SOS SOS ROBESPIERRE HAS TAKEN OVER THE BUILDING

So we probably should’ve been a bit more worried about that weird guy with a sword at the last DashCon 2. For those unaware, Robespierre crashed the 2025 convention in an attempt to overthrow the monarchy and slay the Ballpit Queen. The newly knighted Sir Strange of Æons valiantly vanquished the interloper, but apparently her sword (Simone’s Dad’s Claymore, a.k.a. the Muppetslayer) only works on Muppets—Robespierre is back! His band of revolutionaries have now seized the bouncy castle. The clowns really don’t like how he’s chosen to redecorate.

While Sir Strange and the Ballpit Queen have successfully escaped Robespierre’s wrath, the future of the monarchy is uncertain. Robespierre has sworn revenge and is calling for Sir Strange’s execution on two charges of DashCon-spiracy, meanwhile, Strange has charged Robespierre with treachery and also being French.

As the only convention in southern Ontario with a guillotine permit, this puts us in a difficult position. The Muppet Joker’s tragic demise had an equally tragic effect on our insurance premiums, and we simply cannot afford more senseless bloodshed. Thankfully, laws often get overlooked in times of Revolution, and we’ve discovered that we’re allowed to commit crime if it’s a public service, as agreed upon by a democratic electorate. (You!)

As such, we’ve negotiated a tentative agreement between the two parties.

ALT

The Eight Tenets of the Royal-Revolutionary “Put The Sword Down” Agreement:

1. The 2026 convention’s theme of “Galaxy” has been toppled, overthrown by the revolutionaries and replaced with “Revolution!” (Galaxy is permitted to be used in a later year.)
2. The convention shall henceforth be referred to as DashCon 2: Vive La Révolution! as its official title.
3. The Ball Pit Queen shall not be executed (for now), but will have no legal power, instead being used as a figurehead in case an event needs a little pizzazz.
4. To appease our insurance overlords, the People (attendees of the convention) will be authorized to vote on who to kill. Each person will have only one vote, so cast it wisely—or don’t. We’re not cops.
5. For accessibility of voting, VirtualDash attendees will also be able to vote on who to kill.
6. The People shall choose between executing either Sir Strange, Lord of Æons, Wielder of the Muppetslayer and Honourable First Knight of the Realm… or Robespierre himself. Interesting.
7. He who is chosen to die will be executed via guillotine live on stage. (Robespierre was insistent.)
8. The severed head of the executed will be auctioned off for charity via raffle :)

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Vive la Révolution?

This message has been approved by Robespierre and his Band of Revolutionaries.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Sir Strange……………………………….Strange Æons. YouTuber and Tumblr historian.
Robespierre……………………………..Xiran Jay Zhao. YouTuber and bestselling author of Iron Widow.
The Ball Pit Queen…………….….Lochlan O’Neil. Raccoon biologist and founder of the original DashCon.

Dealer’s Hall & Panelist Applications OPEN

Hi all,

DashCon 2 is thrilled to open both this year’s Dealer’s Hall and Panel applications! As a reminder, both of these applications will be open until the end of the month (11:59 PM on Jan 31st). At that point, we will begin reviewing applications. Panel applications will take up to two weeks, while Dealer’s Hall applications could take as many as four. We appreciate your patience with us :)

Without further ado, here are the applications!

Dealer’s Hall

DEALER’S HALL - APPLY HERE

Panelling

PANELISTS - APPLY HERE

Thank you so much for your interest in DashCon 2!

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

Dealer’s Hall Info + DashCon 2 Wrapped

VERY IMPORTANT if you’re applying for the Dealer’s Hall!!

Hi all,

We have a lot of important updates to get into for the Dealer’s Hall, but for those not applying for a booth, we have something fun to tide you over.

Our incredible artist Paintbrush in a Coffee Cup (tumblr, IG, straw page, follow him or we are enemies for life) has created this gorgeous animation to show off DashCon 2 in stat form. Unlike some aesthetically assembled statistics animations that shall remain nameless, this little number is 100% AI free! It also contains a statistically significant number of clowns. We hope you enjoy.

DashCon 2 Wrapped

To view this video on YouTube, click here.

