GaryOak's Bronycon Post-Mortem Report – Part 2: Return of the King · 2:25am Aug 11th, 2014
Day 2
I was very exhausted and hung over (surprise, surprise). I had a very fast shower and bolted for the vendor line, skipping breakfast. Why? I needed to be almost first in line for the hall in order to get an Andy Price commission, and Dusk Watch agreed to buy me a Subway breakfast sandwich while I stood in line. To my horror, there were already three dozen people lined up, including a fairly grumpy fellow also in search of an Andy Price commission who'd been there since 6 AM. My heart sank, but I lined up anyway.
I was hoping I could still dash to the front of the line because the “line” they formed wasn't even the actual line yet; security didn't let anybody actually line up until about 8. Unfortunately, that was a no go. Most of them were in line for the Enterplay super limited edition Derpy playing card, but I didn't hold out much hope.
Dusk was super late with breakfast. It got really bad. I ended up having to sit down in the standing line at around 9 because I nearly fainted. Then we were forced to stand up, and I was pretty unhappy. Finally, just before 10, breakfast arrived. I wolfed down the chips and chugged the regular Coke—I was desperate enough to drink pop—just before the line started.
Now, allow me to segway into an important point of the con. Dusk was one of the 10 Diamond sponsors. That's the $2,000 badge, people—the highest level of supporter. Unfortunately for him, they only let him skip panel lines, and not the vendor or autograph lines, even though they still let kids in before even the Diamond badges.
Thing is, a Gold sponsor (there were only 60 total Gold, Platinum, and Diamonds out of the 9,600 attendees) asked security if the got to skip the autograph line. Security didn't know, so he tweeted the Bronycon PR, and they said yes. This caused bit of a shitstorm because that was misinformation. That coupled by the security guard in charge of the vendor line making a judgment call allowed this Gold sponsor and Dusk to go ahead of the line.
I gave Dusk my comic, which had the full information and reference images for my commission (gotta come prepared!), and he charged the Andy Price booth. They were first and second in line, and I got my commission. Superb! I was pretty euphoric the rest of the con. My biggest mission was accomplished. It cost a fair chunk of change, but I didn't care. It would be ready by Sunday.
I just want to take this time to say how sorry I feel for Dusk. He was very furious with the con due to how the Diamonds were treated, and I don't blame him. For 2 grand, you should practically have a handler like the actual VIPs did (there were more VIPs than Diamonds). At Everfree NW, the $150 patron badges got the same line privileges as the $350 sponsors, who were second in line behind the disabled and the children for everything. At Bronycon? Disabled, press, and kids got priority on everything, then everyone was in the same line, except for panels. No vendor hall or autograph room line skipping, even for the Gold/Platinum/Diamonds. If I had one of those badges, I'd have been furious, too. I think the two worst strikes against Dusk were that every sponsor badge—even the ones not supposed to get line privileges—got them for at least the closing ceremonies, and on top of that, they wouldn't let him reserve seats, even though a bunch of other people were doing that. I'm just glad he didn't run into the con chair.
I spent the next little while roaming the vendor hall, going to practically every single booth there and checking the wares. I purchased the badass Chrysalis cover for comic issue 4 (the only one I'm missing from the main arc pre-reflections), the con-exclusive Baltimore cover, the Maneiac exclusive Enterplay card, two card tins (Rarity and Luna), the Wild Fire TSSSF con promo (which I later got signed by Sibsy), a bunch of buttons, a small gift for Horse Voice, Twilight and Pinkie Pie 4DE plushies, and I had a brief chat with the TSSSF crew, Pirate Dash, Grennadder, and Pixel Kittes's assistant (Pixel was in Germany).
I also ran into GM Berrow in the vendor's hall and these three lovely ladies:
Once my browsing was done (this was spread out over a couple sessions on Saturday), I went to the VA panel, which was absolutely glorious. After this, I got Sibsy's autograph and chatted with her about Horse Voice's Wild Fire. She ended up reading it and really liking it! With that done, I went to the crossover panel, which was again pretty fun and contained some very useful information. With all this said and done, I took a nap and spent time in Quills and Sofas chilling out with other writers for a good while. One of the highlights of Quills and Sofas was Cyborg Samurai walking up to me, looking at my badge, saying, “Meat Pie...” and shaking his head. Victory.
