GaryOak's Everfree Northwest 2014 Post-Mortem Blog! · 11:15pm Jul 8th, 2014
Hello, everyone! Once again, another Everfree Northwest convention has come and gone, and boy, what a convention it was. To say I had a phenomenal time would be an understatement. Let's begin, shall we?
Picture gallery here. Rather than linking the pictures individually, I'll throw up this gallery as an accompaniment to the blog.
Where to start? The Wednesday and Thursday were somewhat uneventful, as they were travel days. I had to spend the night at my friend's place because I live far enough away to warrant that, and we had to leave at 9:00 AM to cross the American border in good time. Highlights from both nights featured dramatic readings of one of my unreleased stories to much laughter and me writing 1,500 words while stuck in Seattle rush hour traffic. I guess long van rides are good for something, after all.
The first day of the con was quite the gauntlet. My friend Cam and me went to Denny's for breakfast followed by a trip to the vendor's hall, where I picked up my preordered copy of Twilight Sparkle's Secret Shipfic Folder and bumped into Grennadder (the chap who drew the cover art for Be Like Her). Following that, we went to the opening ceremonies, which were quite standard for Everfree; the VIPs came and said a few words, the Everfree troupe performed a couple of skits, and Royal Coat (con chair) said a few words.
Following the ceremonies, I headed for the first fanfic panel of the con and had a good time as a member of the audience. I got to touch base with a large chunk of the writing track before I headed off to get my autographs and photos from the VAs. Despite having a pay-to-win Sponsor badge, I barely made it back in time for my panel, Literary Merit. I had a blast during the panel. The audience was pretty large, and one of the best moments was when I shouted out my favourite fic that I've preread for The Royal Guard (Ebon Mane's Tired) and Ebon happened to be in the audience and did a fist pump.
After the awesomeness of the panel, I grabbed dinner with Cam and Horizon. It was then that Horizon revealed his dark, terrible card game. It's like Cards Against Humanity, except you write passages from a terrible romance novel. It's one of the funniest things I've ever played. Once Denny's done, the fun night began.
I entered the Iron Author writing competition. We had two hours to write a fanfic with some restrictions. It had to be PG-ish; it had to contain three of four “ingredients” (a manticore, a marketplace, stars and stripes, and pushing the envelope); and it had a soft limit of 2,000 words. That lasted until about 10:00 PM. The results would be announced at an award ceremony at 9:00 PM the next evening. Following the contest, I did some catching up with fellow TRG prereaders BronyWriter and Flint Sparks. They are good people.
Anyway, I went to my hotel room with my friends, who travelled together as part of a huge convoy from Vancouver, BC, and got quite drunk. I went through at least 400mL of Fireball and chased it with four beers. I filled up my hip flask with more of the good stuff and went to the writer's chill out area. After hanging around there for a while, I went to Ponystock until it ended, just before 2:00 AM. Then my group went back to the hotel room, drank some more, then raided the pool, where we swam around until 3 in the morning. Finally, I decided to turn in. I don't think many of us were partying later than that.
I woke up at around 7:30 on the Saturday. I had a bit of a hangover, but I managed to survive. Knowing when to switch to water is very important, kids! After another Denny's breakfast—which I barely stomached—I went into the vendor hall again and got a commission from Tony Fleecs, the IDW comic book artist. More on that later.
I barely managed to make my comedy panel due to vendor hall-related delays, but I arrived five minutes early, and there was no harm done. I had the most fun on the comedy panel, mainly because my third wind kicked in. After that, I had to do a pretty nasty crunch: The comedy panel (which forced me to miss the Meet the VAs panel) got out at 12:45. Autographs opened at 1:00, and the two people I still needed—comic writers Heather and Georgia—were in there. If I missed them, I may not have been able to get an autograph during the con. The problem? Their autographs ran until 2:30, but the third and final panel I was on for the year, Making the Big Time, started at 1:30.
The guys manning the autograph line were incredibly kind. I explained my situation to them on Friday, telling them that I was compelled to be on those panels, so I couldn't just line up for 3 hours, despite having a sponsor badge. They let you fast track the regular line, but kids still got in first, and the autographs didn't start on time. In fact, they were at least half an hour late. You know where this is going. They were so kind, they actually let me in before anyone else to grab autographs from Heather and Georgia because they were ready, but the VAs (who I already had) weren't. I made my panel with a couple minutes to spare.
Making the Big Time was an interesting panel to be on. I sat alongside Piquo Pie, Horizon, and Pen Stroke. We had a strong variety of advice to give, and I think it went rather well. Immediately following that was the How to Write a Villain panel. I have mixed feelings on that. I heard quite a few people weren't too entertained by it, and I wasn't that grabbed, either, despite having Heather on it. The best part was when she was saying a phrase about villains that included the word “power.” As soon as she said that word, the power in the room went out. I'm not even kidding.
Once that was over, we had a quick break and regrouped for our traditional 13 Coins steak dinner. Cam, four others from the convoy, as well as BronyWriter and his fiancee, joined me. The steak was great, and the bill was high, as per usual. With that out of the way, there was almost no time left before the Iron Author awards ceremony, so I headed straight there.
