out, and it's one where literally the entire staff is volunteer and it's a non profit. Iirc if you volunteer for 8 hours your weekend pass is automatically free and they actually feed you.
I think its fine if its handled well ie “free entry in exchange for X amount of labor and you get to block off a couple events you DON’T want to work so you can attend”
If you are up for a ball, look into the historical costume community. They have balls throughout the year with Costume College being the big event/conference. Those folks don't play and are not there for the drama. They spend a lot of time and money to make their outfits so they will make sure the event happens.
@@stepahead5944 yeah, sadly. i wanna go to one but im nervous if i’ll be told either, 1) why are you not wearing your own ethnicity’s outfit, or 2) your ethnicity didn’t wear our fancy western clothes back then why are you here 😢
@sunriseeyes0 I'm just going off of videos/pictures here; if it's themed (ie- France 1750s), best to stick to that theme. If it's just a general time period (ie- 1400s), than wear clothes from wherever you want a long as they are from that time period. Most of the people seem to love the history as much as the clothes, so I think they'd like to learn more about other places, it just isn't as asseccessible for them. I will say that I see MUCH more diversity in dress at Costume College than at random balls/events. I've seen some videos where they've done panels or one on one interview to try to be more aware and inclusive. There's just not a lot of minorities who are in that space currently. Give it a go at an event that's a bit more general. You never know.
alternatively, ren faires and anime conventions!! im an anime cosplayer and i saw my fair share of historical ball gowns at conventions and i absolutely eat up all the looks yall serve and you WILL get so many compliments and photos but you'll probably be asked if your a character from black butler or similar lmao. (just make sure its not one of those weird "anime cosplay only 🤓" that are starting to unfortunately crop up but are a very small majority.) i also see a bunch of armor/steampunk booths at conventions as well since DnD has huge crossover with anime nerds you worked hard on your costumes and craftships!!!! its such a shame to only wear it to the few faires and festivals per year.
Hahah yes!! Like an immersive theater experience that is centered on manufactured mess, and we're all RUclipsrs there to review it. Would absolutely go to that 😂
I have a friend who makes many thousands of dollars a month from her books. Her TikToks and promotional pics often have typos in them. It astounds me that readers don’t see that and get turned off immediately. 😮
People talk a lot about how scam emails intentionally are full of typos, because someone not smart enough to notice and be put off by your poor grammar is way WAY more likely to go on to fall for a bigger scheme-- versus someone who has higher standards for grammar, and thus would have higher standards in general, and be too suspicious to con out of their money. It self-selects for easier victims. I think it's the exact same process with people raking in money with really bad (or just lazy) fiction.
Far too many people worried about a tree costume being seen as potentially racist or why it would be than the actual racism that happened. The distraction worked, lol.
On the volunteer note. I was quite often student event co-ordination in both high school and university. Usually we planned, set-up worked the door at the beginning or had a shift during the night, and broke down after the event but while the event was happening we usually got to enjoy ourselves (unless we had a shift but that would maybe be 30-1 hour out of a multi-hour event). If you’re going to use free labour let people have time to enjoy the event they helped on. Even when I’ve done volunteering for “business” run events (like ribfest or community centre family fun days, or events at our museum) the paid organizers always made sure we had plenty of time to enjoy ourselves too. That’s how you get volunteers, and if you attract a lot of them you can have a balance were people work for free but also enjoy themselves and then they recommend the event in return.
In general, the idea of a book-themed ball is so cool. I went to a book release advertised as a ball for the book Winter (of the Lunar Chronicles), and it was a blast. Some dancing, book signings (but the line was too long lol), and little performances of scenes from the book. If I ever publish something popular enough, I'd live to do the same
The actually "cancellation" being the only real mistake is hilarious. Had they not "rebranded", they could just deny all refunds and go ahead with the event. Then rebrand for any follow-up.
I hope people really listen towhen Swell explained why she didn't want to go so far for event she wasn't sure who it was that was running it. Security is really important and we're lucky we don't have a more tragic story from some of these events especially when younger fans were involved and cast out of the buildings. Also it's nice to not get scammed out of 100 of dollars to experience disappointment.
I went to the event in the uk that kicked off this swarm of booktok balls. It was fine. Overpriced, dinner took 2hrs longer than expected cutting off most of the night events, but it was a nice community event to dress up ridiculously fancy at. I wouldn't recommend future Celestial Moments events to uk people as both the previous event and the ball had the same issues, but we should bring back dress fancy entertainment!
OMG PEOPLE! WE DO STILL HAVE BALLS! You know those events that celebs and diplomats attend like galas and such....yeah THOSE are the equivalent of balls today. Did we forget that those medieval/renaissance/Bridgerton era balls we romanticize were exclusively for extremely rich folks and nobility?! You think common people like us could just buy admission tickets to Lord Fancypants' ball held at his grand estate?! 🤣 We all like to think we'd be in higher class status in romanticized time periods than we really would be if made analogous to our status today!
Using “unalive” on their quiz is such a unique example of how language works…if we all know what the word means and it means the same thing as the original triggering word…how is it any different? I don’t have the answer, just thinking out loud!