The dinner plans we thought we made yesterday all went up in flames—much to my rage, as I hadn't eaten lunch—and we were going to eat at 7 instead of 5. I planned on 5 and skipped lunch. Great. But things ended up working out, as a bunch of writers went for dinner at Luna Del Something's Bistro, so my group's dinner crew just ordered a small appetizer to tide us over until our dinner. I got to spend a good hour and a bit talking about EqD vs TRG prereading, writing, and other stuff with Pascoite, plus harassing Alexstrasza about being a marelester. I made Pasco laugh when I told him I call him “Pastcoitus” in TRG chat.
We ate at PF Chang's, and my goodness, that was some insanely good Chinese food. We ordered a ton of dishes and ate family style. Dinner only ended up being $30 a person. The dumplings and Mongolian beef were god tier. With that dinner over, we went back to the con at 10:30 and caught the fanfiction panel, which was a very good lecture by Cyborg Samurai and fanfiction and its merits. He covered a lot of things that I already felt strongly about, and we discussed the panel further on the Monday.
After that, we went back to the room and partied. I left at about 1:15 and arrived just in time for the surprise Alex S set, partying until about 2:15. I went through two beers and the other half of my Fireball plus whatever I had with dinner. I crashed after the rave and thankfully had no alarm.
Day 3
Ah, the last day of the convention. Dusk decided to line up early for Tabitha's autograph because he was denied the previous day despite having a voucher, so he got to skip most of the line. I bought us both Subway, ate mine, and sped off to the Sunset Shimmer Says panel on the mane stage. It was a lot of fun, and they had a bit of open Q&A halfway through, where I got to ask Big Jim and Josh Haber a question (what was the most difficult forced product placement to implement?) and left a bit early, since my commission should have been done. Unfortunately, I found out from Dusk that it was still being coloured, so I went to the Adventure writing panel.
That panel was honestly the most high level and useful panel I've ever been to. There was an enormous amount of great information there. I ended up asking the first question, which was actually the best question I've ever asked; I brought up the topic of describing large, epic battles in a story, I used the last five or so chapters of Repercussions as an example, I asked them what they thought of that method, and what other methods they would recommend. That got the ball rolling pretty good for the last half of the panel. Seriously, go check it out once it hits Youtube. You won't be disappointed.
With that panel over, I had a small break between that and the next one, so I got to pick up the Andy Price commission at last. Holy shit, is it amazing. For those few Repercussions fans out there, you're in for a treat:
For those curious about who that Alicorn is, go read it to find out! All I'm saying is this is a scene from the final chapter.
It was after noon by this point, so I went to the Voice Acting 101 panel. I have no aspirations of being a VA, but there was a stellar lineup of VIPs at the panel, so I knew I was in for a treat. Man, that panel was great. Finally, there was the comic book panel from 2-3 PM on the mane stage. It started a bit late, but ran a bit late, too.
It was hilarious, as the four comic book crew (Andy, Heather, Katie, and Tony) have great chemistry, just like the DHX staff, so it was very fun times. I got to ask the last question, and it ended up being pretty good, too (What was your favourite piece of canon that you added to the MLP universe?). Yes, the comics are considered 100% canon by Hasbro and the show staff, unless the show explicitly contradicts them, but they try to avoid happening by making sure episode and issue outlines don't conflict. For example, Katie Cook ended up coming up with a comic issue idea that was very similar to Rarity takes Manehattan, and she once had Scootaloo flying in the background of a panel. Both of those had to be scrapped.
After that, I hung out in Quills and Sofas until it closed, then lined up for closing ceremonies, which started nearly an hour late and ran until almost 6. I met up with most of my room crew (including DHR), my friend who I've known since 2011, Orajm, his sister, and TailsFox88 (the guy who stomped me in Iron Auhors at EFNW), and we went to Dick's Last Resort.
Here are some pictures from Quills and Sofas plus that trip:
Maskedferret!
