Merry Clownmas, and a wacky new year!

DashCon 2’s Charity Fundraiser

In 2025, DashCon 2 supported the Canadian Cancer Society, as co-founder Avis’ mom was diagnosed with cancer. The goal of that fundraising effort was to transform DashCon 2 into a meaningful way, however small, to lend a hand in that fight. Fortunately she is in remission, and for the moment all is well. We are forever grateful.

However, we’ve known for a while that we wanted to change our charity of choice. It’s a diverse world out there, and there are so many charities doing great work that need our support. We’ve thought about it long and hard, and after the stress our community has gone through this past year, there was really only one option.

DashCon 2 will be supporting Rainbow Railroad in 2026.

Rainbow Railroad is a charity that helps LGBTQ+ people escape persecution and rebuild their lives in safe places. Queer people face state-sponsored persecution in over sixty countries, and the loss of USAID put even more queer people at risk.

Rainbow Railroad helps queer folks resettle in Canada and the United States, but recent swings in the political climate have made the latter more complicated. They are closely monitoring the situation, and have launched a few new programs to support at-risk migrants that have already resettled in North America. These include providing cash grants to migrants in need and for the grassroots organizations supporting them.

The entire DashCon 2 staff team is queer. Many are trans. Were we unluckier in the place of our birth, Rainbow Railroad might have been our one and only lifeline. As Canadians, we want to extend a hand to queer people in need of a safe place to rebuild. DashCon 2 seeks to be a safe place for a bunch of gay weirdos for a weekend—we’d like to maintain that safe place for longer, and this is how we do it.

If you feel so moved, you can donate at the link below.

DONATE NOW

Since it’s Christmas, I’ll write a little more personally.

This is Simone, one of the co-founders—most of these newsletters are written by me. While working on DashCon 2 has been a dream, this year has been really fucking hard. For Americans, even harder. Often, it is hard to keep a steady mind.

Legally speaking, I’m an American citizen. (Dual, my parents are Canadian, but I was born in the States.) I always maintained that I’d never use the passport; I don’t fuck with guns, and I’d like to visit the hospital without forking over my life’s savings. But I’ve never renounced it, and despite everything happening over the border, I won’t.

I’m not giving up on America. There will always be hope. There will always be people doing good work, trying their best to make the world a better place. Rainbow Railroad does it every day. In my own way, I want to do that with DashCon 2. The queer spirit will never die, and the call to action will never cease. If you want to join us, the door will always be open. Trump can take my passport from my cold dead hands.

Christmas just so happens to be my birthday. Two days from now, I will turn twenty-two. While it’s not the best day to have a birthday, we play the cards we’re dealt, and I am very grateful to have all of you in my life for two of my most important days at once. Thank you for believing in my completely insane convention plan—for believing in me.

Merry Clownmas :)

With love,

Simone

Fundraising for the Canadian Cancer Society

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[ALT: A screenshot of the fundraising page for the Canadian cancer society, featuring the DashCon 2 logo]

Hey y’all! 

I’m Avis, the co-founder of DashCon 2, and I’d like to write something a bit more personal than our updates usually get. I want to start off with a huge thank you to all of you, from our mailing list to our tumblr followers. It’s genuinely insane that so many of you wanted tickets that you crashed Simpli Events and sold out 550 tickets in less than 20 minutes. Simone and I initially conceptualized DashCon 2 as a 300-person event, so we’re utterly blown away by just how much attention we’ve received.

Honestly, planning and expanding DashCon has been wild. We’ve always been a small, tight-knit team, and I’m really proud of just how far we’ve gotten. Especially because I almost left the project just a few months into planning.

My mom was diagnosed with cancer last August, and it threw a lot of my plans into uncertainty. It wasn’t the first time she’d battled cancer, and I know too well how hard it is to focus on anything in the face of the inescapable terror of losing her. This is why it means so much to me to announce that DashCon 2 is running a fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society. You can donate to our fundraiser at https://fundraisemyway.cancer.ca/campaign/dashcontwo. All donations from this page go directly to them, we couldn’t use any of it if we wanted to.

Thankfully, my mom is now once again cancer-free, but that doesn’t erase the many ways cancer has impacted my family, and the families of many people on the team. Nearly half of all Canadians can expect to be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, and the Canadian Cancer Society does incredible work to fund research that actively improves the lives of cancer patients. My mom is probably the strongest, coolest, and kindest woman I know, and the Canadian Cancer Society’s work is part of why she’s still alive. 

Please, if you couldn’t get a ticket, or if you think we’re a scam and didn’t bother, give the Canadian Cancer Society any money you would’ve given us. We’ll be auctioning off merch, ball pit balls, and more in an official raffle, but we encourage you to give directly if you can. Given that our venue fees are paid, we can’t think of a better use for seventeen thousand dollars. DashCon 2 wouldn’t be happening without our community’s immense outpour of love and support, and we consider it our responsibility to pay it forward.

Moving onto somewhat lighter matters, unfortunately, we won’t be selling any more in-person tickets for DashCon 2. We’ve always wanted DashCon 2 to be a local convention first, and despite all the attention we received, we had trouble gauging how well our following would translate to actual attendance numbers. I’m really sorry that so many of you couldn’t get a ticket, but for now we want to focus on making sure that we run a fun, safe, and accessible event for 500 people before we move to a larger venue. 

However, all hope is not lost! We’ve thrown ourselves into expanding our plans for virtual DashCon 2! We promise we’ll start selling tickets soon, but for now I can tell you that we’re planning to run a great selection of virtual panels, stream some of the larger in person-panels, and maybe even stream a duel (if such a thing occurs). A portion of all virtual ticket sales will be donated to the Canadian Cancer Society. 

Thank you once again for all your support. Again, you can find our fundraiser at https://fundraisemyway.cancer.ca/campaign/dashcontwo. 

Thanks for everything,

Avis | DashCon 2 Co-Founder