It has different connotations, just like any synonyms. I’d say it has ironic connotations (outside of censored spaces), so using it seriously is kind of awkward.
Yeah, if saying "unalive" hadn't resulted in a 100% drop in the murder rate all over the English speaking world, it might've seemed like a really weird thing to do.
Yes. Apparently trigger warning is too triggering so use " content warning" instead. I guess it will be used until content warning will become too triggering too.
@@brucheweinberger6863 tbh I think "content warning" is better because it's more general. Like, I don't need to have PTSD triggers to want to know whether something's going to have gross rapey content or whatever.
it's not about it triggering, it's because social media algorithms have heavily censored those who use the "official" terms regardless of context. unalive has gone largely under the radar still, though i suppose at some point it will also be censored and a new term will replace it
You can get a cease and desist letter for anything. You don't have to actually have any grounds to sue someone before you can send one, they are basically just threats from a paid lawyer and pretty much any lawyer will write you one if you think the issue is big enough.
Yeah, likewise, you don't need grounds to sue someone in order to sue them. That said, I think there are some issues if people impersonate lawyers in order to send phony cease & desist orders, which never seems to stop people from trying.
And if there's a chance that you can get sued for defamation, most people would shut up. Even if you know you would win, it would cost money and time when it just isn't worth it. Feels good to not live in the US.
the volunteer problem also reminds me of something that the youtuber Pointcrow said about editors of all things "you don't want a volunteer working for something serious because you can't do anything if they aren't doing the work you need them to" if this event is relying soooooo heavily on free volunteers then who's to say those volunteers won't just start bailing if conditions are rough? are they gonna be able to guarantee they have enough paid staff to run the event in a worst case scenario?
i love volunteering at events!! most events ive volunteered at usually feed you and give you at least some downtime to check the event out- not working the whole time! i cant imagine wanting to help at an event like that
For about just shy of 20 years I worked for both fan run events and one that became my full time job as despite being fans we became the biggest events in the UK and possibly Europe. The lack of professionalism, organisation, care for the attendees, for the volunteers for the Guests that I keep hearing about from these events makes me so sad. The first event I went to as a child had a Fanzine, and was organised over the telephone. The first one I asked to go to had a geocities and a yahoo group.
@@FTZPLTC so very true. I think it’s made everybody think that they are able to create and run the events they have witnessed as either attendees or simply by viewing excerpts on social media. It’s how we’ve ended up with fiascos and dumpster fires like this, Tana-con and the nightmare of epic proportions that was the Tumblr “event”. Not to mention the risk to life, H&S and huge legal liability that the supposedly professionally run Twitch event became. My first question I suppose to the “organisers” of this mess is where is your insurance policy to cover you should anything happen and the event need to be cancelled/postponed? Also you should be aware that you can’t legally withhold the money by saying that “well, you paid to attend a, that’s not going ahead but it really is, because we’re calling it b” - that’s a bait and switch, it’s illegal, and you need their permission to transfer their bookings to the new event. If you no longer have the funds for full refunds in the events bank account, then tough shit sweetheart. You now need to reach into your own pockets to pay, otherwise you can and will, end up in serious legal issues.
@@HulaHula667 - Something I've noticed with many of these kinds of events is that they're often huge but also being run by people with no experience of running smaller events. And because a lot of it is about ego, they'll be loathe to pay someone *with* more experience to help or even straight-up take over the running of it. And yes, I'm pretty confident that "we changed the name of the event so you don't get a refund" would die on its ass in any court. I thought people learned that from Tiger King.
@@FTZPLTC when I left my last position I had a non-compete clause in my contract. The lawyers I discussed my exit papers with (there were several) all stated that it wasn’t defendable in court on their end if they tried to go after me for it. Though I’m pretty sure that period is up (yeah! Great Global Panini for messing up my time sense worse than usual!!) The thing is that I would be happy to go through things that you NEED to know and MUST be aware of when running events tiny to mahoosive, if only to stop seeing things like this keep showing up.
Amanda, you give me the vibe that I'm a simple traveler walking down the dirt path and you are the local fae ready with the tea to chat. It's lovely listening to you.
From my experience with attending conventions, if the event gets rescheduled, canceled, or and/or rebranded, standard policy is to offer a refund, or let ticketholders/vendors/guests transfer their tickets to new events. A lot of cons i had bought tickets to in 2020 before they had to shut down did that. Automatic response was a refund, or transfer tickets to the next event if you prefer. That should be the AUTOMATIC policy with this Ball that 99% will not happen.
Not gonna lie, I actually kind of love the idea of this. The idea of fun whimsical larp where everyone gets to be the main character of their princessy/princy fantasy? Yes. I can even get behind some trashy fiction. And I love to dress up nice and dance. I even have a masquerade mask collection. But PLEASE SPEAK TO ONE OTHER HUMAN WHO HAS DONE EVENT PLANNING AND LOGISTICS BEFORE YOU TRY THIS
As a non profit director & regular event coordinator, I just want you to know that you have an audience any time you want to roast badly coordinated events. Oooof this is a nightmare, and there are limits to how much a for-profit can ask volunteers to do - you usually have to give them a free ticket in exchange for a comparable amount of labor. It's very gross for people who are getting the profits (if they make any) to expect other people to do the hard labor.