Applejinx
Group shot, post-con.
On the way to Dick's.
That place was one of the most unique dining experiences I've had. The waiters are meant to act like assholes. I ordered a couple of drinks which I discovered to be insanely expensive, making my dinner bill a total I'd rather not share, but the experience was incredible. The food was okay, but the company and the hilarious insulting paper hats made it worth it. One of them mentioned clopping, and Orajm's sister got a hat that said something like “EVERYONE here tried to hit this.” Dusk Watch's hat fittingly said “pimp of Bronycon.”
Yep...
On our way back to the hotel, we grabbed some cheese cake from Cheesecake Factory. We played a bunch of TSSSF, drank lightly, and just chilled out until 1 AM.
DHR strikes again! The toilet was clogged, literally dozens of towels had shit stains on them and were wet, and there were shit stains on part of the toilet.
One important thing to note about the con: There was a huge law school frat party at the Hilton over the weekend. Everyone, ranging from middle-aged men to young boys were all wearing two and three-piece suits. We're talking super fancy and lots of money. The Hilton received a great many noise complaints over the weekend, and the frat blamed the bronies. The Bronycon chair talked to the Hilton and did some research. It turns out that literally every noise complaint and the damages done—including a broken plant pot on our floor with dirt everywhere—was the frat and not us. A few hundred rich, fancy dressed frat boys are more irresponsible and abusive than nearly two Roman legions' worth of bronies. Just let that sink in for a moment.
Day 4
No con meant no alarm. Except DHR, who had to get up at some ungodly hour like 5-something. The previous night, I dipped into the stash of extra towels we had and put out mine for the morning since most of the towels were destroyed by DHR. I put them in a discreet section of the bathroom, and a pile of towels in a more obvious spot. Guess which stack DHR annihilated? At least one bath towel, a washcloth, and a hand towel, all RIPed in pepperoni. His alarm also woke me up, but thankfully, I managed to pass out again.
The rest of us woke up past 9 AM and took our time getting ready and packing up. We barely managed to make the noon checkout time due to miss-communications and departing schedule conflicts. We finally ended up having a brunch at around 1 PM, and then we took the tram back to the BWI airport.
I was dreading my return flight because in order to save money, I booked with US Airways on the way back. They are one of the worst airlines in North America. Their flights get delayed and cancelled all the time, and they are notorious for bad customer service and losing luggage. Good thing I don't check bags.
My troubles began immediately with the automatic kiosk. It seemed to think I was American, and it wouldn't recognize my flight reservation. When I entered my conformation number, I had to input my data like I was visiting Canada and not returning. It asked things like “hotel name/street address of first night's stay,” and “which country are you a resident of?” To the latter, I was given three options: United States, United States, or Other. I'm not kidding. I picked Canada, and it eventually asked for the state name of my final destination. I put in “BC,” and it gave me an error. I finally got it resolved when I was ran through the computer manually rather than those stupid automated things.
We got through TSA just before 4 (Dusk, Orajm, his sister, and myself), and we had to say goodbye to Dusk as his flight was about to leave almost immediately. I got to chill out with Orajm and his sister for an hour and a half before their flight left, then I got to spend nearly two hours with Cyborg Samurai and his friend chatting about fanfiction and our academic research on the matter. Then I got to chat with TailsFox88 until 7:30 PM, when I had to grab McDonald's for a quick dinner, which I ate on my flight that departed at 8:10 PM.
I landed in Phoenix at 9:35 and spent a bunch of time on the internet. Somehow, I ended up with 70 Fimfiction notifications and a couple dozen emails, so I had fun answering those for a couple hours. What I didn't realize was all the food places shut down at 11 PM in Phoenix, and I'd spent those hours just browsing the web for the first time in nearly a week, so I almost completely missed my opportunity to eat.
Luckily, I managed to find one last place open and grabbed some very overpriced pizza. What was really annoying was the really long corridors and the damn escalated walkways. They didn't move very quickly, but every five seconds, the speakers kept saying, “The walkway is ending. Please, watch your step!” I wish I was making this up. I decided to keep wandering around because my gate wasn't announced yet, and I wanted to be near my flight when I passed out. I eventually found out which gate it was, but I had to go from the A terminal to the B terminal, and half the walkways going toward B were shut down because of a cleaning crew, meaning I had to lug my bags even farther than normal.
