Tana Mongeau’s attempt to hold her own convention was a disaster. Conjuring immediate comparisons to Fyre Fest, the YouTuber’s short-lived VidCon alternative promised free meet-and-greets, talks, and concerts. Instead, it delivered long lines, dehydration, and little to do. The event was canceled after its first full day, leaving fans who paid their way to Anaheim out hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, with little hope for refunds. It also left many would-be attendees wondering if they’d been scammed.

The answer to that question is complicated. YouTuber Shane Dawson — one of the creators who was featured prominently in TanaCon’s lineup for a meet-and-greet session — did a deep dive into how TanaCon fell apart. His three-part series features unreleased footage and interviews with both Mongeau and Michael Weist, the 21-year-old founder of event production company Good Times and the man responsible for organizing TanaCon. Through a series of personal, sometimes messy conversations, the picture that emerges suggests ineptitude on all sides rather than sinister intent. “Now, in retrospect, [it’s] the worst decision I think I’ve ever made,” Dawson says of his choice to participate in the event.

TanaCon was held at the Marriott Suites Hotel, just a few minutes from VidCon in Anaheim. Beginning as Mongeau’s attempt to strike back at VidCon organizers after several poor experiences with the conference, it was repeatedly described in Dawson’s series as a hastily organized conference intended as a black eye against VidCon. “I don’t think you had good intentions,” he tells Mongeau in one confrontation. “… The true intention of it was revenge. And it was ‘Fuck VidCon.’” Mongeau has said in previous interviews that the convention was planned over the course of just 30 to 40 days. (Most major conventions begin planning at least a year in advance.)

Throughout Dawson’s series, those involved with TanaCon offer conflicting accounts of how and why space was such an issue. According to Dawson, the official number of VIP tickets sold was 5,108, in addition to 200 to 300 “free” tickets (which were actually sold for a nominal $1 each). In additional footage captured as part of a documentary Good Times hopes to release, Weist also mentions that capacity was set at 5,200. “I love that for us… It would be really, really cool, too, to have people, like, outside waiting to get in,” Mongeau replies, before adding that people would brag about waiting in line. “People love to be oppressed outside.” (On Twitter, Dawson has since said Mongeau told him she was “just kidding around and meant more like waiting to get into a concert & building anticipation… she would never purposely want people waiting for hours.”)

However, Dawson claims to have gotten ahold of the contract between the Marriott and Weist on behalf of Good Times, which lists the final attendee number as only 1,000. “I’ve talked to both Tana and Michael about this, and they both said yes, the contract might have said 1,000, but everybody at Marriott told them that was just a safe number, and that 5,000 was okay,” Dawson says. Mongeau also repeatedly insists she believed the space would be adequate. “I was under the impression that that space was perfectly fine for 5,000 people,” she says. “They were telling me that that space was fine.”

“we should have never been in a position to do this.”

According to a Garden Grove Police Department press release obtained by The Verge, on-scene estimates by officers put the number of attendees around 4,000 to 5,000 people — not the 15,000 Good Times and Mongeau had originally claimed. Furthermore, the release also echoes claims that the ballroom was too small by several thousand people. “The hotel ballrooms where the event was scheduled could hold a maximum of 1,150 people,” the department says. “The organizers planned to move the crowd in and out of the venue to allow all attendees the opportunity to participate in the event.”

During a previously filmed interview, Weist tells Dawson that the event was supposed to have access to all of the hotel’s ballrooms, as well as its lobby, and that “the Marriott told me to my face that it will hold right around 4,000 people.” As for why Good Times inaccurately said that 15,000 people showed up, contrary to police reports, Weist still claims that there were “more than 10,000 people” outside the event. “I don’t know exactly what that number is,” he says, “but based on what was inside and, basically when that first 1,000 people came in, that should have been one-fifth of the crowd… people were asking to buy tickets at the door.” He adds that he is “into litigation against the Marriott,” as the event cost “well over $700K,” in addition to damaging Mongeau and Dawson’s reputations. “At the end of the day, Marriott fucked us over,” Weist says. “We’re 100 percent going with litigation against the Marriott.”

Weist says that he’s going to “lose everything” over TanaCon’s failure. “I wanted this event to succeed more than anyone else,” he tells Dawson. “I spent money that I didn’t have. Every line of credit I could access, I did it. Because I believed in Tana. And I believed in every possibility that we could do this, and Tana’s vision would be a success.”

Despite the event’s obvious failure and promises of refunds, further complicating the situation is a contract Dawson claims to have obtained between Weist and the ticketing company, Veeps. Although TanaCon pulled in roughly $325,000 in ticket sales, he says, that money is being held by Veeps — a company with no convention experience. “Because Michael really wanted to seal the deal, he signed a contract with them saying that if anything went wrong, or tickets needed to be refunded, the funds would have to come from Good Times,” Dawson says. “And Michael signed that contract. And then Michael explained to me that he is Good Times. Just him. Which means that he is personally responsible for finding $325,000 to give refunds.”

Veeps has since apparently reversed this stance. On Twitter, Dawson posted a message from the company promising a full refund if a claim is issued within the next 30 days. (Notably, this does not cover Good Times’ original promise that refunds could be claimed anytime before January 5th, 2019.)

YES! Heres how to get a #Tanacon REFUND! (in case u missed this email) thank u @veepsofficial for doing this. I’m still gonna work on more ways to make it up to everyone who travelled (special free meet ups in the next year) but for now, this is awesome! ❤️ pic.twitter.com/UMs5fFjjLJ — Shane Dawson (@shanedawson) July 4, 2018

Speaking to Dawson, Mongeau calls her decision to hold TanaCon on the same days as VidCon “stupid and spiteful.” She adds that it was “dumb and impulsive” to plan the event on such short notice. “If I really had wanted it to be as good as I’m out here saying, I should have planned it in a year,” she says. VidCon creator and former CEO Hank Green has since spoken up about the doomed conference. “It was scary and I was frustrated and sad and angry and following it on social media like everyone else,” Green wrote in a comment on one of Dawson’s videos. “I think this is bad for all YouTube conferences.” He also apologized for the debacle that led to TanaCon’s creation in the first place: the decision to not make Mongeau a featured creator at VidCon.

Mongeau did not respond to The Verge’s requests for comment by press time. Though initially receptive, Weist stopped responding to The Verge’s emails shortly after Dawson’s documentary aired.

Although many attendees might still get their refunds back, hundreds of fans are still out money spent on travel and lodging, to say nothing of the unsafe nature of the event itself. Mongeau has yet to release her own video about the event.

“We’re both fucking young and dumb as fuck, and we should have never been in a position to do this,” Mongeau tells Dawson in his final video. “And now, so many people are fucked over, and that’s what matters.”