Yeah, I go to quite a few conventions and for new events I tend to look very closely at the history of whomever is organizing in terms of event planning- have they done events before? How did they go? What kind of team do they have? Are they going in with a clear plan? Etc. Selling tickets a year in advance is usually only for events that have been going for years and have very strong ties with their vendors, actors, location, etc. and know that the event WILL happen as described barring ‘acts of god’ (such as the pandemic that shut everything down). Not for first timers. If someone has never planned anything, going to their first event… I wouldn’t do it for this much money ever.
The interactions between William and Amanda are some of my favorite parts of the videos. He's just as funny as she is and they seem like good friends. I hope to see him more in all her videos. He's a really good editor
I've never head of this but I thoroughly enjoyed this video-- feel bad for the people excited for it, though. I'd love any ball content!! It's definitely on my bucket list to attend a ball of some sort in a big pretty dress. Just once. I'm not at all familiar with booktok but (prepare for a scalding hot take no one else has had before) WHY are so many of their announcements and supposedly professional posts so unreadable, illegible? Poor spelling, poor sentence structure, those godawful fonts -- those are title/headline/poster fonts, for like 1-4 words all big, NOT for copy. I realize it's a moot point now that the IG post is deleted but I pray they had alt text on them.
I can’t wait to hire “volunteers” to run my company with clients that pay me money. What an effing joke! Lol to be requesting “dedicated volunteers” that are unpaid for your event that people are paying to be at? Am I the only one who thinks that insane? Lol
As you say you are a god of chaos, it reminded me of a previous dream I had of you at a cosplay party dressed as Lady Loki for a video. So, it fits. Anyway, do events that make sense for you. We’ll enjoy it either way. 😊 I just find it funny how events like these always have situations like this.
Any ticket or deposit should be in an escrow account and that money will not be touched until after the event happens to hold your end of the contract (ticket or table cost). Anyone who takes your money then spends it before fulfillment of both parties is unethical and possibly illegal. If you have to, take a loan out for initial costs with the backing of the escrow account as assurance then a lender would work with you. Also get insurance for an event in case it doesn't go on and needs to refund attendees or vendors.
ok Swell's struggle with dyslexia in reading these posts is so real. If you're interested in creating dyslexia friendly posts, you can use an open sans font with good contrast to the background color (and pls, no neon)
this video is interesting because I got in trouble recently for vaguely saying I didn't have a good time at a free-entry-to-anyone corporate party I went to during a youtuber event, because apparently someone I know was friends with someone at the company, and it "made them look bad." I felt really badly for embarrassing the person I know, but at the same time, I'm not allowed to say a party I went to was shitty? how do accounts like swell get away with doing way, way worse 😅
Not even a hot take here but if your event is not benefiting some kind of charity you do not get to have seemingly the majority of your talent, people setting up/breaking down, running the event, be volunteers. You shouldnt even have like very many volunteers at all. As with every buissness, if you cant afford to pay people for their labor you cannot afford to have that business/event. I saw someone else also comment this but start with small events, maybe have friends and family help out, then gradually build a reputation and branch out. You dont have to go 0-60 on these things. Event planning is expensive and difficult.
If you want an actual ball that's (probably) not going to fall apart, I suggest the Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball in LA. It's been going yearly for 25 years, is fantasy-themed and features an array of vendors and shows.
I have not watched this video. I do not use TikTok. But as soon as I read the title one thought entered my head: "Oh god, it's Tumblr Prom 2"
Break out the ball pit, why not also have TikTok Con? 🎉
Stg, dashcon
"for you"-con
Exactly.
Right?!
Every generation must have a Dashcon
it’s a rite of passage at this point
The Land of Dreams Ball-Pit isn't going to pee itself!
@@NaptosisOmw!!! 😎
the fact that the BOOK side of tiktok can't write a website without numerous typos tells me everything I need to know about how serious they are about their hobby and made-up events. there's nothing wrong with enjoying your bad novels with your friends online but god don't make a DashCon out of it!
"Book Tok" and "badly writen", name a more iconic duo.
I mean I read atlas 6 it was not worth my time. Booktok is filled with so many bad authors and people who seem to think editing isn’t important? *sighs*
Booktok care more about aesthetics for their feed than their actual books. Notice how they hype up books with the most pretty covers and tiktok aesthetic buzz words in the blurb. "this is a dark academia book!" Like yeah okay? That means nothing to me tell us what it's about and how it's written. This ball is just the extension of that
@@alienjesus796 and that's why I don't go anywhere near a book with bones, shadows, crown, snake, smoke, darkness, queen, king, court and similar words in the title. There are exceptions I'm sure, but I'll not be the one to go through all of them to pick the good ones for sure. It's aesthetic over story
Booktok is not a monolith. Like ANY online space, the people at the top are the ones with the most accessible, approachable, and aesthetically pleasing content, but there are tons of creators who make thoughtful recs and read critically. BookTube and bookstagram are the same, people have just had more time to settle in and find their community.
