History Main / ShoddyShindig

* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyre_Festival 2017 Fyre Festival]] was doomed from the word "go". [[DuelingShows Two dueling documentaries]] released in 2019 (Netflix's ''Film/{{Fyre}}'' and Hulu's ''Film/FyreFraud'') provide an explanation of how everything went wrong by the people who tried to make it happen. Fyre Festival was falsely advertised from the get-go: the advertisement video for the event said that the island where the Festival was going to take place was owned by Pablo Escobar - not only was it ''not'' owned by Escobar, but the island's current owner explicitly forbid the Fyre organization from mentioning Escobar, then kicked them out when they mentioned him anyway. This forced Fyre to use another nearby island, and from there things just went FromBadToWorse - promised artists that weren't booked, supplies that didn't arrive because the island's Customs authorities weren't paid, and even rain on the night before the Festival's opening that turned the shoddy "guest area" into a swamp. To top it all off, it later turned out that the man who conceived the Festival to begin with was a con artist. The WebVideo/InternetHistorian shares his thoughts on the matter [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBPg5ftCMv8 here]][[note]]Historian's video was made before the two aforementioned documentaries revealed behind-the-scenes information to the public, so his interpretation is that it was a genuine attempt at a festival that just went horribly wrong {he does entertain the notion of it being a scam, but [[HanlonsRazor found the idea too hard to believe]] given just how poorly it was managed at every step[[/note]], and ''Podcast/{{Swindled}}'' has an episode on the disastrous festival [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=skEVYr6youw here]].

* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyre_Festival 2017 Fyre Festival]] was doomed from the word "go". [[DuelingShows Two dueling documentaries]] released in 2019 (Netflix's ''Film/{{Fyre}}'' and Hulu's ''Film/FyreFraud'') provide an explanation of how everything went wrong by the people who tried to make it happen. Fyre Festival was falsely advertised from the get-go: the advertisement video for the event said that the island where the Festival was going to take place was owned by Pablo Escobar - not only was it ''not'' owned by Escobar, but the island's current owner explicitly forbid the Fyre organization from mentioning Escobar, then kicked them out when they mentioned him anyway. This forced Fyre to use another nearby island, and from there things just went FromBadToWorse - promised artists that weren't booked, supplies that didn't arrive because the island's Customs authorities weren't paid, and even rain on the night before the Festival's opening that turned the shoddy "guest area" into a swamp. To top it all off, it later turned out that the man who conceived the Festival to begin with was a con artist. The WebVideo/InternetHistorian shares his thoughts on the matter [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBPg5ftCMv8 here]][[note]](Historian's video was made before the two aforementioned documentaries revealed behind-the-scenes information to the public, so his interpretation is that it was a genuine attempt at a festival that just went horribly wrong {he does entertain the notion of it being a scam, but [[HanlonsRazor found the idea too hard to believe]] given just how poorly it was managed at every step})[[/note]], and ''Podcast/{{Swindled}}'' has an episode on the disastrous festival [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=skEVYr6youw here]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In "Grade School Confidential," one of the low points of Martin's birthday party consisted of a guy dressed as a wizard who is not a magician but mathematician, and when he gets the wrong answer on an equation Lisa corrects him and he insists he used a "magic" number. However, the worst part was that Martin's parents served oysters instead of birthday cake, leading to a fleet of ambulances carrying off [[TheFoodPoisoningIncident the children struck with food poisoning]]. The only exceptions were Bart who fed his oysters to Martin's, now sick, cat, and Lisa, who as a vegetarian didn't eat the oysters, [[EvenNerdsHaveStandards she faked getting food poisoning because she wanted to leave]].

-->--''Series/GilmoreGirls'', "Super Cool Party People"

->'''Luke''': It's a disaster. The party, it's a total disaster. (...) Nothing is happening. It's like a funeral hall in there. I didn't know 13-year-old girls could be so unhappy. (...)\\
'''Lorelai''': You didn't plan any activities?\\
'''Luke''': It's a birthday party. I thought that was the activity.\\
'''Lorelai''': Oh, Luke.\\
'''Luke''': Is it normal for kids to fall asleep at a birthday party?
-->-- ''Series/GilmoreGirls'', "Super Cool Party People"

* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyre_Festival 2017 Fyre Festival]] was doomed from the word "go". [[DuelingShows Two dueling documentaries]] released in 2019 (Netflix's ''Film/{{Fyre}}'' and Hulu's ''Film/FyreFraud'') provide an explanation of how everything went wrong by the people who tried to make it happen. Fyre Festival was falsely advertised from the get-go; the advertisement video for the event said that the island where the Festival was going to take place was owned by Pablo Escobar -- not only was it ''not'' owned by Escobar, but the island's current owner explicitly forbid the Fyre organization from mentioning Escobar, then kicked them out when they mentioned him anyway. This forced Fyre to use another nearby island, and from there, things just went FromBadToWorse. Promised artists that weren't booked, supplies that didn't arrive because the island's Customs authorities weren't paid, and even rain on the night before the Festival's opening that turned the shoddy "guest area" into a swamp. To top it all off, it later turned out that the man who conceived the Festival to begin with was a con artist. The WebVideo/InternetHistorian shares his thoughts on the matter [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBPg5ftCMv8 here]][[note]]Historian's video was made before the two aforementioned documentaries revealed behind-the-scenes information to the public, so his interpretation is that it was a genuine attempt at a festival that just went horribly wrong (he does entertain the notion of it being a scam, but [[HanlonsRazor found the idea too hard to believe]] given just how poorly it was managed at every step)[[/note]] and ''Podcast/{{Swindled}}'' has an episode on the disastrous festival [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=skEVYr6youw here]].
* Dashcon, a convention made by Tumblr users for Tumblr users, promising to give its attendees the con of their life. [[TheCon In a way, they delivered]]. The organizers all had little to no experience running a convention and got greedy thinking Dashcon would be the next big con. They booked too big and expensive of a venue, the Renaissance Marriott in Chicago,[[note]]the booked venue had a capacity for 5,000 people; only a few hundred showed up[[/note]] charged too much to get in -- sixty dollars for a new convention, which is absurdly high -- and spent their money unwisely. They promised acts and panels that had cancelled months ahead or never even agreed to show up, continued to sell tickets for these nonexistent events, and then quietly cancelled these events ''while attendees were waiting for them to start'', with a "no refunds" policy in place to add insult to injury. They ended up not having enough money to pay the hotel and had to beg the con-goers for $17,000 to keep the con going, all while [[BlatantLies lying]] that [[NeverMyFault the hotel had increased the price at last minute]] because they were racist/misogynist/homophobic/transphobic; in reality, the Marriott had been exceedingly nice to them by allowing them a chance to collect door revenue before paying the bill. After the seventeen grand was raised, nobody had any money to spend on the vendors, so the vendors started to pack up and leave once they noticed no-one was buying anything. The acts that did show up were not paid, and most of them left early -- the fact that they performed at all was extraordinarily generous, given that someone from Dashcon had removed the company credit card from the hotel's front desk (after promising it'd be there), and thus forced the talents to pay their own hotel bills. They also failed to secure licensing to show movies they had promised and ended up having to cancel those as well. To compensate, all of the con-goers were provided a single TV with a single game console and a comically undersized inflatable ball pit to play in while waiting around during the many canceled events, [[FoulBallPit and even this was ruined when someone urinated in the pit]]. To top it off, leaked financial data suggest the organizers overstated the amount of money they needed to raise and walked out with over ten grand between them, plus their already generous salaries that they set for themselves. In the end, Dashcon was an unmitigated disaster that essentially killed the idea of a Tumblr-based convention before it was even truly born. The WebVideo/InternetHistorian has further analysis of the event [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZgxeX2dCnQ here]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vfZqByi808 here.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': In "Strangeness on a Train", Peggy plans a ThemedParty on a train: a murder mystery theater train ride with a '70s disco theme. Hank is not sure it's such a great idea, especially the disco part, but agrees to make Peggy happy. The mystery is solved in two minutes and the actors leave. Then the train caterer announces that the refrigeration has gone out and spoiled their dinner and they can't serve any alcohol. They have no food except cheese-and-crackers packets, no alcohol, and no entertainment. Everybody is grouching in the dining car. Peggy and Hank have sex in the bathroom which cheers her up. Others soon discover that ''someone'' had sex and decide to try to find out this mystery to entertain themselves.

** In "Party Pooper Pants", Spongebob decides to throw a party and invites everyone in town. It starts out as a disaster thanks to his strict adherence to schedule and his insistence that everyone uses random cards to base discussions on. When he locks himself out by mistake (and later gets arrested by the police ''because they weren't invited''), things improve tremendously.

