Ok, so I promised you all a convention report, and now that
my AC seems to finally be fixed so I can actually get some sleep, now seems
like a good time to do it.
Overall the convention was fun, though there were a few
problems here and there. Full report
after the jump.
Alright, so let me start with the bad. The first issue was simply size. The convention hall was smaller than the
dealer’s room at Otakon. Now, this is a
smaller convention and as much space is not needed, but a bit more space would
have been of great benefit. The hall was
a single room divided by large, free standing curtains, so noise was a
problem. Anything going on in one part
of the hall affected the rest of it, and the acoustics were terrible, with so
much echo it was impossible to understand what anyone was saying during their
panel. Additionally, the aisle’s of the
dealer’s area were spaced a bit too tight, making moving around very difficult
in the crowds. The second issue was some
minor organizational issues. The biggest
was the autographs. To get one, you had
to go to the convention store and buy a voucher for the person you wanted one
from. However, the convention store also
sold the official convention merchandise, meaning that people wanting one had
to wait on line with the people who wanted the other, increasing wait times for
both. In fact, my friend had to wait
four hours for a voucher. Then, you had
to take the voucher and go to the autograph session, and wait in line
again. Lastly, the cosplay photoshoots
suffered from some organizational issues, and the contest had some problems as
well, but I’ll go into that later. Of
course, considering that this is only the second time this convention was held,
and that it was the first time the people running it ever ran a con, the job
they did was nothing short of amazing.
For a first time, to only have these few issues is incredible.
The only other negative was not the fault of the staff. I had mentioned previously that someone my
friend and I had history with may be there.
That person was in fact there, and part of the staff. Though I did not run into them, my friend
did, (I can not understand how my friend can still be friends with that person
given what that person did to the both of us).
After that, I always got rather defensive when I was close to the area
that person was working in. Fortunately
it was a part of the convention I had no interest in to begin with. Still, it puts a shadow over things for me.
Ok, enough with the downers, lets start with the good stuff.
Things started up on Friday.
I drove up to my friend’s place after work for our staging area. My friend’s costume was not finished, so we
spent until almost midnight trying to
finish it and figure out a way to attach the wings. All while this (and other songs) played.
Which is why we were rather upset that, on Saturday, one of
the staff members informed us that the wings were too big and had to be
removed. That was annoying, we ended up
out at the car doing some emergency repairs in order to pull them in enough to
pass muster.
So, Saturday comes and we head over to the convention
center. In all my con going life, I have
only once made it into the convention center without getting stopped. This was not one of those times. We ended up getting stopped and posing for a
bit on the steps to the center. Right in
front of the center they had a big truck.
On the side of it it had one those massive digitial signs and a speaker
system. They were playing songs, both
official and fan made during the con, and at night they played episodes of the
show until they got kicked out. In fact,
when they played a song a fan had made about Discord, one of the villains, John
Delancie, the voice of Discord himself, actually came out and was dancing.
We make it inside and get on line for badge pickup, which is
fairly long. We are waiting for a few
minutes when one of the staff looks at me and goes “[My Character’s Name]! You are awesome! Come over here!” I look around and I’m like, are you sure its
ok? He says, “No problem, nobody makes
it down to this end. Come on over!” “You got room for [My Friend’s
Character]?” “Oh yeah!” So we were actually so awesome that we got to
skip the badge pickup line, and no one in line complained about it either. So that was a pretty good start to the day.
I spent most of the day on Saturday wandering around, posing
for pictures (my friend spent most of it on lines to get an autograph from
Fluttershy’s voice actor). I got
interviewed several times, which is pretty cool, though one of them was a bit
weird. He started asking me questions
about masturbation and getting laid at the con, and I was just kind of like,
“yeah… we’re done here.” A lot of the
dealers and artists liked my outfit too.
There were some pretty awesome people there as well, lot of fun to hang
around with and goof off with. Several
Vinyl Scratch cosplayers had portable DJ rigs set up and were playing
tunes. There was someone walking around
with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Scootaloo, which is absolutely hilarious if you
are part of the culture. I also ended up
taking part in the cosplay photoshoot.
It had a few organizational issues, but overall went well. I did end up kind of dominating it
though. I took charge of when my
character was called out, and I was also helping the staff in between, since
I’m really good at making my voice heard when I want to, and getting people to
obey. At one point the guy in charge is
shouting out for the Trixie cosplayers to get ready, and no one is
listening. So I raise my voice and go,
“Will the Great and Powerful Trixie, please come to the front!” Immediately everyone turns and all the people
start moving up. He looks at me and
says, “I had to add the Great and Powerful part, didn’t I?” and I’m like, “You just got to know how to
talk to them.” I ended the photoshoot as
well with shouting out, “Three cheers for Equestria!” and got everyone to
cheer. In between shoots we did get
bored waiting, though, and ended up doing some impromptu sing a longs. We did
And some others as well.