it’s about time we have a tumblrcon , rainfurrest, tanacon, style event disaster again 😂
I mean, the guy who made Fyre fest is allegedly trying to do another one sooooo might happen sooner than we think 😂
@@KaitTheUnfunny didn't he get sentenced to jail for that? jesus
@@KaitTheUnfunny oh yeah!!! i totally forgot about that dude and how he’s trying to do it AGAIN, even after being in jail 😭
it was actually called dashcon , not tumblrcon
@@lamibonxd same thing either way lol
whenever i hear the phrase “and so so much more!” i always get suspicious. if there’s more to brag about they would have said it LOL
yeah honestly, as an event marketing person, "and more" is usually something along the lines of "we have more than this, but contracts haven't come through yet so we can't actually promise anything more than this"
Exactly, say what it is in order for people to know what's going on..not to mention the quality and the grammar from book side of TikTok, the readers, and authors 😅
same vibe as using the word “etc” when you can’t think of anything else
@@tsuki3752i feel called out 😂
So I am a Development and Event Director professionally and have been for 10+ years. There is something that I have deemed as "The Baby Shower Effect" that exists within the event world and it's basically when someone (usually a very confident and delusional woman) has planned a friend's baby shower and maybe a birthday party or bachelorette party or two, and then suddenly thinks they are capable of planning *MASSIVE EVENTS* that cost tens of thousands of dollars (usually more) and the effort of dozens of people's tireless work over hundreds of hours..... but *nEwS fLaSh! tHeY cAn'T* 💁🏻♀️
I planned leadership events for awhile as part of team working for an education nonprofit., nothing on that kind of scale but big enough to realize the huge numbers of resources from people to paper, to furnishings and spaces, AV technology and people who can run it, programming, decor, activities and their supplies, logistic after logistic looked at from all angles its wild. I commend you and everyone who has gained the skills and resources necessary to actually turn it into a career. I've seen a couple people do this exact thing and try to start wedding planning or something similar and I'm like, I hope you have a lot of time and capital
In high school I was part of our literary magazine, and we put on regular "cafe nights" where people would perform and we'd serve food and drinks. Even planning those was a big undertaking, and that was _with_ the school doing a lot of the networking for companies to provide products for us. I can't imagine trying to plan a big event without lots of time and resources set aside for it. Heck, I've already decided if I ever get married I'm hiring a planner so I don't have to deal with all that stress. 😅
Adding to this as someone who has worked on events- treating your vendors and special guests (authors) like this is absolutely going to ruin any chance you have of doing the event again in another year. If you don't have something huge draw like a celebrity, then those guests and vendors ARE the majority of the draw for events like this. The only policy I've ever seen in place to not refund vendors who withdrew is if they withdrew within 24/48 hours of the event. At that point, we'd have already printed guide maps or put up finalized event graphics that were now incorrect and it would be too close to opening to make it worth re-doing them. So I've seen policies like that in order to encourage vendors to let us know at least 3 days before (out of more than a year of planning and taking applications) if they couldn't attend. But what these organizers are doing basically guarantees that vendors (even new ones they haven't worked with) will likely avoid them in the future even if they manage to continue putting this event on.
The choice of words sounds mysoginistic for sure
@@Googleusergoogleuser-b4p oh good im not the only one who noticed "very confident and delusional woman" 😬😬😬
I am an English major and dyslexic and I’m DYING at this author’s event having so many grammatical issues! It’s almost illegible to me! Lol
honestly! these kids don’t even got a proofreader??? read over their work??? acknowledge the little red squiggles??? anything???
I’m also a dyslexic English major!! The errors here are killing meee bc I wanna be a proofreader editor 😭 you would think BOOKtok wouldn’t have this many errors
@@pptenshi3900 they could literally use grammarly or any free alternative and those errors would be caught by it lol
Their choice of colours do not help things. I've got no issues reading, but looking at their site hurts my eyes.
another dyslexic English major here to 100% corroborate
Because dashcon happened, I will never trust new big events, I'm only going to things that are established and trusted lol
Even without dash con you should always fo research. I once did a con called Eye Con. I had read very mixed things, went anyways, and it baaarely occured. Worst con I ever did. If there are no reviews or they're iffy at best stay away
every day im baffeled that the booktok author community is so big. like. how did you all publish books.
@@Thurston86 yeah all you need to do is post about how much “spice” your book has and then add a quote about his “length” or “hardness” and then boom. Author. /s
KDP. They all got on Amazon KDP 😅
there’s a LOT of books in the world
You can publish a book by yourself and there are lots of editorials which you pay them to publish your book.
Just make a small event as your first event. Don't advertise it as a big established thing if it is your first event. Limit the amount of tickets. After AT LEAST your 5th event, you can start trying to make things bigger.
@childofterra they just see the opportunity to make easy quick money
bronycon did it and it worked fr
those who don't learn from internet history are doomed to make dashcon real again
The amount of events that rely almost exclusively on unpaid volunteers to work is horrible. I used to work in cons and I do have so many horror stories from that time. It's a shame for that ball though, it sounded neat!