ALT

The context for this part is that the AirB&B the staff stayed at had an elaborate crawl space hidden behind beds and couches that was only three feet high. It was dilapidated, but clearly used to be a child’s play area. One small, Coraline-esque door was carved into a wall across from the laundry room that was even smaller led to a very wide room. The ceilings were even lower, (a child would have to hunch to get around), it was covered in dust and dirt, and it contained only one item: far from the door, in the centre of the mess, was a toddler-sized bed frame.

To be clear, I also don’t know how we didn’t get murdered that night. The DashCon curse works in mysterious ways, I suppose. Its shadow looms but never touches.

Dealer’s Hall Need-To-Know

Keep reading

Names, Decisions, Deadlines!

Hi all,

Your name suggestions were as wonderful as they were abundant. We had an absolute flood to sort through!

To state upfront: a lot of the suggestions were permutations of ‘DashCon 2: 2’ and as funny as that is, the numbers are going to get tangled so quickly and, in my opinion, it lacks pizazz. (Sorry). But we’re all getting robbed of fantastic names tonight—apparently naming the con ‘Super DashCon Galaxy 2’ qualifies as an any% speedrun for getting sued by Nintendo :/

Sorry we vanished into the aether for months. In our defense, we were planning some super-secret cool stuff that we can’t share with you yet. We have a lot of different threads to pull on for the 2026 Big Event and we’re trying to establish which of them we can realistically pursue. Not to get your hopes up, but we might end up changing the convention’s theme to something a little more… bloodthirsty. Though like we said, no promises. Put the knife down!!

Deadlines

What we can share with you is all our opening dates and deadlines for the upcoming year! Here’s a comprehensive list:

Panel and Dealer’s Hall Applications—Jan 15–Jan 30
AMV Contest/Showcase Submissions—Feb 1–Mar 15
IRL Convention Ticket Sales—Mar 1–July 15
VirtualDash Panel Applications—Apr 2–Apr 15
VirtualDash Ticket Sales—May 1–July 31

Of this list, folks who want to attend the convention in person should visit our Simpli Events page at 12PM EST. We will remind you of those details in advance, and a more detailed email providing more information on tickets (pricing, weekend vs single day options, and more) will come later.

We have decided to open panel applications in advance of ticket sales for one primary reason: so we have enough time to assemble a preliminary list of panels before opening ticket sales. That way you can get a bit of a sense of what the convention experience will be like before making your purchase.

Wait—did I see ‘AMV contest’ in there?

Yes! Our accessibility coordinator Ruby is an AMV creator and general enthusiast. She’ll be leading the charge in one of our new events: an AMV contest and showcase!

The AMV component of the con will be hybrid, but not synchronous. The contest portion will be held in person, and a panel of judges will vote on the category winners. Viewers will have the chance to voice their opinion with the Audience Choice award as well. For those uninterested in competition, we will be hosting a general showcase in the VirtualDash Discord. Prizes will be given out to the winners—more details coming soon!

Want some more inspiration? Here’s Ruby’s My Little Pony PMV set to Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club.

The Theme of 2026 DashCon 2

Sorry for the delay! As compensation, please enjoy this moodboard:

ALT

The DashCon 2 team has been taking the new semester well. (Ft. @raccoonmilf, thesleepydm, and @strange-aeons)

2026 DashCon 2’s theme is… Galaxy.

Strap on your galaxy leggings, we’re going for a ride across the cosmos! The clowns are eager to explore the stars, and I am eager to eject Edmund into the cold uncaring void of space. As he deserves.

If any of you still have your 2016 Dan and Phil backpacks kicking around, you should absolutely bring them.

What’s it called, though?

That’s for you to decide! We’re opening it to a vote next week. (If you have any suggestions, feel free to spitball below!)

We’ve come up with a few ideas already, though, like DashCon 2: Revenge of the Pit, or DashCon 2: Galactic Boogaloo. To test the waters, we have a preliminary poll:

I’m not putting vanilla extract on there, and You Know Why.

One last thing: DashCon 2 is Hiring!

We’re expanding the team! There are two positions we’re looking to fill: VirtualDash Coordinator and Social Media Assistant. If that interests you, click the button below. All the information is contained within the application form. Applications close on Friday, November 14th at 9PM EST.

Apply Here!