I also ended up getting pulled to the side by the staff at one point and
asked to pose for some photos to help entertain the people waiting on the
autograph line. My friend did get the
autograph. And eventually the day
wrapped up and we headed home.
Sunday started off much the same way. We got there a little bit earlier than
planned, and had to wait outside in the heat till the doors opened. My friend did not cosplay, but wore the
autographed shirt from Saturday. Again,
we wandered about for a time, doing photos and the like. My friend wanted to buy a souvenir of some
sort, though I decided not to buy anything this year. While shopping, I got stopped by a pair of
young girls working a table. They told
me, “Can we take your picture? Your costume
is great, we love it every time you walk past our table.” So of course I obliged, and even posed with
them. Then, while meandering, a staff
member approached us and proceeded to direct us to the nearest exit, asking us
to please calmly evacuate the center.
Wait, what? It turns out one of
the light fixtures caught fire and all 4000 of us had to leave. So we trooped out and hung around outside for
a while. I did take some photos out
there, but mostly tried to stay in the shade.
Of course we started goofing around.
One of the dealers decided to advertise for their “fire sale”. The staff started asking for things to do,
and people made suggestions. Of course,
I couldn’t resist adding my own, namely a massive game of “Duck Duck Goose”
which would have been awesome. We did
end up doing another massive sing a long, singing
When the fire fighters showed up, we all ended up giving
them a standing ovation. Most of them
were pretty cool, but one of the drivers looked like he was absolutely
terrified to be there. We all had a good
laugh about that. But, eventually the
fire was put out, and we were able to get back inside. For a first time staff, their organization
was astounding. They got everyone in and
back up and running, and even had the schedule reorganized in less than half an
hour. It was very well handled. It helps that the fanbase tends towards
polite and friendly individuals as well, after all, we were there to celebrate
the magic of friendship.
The rest of Sunday was less eventful. We wandered some more, and I ended up doing
the Sunday photo shoot as well. This
time though, the organization was a bit less well handled and we were in a
smaller area which made it harder. The Saturday
shoot was definitely the better of the two.
I also ended up helping out the security staff, providing a temporary
escort for some of the VIP guests on two occasions, and helping to clear out
the path for them to proceed. Then we
took a break for a bit, and sat down with a couple other cosplayers. I decided my tail needed brushing, the thing
tangled quite a bit (I’m actually really sad about the tail, I worked really
hard on it and it seemed like no one noticed it at all). When I say that it was tangled, I mean
it. I broke my brush trying to comb it
out. At which point a Fluttershy
cosplayer offered to take over, which led to some funny pictures and bad tail
jokes. Not that I was the only one
making such jokes, considering that the two “rooms” of the convention were
named the Mane Hall and the Tail Hall.
Gotta love pony humor.
The end of the day for us was the cosplay competition. I mentioned before that there were some weird
parts to it. First of all, the
competition was by invitation only.
Usually there is an application process of some sort. But in this case, there were people who had
actual business cards wandering the hall and the photo shoots, and you had to
be given a card to compete. I actually
ended up getting three of them, so I guess the outfit was better than I
thought. But with no application the
judges had no way of keeping track of which was which in the even that there
was more than one entry of a character.
The second was the judging. There
was only two categories, single or paired.
Nothing like “attention to detail” or “most creative” or even judge’s
awards. And there was no interview. Normally each contestant gets interviewed by
the judges beforehand, so they can get up close with each contestant, talk with
them and go over the outfit. The judges
only saw the contestants when they went up on ‘stage’, and only from
behind. Lastly, there didn’t seem to be
any sort of guidelines agreed upon ahead of time for judging, like a checklist
or rubric or anything. It’s true that I
did not win, but there were people there that I would not have minded losing
to. But those people did not win
either. The ones who did, in my opinion,
didn’t really deserve it over some of the others present. Despite that, I still had fun competing.
There were quite a few others who entered, and we generally
had fun with it. The Flim Flam brothers
were a popular character, some brought cider, but none brought the Super Speedy
Cider Squeezy 6000
Discord was another popular one, and one even brought a
glass of “chocolate rain” for the judges.
And there were some unique costumes as well, even some
original characters. If you are
interested, you can watch the whole contest
But it is quite long.
Though if you do watch it, you will see me (whether or not you recognize
me is another story), and there is a bit of a surprise near the end…
Over all, the convention was fun and I would do it
again. Perhaps next year I’ll have a
better costume, and I may even get to see some of you there.
You can also find pictures at the link below.
http://www.meetup.com/BronyCon/photos/all_photos/?photoAlbumId=9475122
And so, we end with a hearty cheer:
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