Hey there. If it’s not too much trouble for you, could I hear some of your horror stories from working in cons? Bc I’ve never been to one 😂
@@midnightsunnn1850 HAHA! I won't go into specifics but having to fight for water cans to be into rooms for my (Unpaid) staff, having to justify giving my staff a weekend pass instead of a pass discount (When they worked a whole day during the con), another con where food and beverage were for the con goers only (and staff would not even have a meal coupon), to just...being a volunteer that has to work 8 hours shifts all weekend without any compensation whatsoever... It's a mess.
If you ever think about volunteering, think about your time's worth. Maybe you'd like the experience and then, go for it! But if it is just to save the price of a ticket? I would not say it isn't worth it 🙂
There is exactly one con I know where this works out, and it's one where literally the entire staff is volunteer and it's a non profit. Iirc if you volunteer for 8 hours your weekend pass is automatically free and they actually feed you.
I think its fine if its handled well ie “free entry in exchange for X amount of labor and you get to block off a couple events you DON’T want to work so you can attend”
If you are up for a ball, look into the historical costume community. They have balls throughout the year with Costume College being the big event/conference. Those folks don't play and are not there for the drama. They spend a lot of time and money to make their outfits so they will make sure the event happens.
They struggle with inclusivity.
@@stepahead5944 yeah, sadly. i wanna go to one but im nervous if i’ll be told either, 1) why are you not wearing your own ethnicity’s outfit, or 2) your ethnicity didn’t wear our fancy western clothes back then why are you here 😢
But also some people are making efforts to make the community more inclusive so maybe there is hope?
@sunriseeyes0 I'm just going off of videos/pictures here; if it's themed (ie- France 1750s), best to stick to that theme. If it's just a general time period (ie- 1400s), than wear clothes from wherever you want a long as they are from that time period. Most of the people seem to love the history as much as the clothes, so I think they'd like to learn more about other places, it just isn't as asseccessible for them. I will say that I see MUCH more diversity in dress at Costume College than at random balls/events.
I've seen some videos where they've done panels or one on one interview to try to be more aware and inclusive. There's just not a lot of minorities who are in that space currently. Give it a go at an event that's a bit more general. You never know.
alternatively, ren faires and anime conventions!! im an anime cosplayer and i saw my fair share of historical ball gowns at conventions and i absolutely eat up all the looks yall serve and you WILL get so many compliments and photos but you'll probably be asked if your a character from black butler or similar lmao. (just make sure its not one of those weird "anime cosplay only 🤓" that are starting to unfortunately crop up but are a very small majority.) i also see a bunch of armor/steampunk booths at conventions as well since DnD has huge crossover with anime nerds
you worked hard on your costumes and craftships!!!! its such a shame to only wear it to the few faires and festivals per year.
I would 100% attend a Swell Entertainment event and fully expect all the shenanigans
Swell of the Ball! .....Hm that sounds not great actually nevermind
@@bookshelfhoney no, no, that actually sounds amazing
If it goes without a hitch you’re entitled to a refund
Hahah yes!! Like an immersive theater experience that is centered on manufactured mess, and we're all RUclipsrs there to review it. Would absolutely go to that 😂
@@Sleipnirseight OMG sign me up! lol
I have a friend who makes many thousands of dollars a month from her books. Her TikToks and promotional pics often have typos in them. It astounds me that readers don’t see that and get turned off immediately. 😮
Typos turn me off of fanfics. And those are FREE.
This is why I wish I had lower morals cause then I could write anything, no matter had trashy, and still make money.
A personal tiktok having a typo, I would excuse. But something produced and specifically made for promo? Embarrassing at the very least
People talk a lot about how scam emails intentionally are full of typos, because someone not smart enough to notice and be put off by your poor grammar is way WAY more likely to go on to fall for a bigger scheme-- versus someone who has higher standards for grammar, and thus would have higher standards in general, and be too suspicious to con out of their money. It self-selects for easier victims.
I think it's the exact same process with people raking in money with really bad (or just lazy) fiction.
How does she do this? Asking for a friend.
Far too many people worried about a tree costume being seen as potentially racist or why it would be than the actual racism that happened. The distraction worked, lol.
We need a morality clause for everything: concerts, cons, dinners, parties etc. If you act a fool we need our money back.
On the volunteer note. I was quite often student event co-ordination in both high school and university. Usually we planned, set-up worked the door at the beginning or had a shift during the night, and broke down after the event but while the event was happening we usually got to enjoy ourselves (unless we had a shift but that would maybe be 30-1 hour out of a multi-hour event). If you’re going to use free labour let people have time to enjoy the event they helped on. Even when I’ve done volunteering for “business” run events (like ribfest or community centre family fun days, or events at our museum) the paid organizers always made sure we had plenty of time to enjoy ourselves too. That’s how you get volunteers, and if you attract a lot of them you can have a balance were people work for free but also enjoy themselves and then they recommend the event in return.
"This is a visible Yelp review," I don't think I have heard a better description of these types of videos. Thank you for that.