* ''Series/{{Monk}}'': In "Mr. Monk Is the Best Man", Monk is put in charge of organizing Stottlemeyer's bachelor party, but to everyone's dismay it turns out that Monk's idea of a "fun" party is having everyone watch the ''movie'' ''Film/BachelorParty'' at his apartment. He also orders them a pizza with ''no'' toppings or sauce on it, forces the guest to use a porta-john instead of his actual toilet and allots for exactly one stubby of beer per guest; when Stottlemeyer realizes that there's only enough alcohol in them to give each person a very mild buzz, they all instead decide to invert the DesignatedDriver rule and give all the beer to Randy to make him the party's "designated drunk". And then the party is broken up when the murderer of the week sets Stottlemeyer's car on fire.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Monk}}'' ("Mr. Monk Is the Best Man") has Adrian Monk organizing a stag party for his cop friends. Much to their dismay, it turns out that Adrian cannot organize anything worth a damn in terms of fun, taking steps such as (for example) getting ''Film/BachelorParty'' as a movie to watch and buying exactly ''one'' beer bottle for each guest (and not very big ones, at that. Stottlemeyer even does the math and conclude that they will only get a very mild buzz from drinking them, which makes all of them decide to invert the DesignatedDriver trope and give all of the beer to Randy so he will be the "designated ''drunk''"). And then it turns out that the murder investigation of the week interferes with the party, with the murderer setting Stottlemeyer's car on fire.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' involves Frasier organizing a party that becomes one of these, but not by Frasier's fault -- a blackout affects the building and all of the guests are angsty for one personal reason or another and militantly refuse to have any fun no matter what Frasier offers them. When they ''finally'' decide to lighten up and have fun... they all decide to leave Frasier and go to a party that is happening upstairs and hypocritically call Frasier a "party pooper" when he points out that they could just celebrate the party that ''they're already in''. And with this quip, [[RageBreakingPoint Frasier]] [[RantInducingSlight finally decides to let go of the rage that's been building up all episode.]]

See also DreadedKidsPartyEntertainerJob, when the party goes badly for the entertainer instead of the guests. Not related to NastyParty, where a party is a trap in order to poison or assassinate important people. If a carnival, circus, or amusement park turns out badly, that's CrappyCarnival.

* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': In "Strangeness on a Train", Peggy plans a ThemedParty on a train: a murder mystery theater train ride with a '70s disco theme. Hank is not sure it's such a great idea, especially the disco part, but agrees to make Peggy happy. The mystery is revealed in two minutes and the actors leave. Then the train caterer announces that the refrigeration has gone out and spoiled their dinner and they can't serve any alcohol. They have no food except cheese-and-crackers packets, no alcohol, and no entertainment. Everybody is grouching in the dining car. Peggy and Hank have sex in the bathroom which cheers her up. Others soon discover that ''someone'' had sex and decide to try to find out this mystery to entertain themselves.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Monk}}'' ("Mr. Monk Is the Best Man") has Adrian Monk organizing a stag party for his cop friends. Much to their dismay, it turns out that Adrian cannot organize anything worth a damn in terms of fun, taking steps such as (for example) getting ''Film/BachelorParty'' as a movie to watch and buying exactly ''one'' beer bottle (and not a very big one, at that. Stottlemeyer even makes the math and says that they will only get a very mild buzz from drinking them) for each guest (which makes all of them decide to invert the DesignatedDriver trope and give all of the beer to Randy so he will be the "designated ''drunk''"). And then it turns out that the murder investigation of the week interferes with the party, with the murderer setting Stottlemeyer's car on fire.

* Dashcon, a convention made by Tumblr users for Tumblr users, promising to give its attendees the con of their life. [[TheCon In a way, they delivered]]. The organizers all had little to no experience running a convention and got greedy thinking Dashcon would be the next big con. They booked too big and expensive of a venue, the Renaissance Marriott in Chicago,[[note]]the booked venue had a capacity for 5,000 people; only a few hundred showed up[[/note]] charged too much to get in -- sixty dollars for a new convention, which is absurdly high -- and spent their money unwisely. They promised acts and panels that had cancelled months ahead or never even agreed to show up, continued to sell tickets for these nonexistent events, and then quietly cancelled these events ''while attendees were waiting for them to start'', with a "no refunds" policy in place to add insult to injury. They ended up not having enough money to pay the hotel and had to beg the con-goers for $17,000 to keep the con going, all while [[BlatantLies lying]] that [[NeverMyFault the hotel had increased the price at last minute]] because they were racist/misogynist/homophobic/transphobic; in reality, the Marriott had been exceedingly nice to them by allowing them a chance to collect door revenue before paying the bill. After the seventeen grand was raised, nobody had any money to spend on the vendors, so the vendors started to pack up and leave once they noticed no-one was buying anything. The acts that did show up were not paid, and most of them left early -- the fact that they performed at all was extraordinarily generous, given that someone from Dashcon had removed the company credit card from the hotel's front desk (after promising it'd be there), and thus forced the talents to pay their own hotel bills. They also failed to secure licensing to show movies they had promised and ended up having to cancel those as well. To compensate, all of the con-goers were provided a single TV with a single game console and a comically undersized inflatable ball pit to play in while waiting around during the many canceled events, and even this was ruined when someone urinated in the pit. To top it off, leaked financial data suggest the organizers overstated the amount of money they needed to raise and walked out with over ten grand between them, plus their already generous salaries that they set for themselves. In the end, Dashcon was an unmitigated disaster that essentially killed the idea of a Tumblr-based convention before it was even truly born. The WebVideo/InternetHistorian has further analysis of the event [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZgxeX2dCnQ here]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vfZqByi808 here.]]