This past Saturday, I went to Beautycon Dallas with my best friend, Monica. The event took place at Centennial Hall at Fairpark from 12PM-6PM (though we didn't stay for nearly that long). For those who are unfamiliar with what Beautycon is, it's pretty much a convention for makeup and beauty lovers. Companies set up booths and promote their products, and there are usually special guests, typically popular beauty gurus on YouTube or Instagram.
The main reason we even decided to go in the first place was because we saw that Jenn Im of ClothesEncounters and Stephanie Villa aka SoothingSista were announced as special guests! The main guest was actually Bunny aka Grav3yard Girl (is that how you spell it?). I don't follow her, but I know she has a huge following. Monica and I are pretty huge fans of beauty vloggers on YouTube and we've both been following ClothesEncounters since we were in high school.
We both purchased General Admission wristbands, which only granted you entry to the festival itself. The price was $39.99 each, but when you added the $11 service fee and $8.50 for shipping (which was NOT optional, you had to be shipped the wristbands), the total for the 2 tickets was $99.48. There were 3 other packages starting at $129.99 each, which included goodie bags, access to VIP sections, and meetups.
You read that right. Meetups with special guests were NOT included in the General Admission tickets we got. At least, that's what Beautycon made it seem like when you went on their website. We decided to get the cheapest tickets anyway and try to catch whoever we wanted to meet outside of the official meetup events (maybe "accidentally" run into them at some hip Dallas restaurant ;) ), since we were not about to spent $200+ for the higher tier.
After grabbing lunch, we arrived at the event around 1:45PM. I grabbed a map of the menu with a list of all the brands that were represented. I was surprised that there weren't many booths, no more than 30 total. The only brands I recognized were Tarte, Garnier, Maybelline, NYX, Perfumania, Crown Brushes, Redken, and QVC. We walked around for about half an hour, grabbing all the free stuff we could find. There were long lines for most of the well-known brands. Most required you to share and hashtag a picture of their products on Instagram or Twitter in exchange for free product. That was easy enough, since I just deleted the picture after I got the free stuff. :P
A little after 2:00PM, we decided to head over to the official meet and greet area to see if we could catch a glimpse of Jenn and Stephanie. The area was off to the side surrounded by barriers, with a single security person next to the entrance. It was surprisingly pretty empty. Grav3yard Girl's meetup area was actually in the center of the venue and there were a a lot of people in line there.
While still standing behind the barrier, we first noticed Ben, Jenn's boyfriend (he often makes appearances on her vlogs). Then we saw Jenn and Stephanie! I took a really blurry picture from a distance. I admit we were probably being really creepy LOL. After standing outside that area for a few minutes, Monica pointed out that people were just walking in and that the security person wasn't even checking badges (or the lack thereof)! We finally mustered up the courage to just walk in. At this point, we just stood there nervously laughing at how ridiculous we were being.
After we regained some of our composure, we noticed there was basically no line for the meet and greet. Then we noticed some young girls WITHOUT badges getting in the line. Monica was basically like, "If they're able to enter without being checked for a badge, let's try to do it!" We got in the line and...we got to meet Jenn and Stephanie! We were so nervous the entire time and I don't think either of us managed to say anything. It was incredibly awkward. But I'm so glad we were able to get a picture!
Overall, the event itself was pretty disappointing; the long lines, few brands, and the fact that the meet and greet we wanted to attend wasn't even exclusive made me glad I didn't pay more than the General Admission price. I can't imagine why anyone would pay for the larger ticket packages. We had 2 goals in mind for the event: meet Jenn and Stephanie and find some free swag; we got to do both those things for the cheapest ticket price. This was only the 2nd year Beautycon has come to Dallas, so hopefully they will continue to improve the event in the future.
Thanks for reading,
Christina