In general, the idea of a book-themed ball is so cool. I went to a book release advertised as a ball for the book Winter (of the Lunar Chronicles), and it was a blast. Some dancing, book signings (but the line was too long lol), and little performances of scenes from the book. If I ever publish something popular enough, I'd live to do the same
WHAT THEY HD THIS I loved that series back in the day tbh ahead of its time
I can't believe we get to watch Amanda's descent into her wolf fursona/alpha-beta-omega era
See, its ironic at first but Amanda is soon going to be completely snowballing towards un-irony in her 1000 dollar wolf fur suit
she used the omega nest for 3 days and now shes gonna design her wolf fursona 🙁🙁
@@cuandotumedasunagalleta7169 $1000 is closer to the price of a fursuit head, not a whole suit. Fun fact!
@shardain good for the artists haha!! Happy for them
The amount of people who think putting on a large event is just "easy peezy" is still astounding to me
The actually "cancellation" being the only real mistake is hilarious. Had they not "rebranded", they could just deny all refunds and go ahead with the event. Then rebrand for any follow-up.
Is there gonna be a ball pit?
A Divine Ball Pit.
Asking the important questions 🤌🏻
Oh gosh... please don't. I've heard some stories... they're not pretty >
I hope people really listen towhen Swell explained why she didn't want to go so far for event she wasn't sure who it was that was running it. Security is really important and we're lucky we don't have a more tragic story from some of these events especially when younger fans were involved and cast out of the buildings. Also it's nice to not get scammed out of 100 of dollars to experience disappointment.
I went to the event in the uk that kicked off this swarm of booktok balls. It was fine. Overpriced, dinner took 2hrs longer than expected cutting off most of the night events, but it was a nice community event to dress up ridiculously fancy at.
I wouldn't recommend future Celestial Moments events to uk people as both the previous event and the ball had the same issues, but we should bring back dress fancy entertainment!
OMG PEOPLE! WE DO STILL HAVE BALLS! You know those events that celebs and diplomats attend like galas and such....yeah THOSE are the equivalent of balls today. Did we forget that those medieval/renaissance/Bridgerton era balls we romanticize were exclusively for extremely rich folks and nobility?! You think common people like us could just buy admission tickets to Lord Fancypants' ball held at his grand estate?! 🤣 We all like to think we'd be in higher class status in romanticized time periods than we really would be if made analogous to our status today!
And they’re BORING they SUCK
Using “unalive” on their quiz is such a unique example of how language works…if we all know what the word means and it means the same thing as the original triggering word…how is it any different? I don’t have the answer, just thinking out loud!
It has different connotations, just like any synonyms. I’d say it has ironic connotations (outside of censored spaces), so using it seriously is kind of awkward.
Yeah, if saying "unalive" hadn't resulted in a 100% drop in the murder rate all over the English speaking world, it might've seemed like a really weird thing to do.
Yes. Apparently trigger warning is too triggering so use " content warning" instead. I guess it will be used until content warning will become too triggering too.
@@brucheweinberger6863 tbh I think "content warning" is better because it's more general. Like, I don't need to have PTSD triggers to want to know whether something's going to have gross rapey content or whatever.
it's not about it triggering, it's because social media algorithms have heavily censored those who use the "official" terms regardless of context. unalive has gone largely under the radar still, though i suppose at some point it will also be censored and a new term will replace it
You can get a cease and desist letter for anything. You don't have to actually have any grounds to sue someone before you can send one, they are basically just threats from a paid lawyer and pretty much any lawyer will write you one if you think the issue is big enough.
Yeah, likewise, you don't need grounds to sue someone in order to sue them.
That said, I think there are some issues if people impersonate lawyers in order to send phony cease & desist orders, which never seems to stop people from trying.
And if there's a chance that you can get sued for defamation, most people would shut up. Even if you know you would win, it would cost money and time when it just isn't worth it. Feels good to not live in the US.
Ah yes, the five courts: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Wolf Girls and... Mermaids??
Tik tok wants to be Pre-dashcon tumblr so BAD 😂
booktok gives off 2010s fandom tumblr vibes and I was in those trenches so I know how cringe it is
Warrior Queen Swell teaching the masses how to get their refunds. I genuinely appreciate Amanda flexing her influence to help others.
3:07 Some people really need the rule of tincture explained to them because this kind of unreadable text is exactly why it exists.
I REALLY love William's snarky touches in the videos. The image at 6:29 genuinely elicited a belly laugh.
the volunteer problem also reminds me of something that the youtuber Pointcrow said about editors of all things
"you don't want a volunteer working for something serious because you can't do anything if they aren't doing the work you need them to"
if this event is relying soooooo heavily on free volunteers then who's to say those volunteers won't just start bailing if conditions are rough? are they gonna be able to guarantee they have enough paid staff to run the event in a worst case scenario?
Every 12 year old girls dream, and just like every 12 year olds dream it will end in pettiness, tears, disappointment and running mascara
They don't even get an extra hour in the Ball Pit.
i love volunteering at events!! most events ive volunteered at usually feed you and give you at least some downtime to check the event out- not working the whole time! i cant imagine wanting to help at an event like that
For about just shy of 20 years I worked for both fan run events and one that became my full time job as despite being fans we became the biggest events in the UK and possibly Europe.
