Fyre Fest 2.0? Barbie Dream Festival Gives Fans Far Less Than They Bargained For

We all remember fan fests as kids, right?

We would drag our parents to some meet and greet event for some niche entertainment property at a random convention center in town.

And we loved it!

It didn't matter if it was Pokémon, Dragon Ball Z, or some comic book property, we all ate it up.

Apparently, Barbie had its own version of a fan fest in the form of Barbie Dream Festival, a $250, multi-day event where fans could see everything Barbie had to offer, including a life-sized replica of her "Dream House."

You can probably already guess that this didn't go according to plan.

READ: Fyre Fest Pivots To New Business Model After Latest Disaster

I'm depressed just looking at those pictures.

Now, I didn't know this, but this event took place in my neck of the woods at the Broward County Convention Center.

I've been to that venue multiple times for many different events, including boat and RV shows with my parents back in the day.

The place is MASSIVE, and if you don't fill the venue to the brim, the whole event can feel hollow.

That's exactly what happened with Barbie Dream Fest, as I saw a lot of empty space and half assembled booths in every video I saw.

READ: Fyre Festival 2 Is Off To A Rough Start After Local Officials Say It Doesn't Exist, Billy McFarland Responds

That's brutal, and not just because I see quite a few adults without children at this fan fest (need I remind you of the Bluey debacle from last week?).

Many people's minds immediately went to Fyre Fest, the 2017 disaster of a music festival that was supposed to take place on the Bahamian island of Exuma, but this reminds me of a different disaster of a fan festival that is perhaps less known to the public called "DashCon."

Everything you need to know about DashCon is packed into this neatly hilarious 10-minute video from a man called The Internet Historian, but the gist of the matter is that a bunch of blue-haired Tumblr freaks decided to put on a fan fest with no prior experience in event planning or logistics, and it went as horribly as any normal adult would have expected.

That's still one of my favorite videos on the internet.

I don't feel bad for the Tumblr population for their failures and oversights, but the kids who were excited about Barbie Dream Fest didn't deserve this.

I'm sick and tired of these corporations that masquerade as caring about kids preying on and exploiting childhood wonder.

Maybe I've gotten soft as a parent, but seeing a bunch of kids walk around a dimly lit dystopian Barbie convention filled me with sadness.

Let me put it to you this way: I had to put my dog down earlier this week and these videos of Barbie Dream Fest were almost as depressing as that.

Thank God I have a son. That way we can go to some Dragon Ball Z fan festival and be assured that we will have an awesome time.

Boy dads for the win!