The ceremony was great. A good three dozen people showed up, and I ran into Bookish Delight. I was expecting a cute little English girl. My expectations were obliterated. Bookish is a pretty awesome person. Read his stuff!
Somehow, I managed to capture bronze at the contest against some very stiff competition. Congratulations to the two deserving writers who bested me and everyone who made the short list! For those curious, the story I won with was called Twilight Sparkle's Not-So-Secret Shipfic Folder. I need to revise it next week, but when it's finished, I will post it to Fimfic, as well as the raw version I wrote in two hours.
After that, I basically had a repeat of Friday night, except my stomach wasn't right since the morning. I thought I was going to vomit or be unable to eat food for a good chunk of the day, especially after more beers that night. However, more Fireball actually settled my stomach down. I'm glad of this because I had a great time partying from midnight until 2:00 AM again, mixing fanfic chill out (including playing more of Horizon's pervy game!) and the last of Ponystock. I had enough liquor in me to enjoy throwing a giant Cadance around the audience while Living Tombstone rocked the house.
With the concert over, I randomly ran into Tombstone and a hot chick cosplaying Vinyl in the hotel corridors while we were on our way back to our rooms. I crashed out shortly after 2:00.
Sunday was, as one might expect, more low-key. We slept in a bit, leaving the room at around 8:30, and went to Denny's for the last time. After enjoying breakfast, we met up with the convoy to start getting things into the van. I went to the dealer's hall and picked up my awesome commission from Tony Fleecs.
This will be the cover art for an upcoming story I plan on writing. It already exists in TV script format, so most of the grunt work is already done. The working title is Diamond of Desire, so keep a look out!
Once I picked up that awesome piece of artwork, I headed off to the pay-to-win concert, which started very late due to sound technical difficulties. I still caught a good 45 minutes of it before I had to go to the Meet the Writers panel on the mane stage (my first time there since the opening ceremonies and Ponystock). The panel was a lot of fun, and I headed to the last fanfic panel (How to Write a Hero) afterward.
The fanfic panel got out, and I paid the vendor hall one last visit before the closing ceremonies began. We all said our goodbyes to each other as Royal Coat handed the mantle of EFNW chair to two other people. We left shortly afterward.
The trip home was tired and largely uneventful. The border crossing went fine, which was nice, and we arrived at my friend's place at about 11:00 PM. From there, I got the first good night's sleep I had in nearly a week and headed home the next day.
Here is a picture of the swag I got at the convention:
Not pictured: two We Love Fine pins, two We Love Fine keychans, and a Smartypants card. The messenger bag and blind bag ponies were my prizes from Iron Author.
Liquor consumed: 750mL of Fireball, a few shots of Vodka, and ten beers.
Thanks very much for reading, and I'll see some of you at Bronycan at the end of August!
Sad to have missed it. I loved EFNW last year.
2267742
I wish you were there!
Fun times all around, and it was fun to have you on panels. I wish I could've been drinking and hanging out more with you and all the others in the evenings, but I barely managed to do all I needed to as staff, even while staying completely sober. A few beers and I don't think I would've possibly made it to those morning panels. Hooray for working vacations!
Awww piss! I thought I managed to dodge all cameras...
Dat Spike is adorbs.
And holy crap, I really wish I had known about Horizon's game. Next year, count me in.
But yeah, Everfree tends to be awesome. Probably the only downside to it tends to be that Denny's is the only close eatery in town. Few days of that gets real old real fast.
Meeting you was great! Hope to see you there next year!
2268417
You're in the random crowd shot of the panel room, I take it? If that's the case, at least nobody can see your badge.
2268428
I can't wait until Horizon develops it more. It was so much fun. I want a copy to play with my university's writing club! I saw you in the Denny's at least one day, but it was at a different timing, and you sat on the other side of the establishment, so we couldn't really wander through to say hi, since we were in a hurry to get to some event or other. I think it might've been Sunday.
2268405
Hey, thanks a lot, man. This isn't my first time doing panels, but it's the first time I've done them at a major convention, especially the con with the best writing track in the fandom. You need to come to Bronycan and just relax. No panels, no staffing, just a smaller con and a lot of liquor.
2268673 You know... I might just have to consider that... BronyCan I mean. Especially if I can convince a friend or two from here to ride share and/or split a room. Might be a good excuse to finally ride a train for cheap travel too, as cross-border flights are a lot pricier.
2268764
It's worth it if you don't have to sleep overnight in the train, I think. Last year, the schedule was light enough that I could be pretty well everywhere I wanted. Oh, plus there is a pub and a liquor store attached to the venue building.
2268673 True
Great seeing you at the con!
2268428 2268673
I promise I'll drop updates on my FIMFic blog as the game moves toward production.
2271915
Dude, it was a blast as always! My highlight of EFNW—especially with a VIP list as oddly thin as this year's—is meeting other fandom writers. We've got the best damn writing track in the fandom, bar none, and it was an honour to be on it this time.