The lack of professionalism, organisation, care for the attendees, for the volunteers for the Guests that I keep hearing about from these events makes me so sad.
The first event I went to as a child had a Fanzine, and was organised over the telephone.
The first one I asked to go to had a geocities and a yahoo group.
It's frustrating that, even though social media *should* make organisation far more easy, it seems to have the opposite effect.
@@FTZPLTC so very true.
I think it’s made everybody think that they are able to create and run the events they have witnessed as either attendees or simply by viewing excerpts on social media.
It’s how we’ve ended up with fiascos and dumpster fires like this, Tana-con and the nightmare of epic proportions that was the Tumblr “event”.
Not to mention the risk to life, H&S and huge legal liability that the supposedly professionally run Twitch event became.
My first question I suppose to the “organisers” of this mess is where is your insurance policy to cover you should anything happen and the event need to be cancelled/postponed?
Also you should be aware that you can’t legally withhold the money by saying that “well, you paid to attend a, that’s not going ahead but it really is, because we’re calling it b” - that’s a bait and switch, it’s illegal, and you need their permission to transfer their bookings to the new event. If you no longer have the funds for full refunds in the events bank account, then tough shit sweetheart. You now need to reach into your own pockets to pay, otherwise you can and will, end up in serious legal issues.
@@HulaHula667 - Something I've noticed with many of these kinds of events is that they're often huge but also being run by people with no experience of running smaller events. And because a lot of it is about ego, they'll be loathe to pay someone *with* more experience to help or even straight-up take over the running of it.
And yes, I'm pretty confident that "we changed the name of the event so you don't get a refund" would die on its ass in any court. I thought people learned that from Tiger King.
@@FTZPLTC when I left my last position I had a non-compete clause in my contract. The lawyers I discussed my exit papers with (there were several) all stated that it wasn’t defendable in court on their end if they tried to go after me for it. Though I’m pretty sure that period is up (yeah! Great Global Panini for messing up my time sense worse than usual!!)
The thing is that I would be happy to go through things that you NEED to know and MUST be aware of when running events tiny to mahoosive, if only to stop seeing things like this keep showing up.
Amanda, you give me the vibe that I'm a simple traveler walking down the dirt path and you are the local fae ready with the tea to chat. It's lovely listening to you.
Is anyone else UwU for Swell to have a dollar for every event that you guys sent her way so that she could throw her own swell event? 🥺
UwU
UwU
UwU
Lol 👍🏾
UwU isn't safe you should always OwO
Please never change the intro. It still makes me smile.
There's a bookish ball happening down the street from me in April. It's been marketed all over tiktok and I swore they were by the same company
Swell can't escape the omegaverse, even in videos that aren't about it
From my experience with attending conventions, if the event gets rescheduled, canceled, or and/or rebranded, standard policy is to offer a refund, or let ticketholders/vendors/guests transfer their tickets to new events. A lot of cons i had bought tickets to in 2020 before they had to shut down did that. Automatic response was a refund, or transfer tickets to the next event if you prefer. That should be the AUTOMATIC policy with this Ball that 99% will not happen.
read the title and said out loud "oh wait, like tumblr?" - can't wait to see where this goes
I cackled at the;
“Critical thinking-I know you all have it. *Flex* it a little.”
😂😂 Dead.
the "blessings" bit took me out 🤣
deleted tiktok last year and haven’t looked back since. but i love hearing about the crazy things safely secondhand from you!
Not gonna lie, I actually kind of love the idea of this. The idea of fun whimsical larp where everyone gets to be the main character of their princessy/princy fantasy? Yes. I can even get behind some trashy fiction. And I love to dress up nice and dance. I even have a masquerade mask collection. But PLEASE SPEAK TO ONE OTHER HUMAN WHO HAS DONE EVENT PLANNING AND LOGISTICS BEFORE YOU TRY THIS
Oh God, it's Tumblr prom all over again
The website is giving very much "graphic design is my passion"
based on shoulders alone I'm choosing to believe you're wearing a full disney princess style ball gown out of shot
William p l e a s e keep being funny in the videos, it makes hahahs come from my soul
Ugh I've been seeing this EVERYWHERE. I want it to happen, I really do, I just don't have much faith in this going through
Lol update after watching the video:nvm. Screw this event.
“this wouldn’t have happened if i’d unionised.” William 😂😭
I'm loving the running gag of William's unioning subplot easter eggs and I am Here 👏For 👏It👏
As a non profit director & regular event coordinator, I just want you to know that you have an audience any time you want to roast badly coordinated events. Oooof this is a nightmare, and there are limits to how much a for-profit can ask volunteers to do - you usually have to give them a free ticket in exchange for a comparable amount of labor. It's very gross for people who are getting the profits (if they make any) to expect other people to do the hard labor.
6:29 LMAOOOO solidarity with william's swell union of 1 😂😂😂
i just clicked on the video but the title and thumbnail are already giving me massive dashcon vibes
it's giving dashcon
Yeah, I go to quite a few conventions and for new events I tend to look very closely at the history of whomever is organizing in terms of event planning- have they done events before? How did they go? What kind of team do they have? Are they going in with a clear plan? Etc.
