The bag everyone wanted!

Today I attended BeautyCon at Fair Park. This event is geared toward a young generation of content creators, aka “Generation Connected” or Gen C. I am a Gen X’er, but I was very excited to hang out with the Gen C crowd for a day.

If you recall from my initial post on this event, I mentioned pricing – General Admission was $25, Pro was $125 and Platinum was $250. Pro and Platinum tickets came with great benefits like swag, a line skipping pass, early entry, guaranteed meet and greets with panelist and reserved seating.

After walking and speaking with a few vendors and parents in attendance, I decided to wait in line with another blogger at the NYX booth. The line was not long and I wanted to buy a few things before leaving. When we walked up we quickly learned that NYX had two lines, one to shop and another to pay.

Why they would let people pick up product and then stand in a different line that was running halfway the building to wait to pay let me know that they were not prepared for this crowd. I can only image how much shrinkage occurred at this event.

I am standing at the end of the NYX line to pay.

BeautyCon is typically held in LA and NY.  Since today was the first time for the event to be held in Dallas, I thought I would run down what I saw as pros, cons and make a few suggestions on how the event can improve.

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Pros
*Great brands sponsor the event – NYX, Birchbox, Crown Brush, Tarte, QVC and more. QVC is a major sponsor of this event…however I had to ask myself just how many Gen C’ers are watching QVC. Nonetheless, I was happy they were there!

*The Venue – Fair Park and the Automotive Building are perfect for an event of this type. There was plenty of parking outside and space inside of the building.

*The Panelists – Beauty Vloggers galore were there to meet and greet all their fans. I saw girls crying while talking pictures with the influencers they love. That was a great takeaway to know how much these young ladies enjoyed meeting their idols.

*Texas themed decor and mechanical bull – You can never go wrong with these things.

Cons
*Use of space. There was more space than the event could fill. Sure, there were lots of people in attendance but vendor booths were kind of small, there was a lot of empty, unused space and minimal seating for those wanting to take a break from walking or parents simply wanting a break from their kids.

*Poor lighting. Let me be honest, the space was almost dark. (Images in this post have been edited to lighten them.)

*No crowd control. Let me repeat…NO CROWD CONTROL. Yes there was a police presence and there was event security but I saw no effort from event organizers or anyone else to help control lines or people crowding in spaces to avoid standing in line.

*Overall logistics were a nightmare. Lines were running together. Parents had no guidance. There was nowhere to go and ask general information. It was total confusion. The Birchbox Build A Box looked like a great idea…except you had to get in a long line to get an empty box and then get in an even longer line to fill the box. HUH?! The step and repeat was nowhere near the entry for goodness sakes! There were only 2 food trucks (and two food trailers)…and they were both pizza. LOL!

*”Can you keep the line moving?!” barked a women working for NYX as I stepped inside the booth. Yikes! Clearly we were keeping the line moving but the shopping area was small, products were low and there was no time to browse. It seems that the massive crowds were troublesome to the people working the booths. I really felt for them, but her comment made it impossible for me to feel comfortable shopping…so we left.

Suggestions
*If the owners of BeautyCon decide to bring the event back to Dallas, I highly suggest they hire PR in Dallas to guide, coordinate and educate them on what Dallasites love, the food trucks we are crazy about and how to really utilize the huge space of the Automotive Building.

*Consider incorporating local beauty brands. (This could work in LA and NY as well…if it doesn’t already happen.) Dallas (and Texas as a whole) has some great beauty brands and it would have been nice to see some in attendance (along with the ones that were there) as local sponsors. BeautyCon is a one-day convention for content creators. Content creators feast on making contact with brands they have not experienced before.

*Pull together a team of volunteers, put them in event shirts and have them help with line control, directing people and overall management of the public during the event.

*Lower the price. Let’s be honest, the Gen C crowd are not paying the money to attend the event…their parents are and from what I heard, some parents were very unhappy with what their girls received for $250.

*Have something there for the parents. Since it was required that parents buy a ticket, a General Admission ticket suggested, consider having something they might be interested in seeing or doing while their kids are enjoying themselves.
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I wish I could have enjoyed this event and I am sad that I can’t give a favorable recap of my experience. I do hope BeautyCon returns to Dallas next year…bigger and better than the first time.

Scoop: The new NYX Cosmetics Prismatic Eye Shadows are beautiful! Grabby hands!