Selling tickets a year in advance is usually only for events that have been going for years and have very strong ties with their vendors, actors, location, etc. and know that the event WILL happen as described barring ‘acts of god’ (such as the pandemic that shut everything down). Not for first timers.
If someone has never planned anything, going to their first event… I wouldn’t do it for this much money ever.
The interactions between William and Amanda are some of my favorite parts of the videos. He's just as funny as she is and they seem like good friends. I hope to see him more in all her videos. He's a really good editor
the "blessings" with the tongue out sent me lmaaaaooo
13:10
Bro, she could’ve just done birch bark
Jenny Nicholson done a massive video on Evermore Park. I would love to see you go there as well and see if they have changed anything 😱
6:29 this wouldn’t happen if I’d unionized 💀 Speak your truth William
I've never head of this but I thoroughly enjoyed this video-- feel bad for the people excited for it, though. I'd love any ball content!! It's definitely on my bucket list to attend a ball of some sort in a big pretty dress. Just once.
I'm not at all familiar with booktok but (prepare for a scalding hot take no one else has had before) WHY are so many of their announcements and supposedly professional posts so unreadable, illegible? Poor spelling, poor sentence structure, those godawful fonts -- those are title/headline/poster fonts, for like 1-4 words all big, NOT for copy. I realize it's a moot point now that the IG post is deleted but I pray they had alt text on them.
I can’t wait to hire “volunteers” to run my company with clients that pay me money. What an effing joke! Lol to be requesting “dedicated volunteers” that are unpaid for your event that people are paying to be at? Am I the only one who thinks that insane? Lol
I just really want to take the court quiz but I can’t FIND it anywhere, not from googling and not from searching through TikTok 😭
Never been so happy to have nothing to do with TikTok.
A beautiful day with another Swell video
the website is so badly designed im going to have heart attack
That quiz is giving 2011 quotev in the best kind of way
missed opportunity to sign off with “blessings!”
As you say you are a god of chaos, it reminded me of a previous dream I had of you at a cosplay party dressed as Lady Loki for a video. So, it fits.
Anyway, do events that make sense for you. We’ll enjoy it either way. 😊 I just find it funny how events like these always have situations like this.
One or two small typos can be glossed over, but this is really something else ......
There was a prom?? 😭 i learn more and more about random events from you its so intriguing like whatt
Any ticket or deposit should be in an escrow account and that money will not be touched until after the event happens to hold your end of the contract (ticket or table cost). Anyone who takes your money then spends it before fulfillment of both parties is unethical and possibly illegal. If you have to, take a loan out for initial costs with the backing of the escrow account as assurance then a lender would work with you. Also get insurance for an event in case it doesn't go on and needs to refund attendees or vendors.
William is awesome! I’d support your one man who edits for Amanda union! That is all! 😂
ok Swell's struggle with dyslexia in reading these posts is so real. If you're interested in creating dyslexia friendly posts, you can use an open sans font with good contrast to the background color (and pls, no neon)
you should make "I'm sure I'll make merch for this" merch if you haven't already. absolute tap in
great video btw
oh my god i am afraid of all the wolf references there have been recently
man, they didn't even have a ball pit.
Not me seeing the title and thinking there was some sort of theoretical TikTok ball orb
OMG YOU HAVE TO THROW YOUR OWN EVENT!
Swellebration? Golkapalooza? We'll workshop it.
this video is interesting because I got in trouble recently for vaguely saying I didn't have a good time at a free-entry-to-anyone corporate party I went to during a youtuber event, because apparently someone I know was friends with someone at the company, and it "made them look bad." I felt really badly for embarrassing the person I know, but at the same time, I'm not allowed to say a party I went to was shitty? how do accounts like swell get away with doing way, way worse 😅
Not even a hot take here but if your event is not benefiting some kind of charity you do not get to have seemingly the majority of your talent, people setting up/breaking down, running the event, be volunteers. You shouldnt even have like very many volunteers at all. As with every buissness, if you cant afford to pay people for their labor you cannot afford to have that business/event. I saw someone else also comment this but start with small events, maybe have friends and family help out, then gradually build a reputation and branch out. You dont have to go 0-60 on these things. Event planning is expensive and difficult.
wake up babe new niche tik tok analysis
I’m one minute into this video and this event already sounds like respawned Dashcon lmao 😂
Im making my way through random videos today while working on my silly little projects and i feel like im just listening to a friend infodump ❤❤❤
“This wouldn’t happen if I’d unionized.” 🤣🤣🤣
All I could think of when clicking on this video is Dashcon 🤣
If you want an actual ball that's (probably) not going to fall apart, I suggest the Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball in LA. It's been going yearly for 25 years, is fantasy-themed and features an array of vendors and shows.
Man do I love listening to homegirl trassh strange clout events. Keep em coming dude
... but will there be a ball pit?
I hadn't heard about it. Would love to see you attend a ball.
Yk the event is gonna be popping when it sounds like a 10 year old wrote the blurb
Did we learn NOTHING from Dashcon!