Then the quest for a sleeping spot began. I had to hunt for a place where there wasn't an obnoxiously loud TV blaring CNN or some shit 24/7, plus find a place close to my gate. I found such a place, but this one chick wouldn't shut the fuck up on her phone (it was past 1 AM by this point). I eventually got up and left, found a place where the TV was off, then went to sleep, using my backpack and a pillow to rest my head.
Day 5
Remember those god awful TVs? Guess what? It came on at 5-something in the morning and woke me up before 6. Who needs more than 4 hours of sleep, anyway? I ate a decent breakfast for the first time in a while: Sweet potato hash browns, roast beef, and fried eggs with three cups of coffee. The waitress was superb. Then I waited in my gate. And waited. US Airways strikes. The flight was delayed by an hour going out. I'm presently typing this on the plane, and it's looking like I'll miss my 12:50 ferry home. This means I won't be home until past 5 PM. Wonderful.
Sorta-live update: I missed my ferry by roughly 3 minutes because the ferry people are Nazis. I was actually ready to board with cash in hand, but they wouldn't let me on because I had no ticket, and I had no ticket because I got to their booth 3 minutes after sales closed. Words cannot express how much I hate BC Ferries. Just keep this in mind if you ever travel around the Canadian west coast. On the bright side, I didn't have to wait as long because there was an extra 2:30 PM sailing, so there's that.
At least Horse Voice should be picking me up on the other side, and we can hang out for a while before I pass out this evening. With that, I'm going to conclude this con report. Thanks for reading! Despite all the horrible travel, it was an amazing trip, and I got everything I wanted and more.
Con swag!
Closeup of the comics:
Bonus pic of Ruirik and Skeeter:
I apologize on behalf of my native airport. For being one of the largest and busiest airports in the US its amenities are lacking.
Cons sound absolutely exhausting and awesome. Could you ballpark a lower limit on attendance costs?
2360028
Heh, thanks. It was cool seeing cacti from the airport windows, though.
And what do you mean, attendance costs? Attendance cost $70 if you pre-registered, or $80 at the door, with 500 $60 early bird passes. There were 9,600 people there, plus all the sponsors (the Gold+ sponsors paid $55,000 between the 60 of them), so... $750k? $800k?
2360097
I meant the personal cost to attend, pardon my wording. Hotel, entry (which you mentioned), travel (widely variable, I know), food; that sort of thing.
2360169
Too variable. It depends on your location and your choice of dining. You can go for as little as a few hundred or a minimum of 1.5 grand.
2360173
Knowing I could squeeze by on a few hundred bucks is quite helpful, actually. I always imagine conventions being incredibly expensive by default. Thanks!
2360211
That's for locals. The hotel costs a couple hundred if you split it 4-6 ways, and food can be as cheap as $10 per meal to $30, depending on where you eat. Factor in alcohol, con merch, the badge, and the travel. It costs me well over $1,500.
2360028
It depends mainly on your travel arrangements to the convention. The con badge cost is the cheap part. Figure $50/day as a lower limit on room and board (if you, as Gary says, split a hotel room multiple ways, and try to go cheap on food). If you have to take a plane to the con, though, that's at least a few hundred each way.
$500 would give me an awesome weekend with lots of con swag at my local pony con (Babscon in SFO), because I can drive myself there and it's just a tank or two of gas. $500 wouldn't even get me to the front door of Bronycon.
2360275
$500 is a really good weekend for me at EFNW/Bronycan.
Ah, local cost. I'll have to be more diligent in my planning.
Yer silly, Gary. Return of the King is part three!
Bronycon sounded really fun. I think I recognize Orajm. Cool that Sibsy liked Wild Fire; I remember Horse Voice saying somewhere that he never got any feedback about it from her.
[Relevant comment here]
Dat pic of Ruirik and Skeet: The joys of marital bliss!
2360407
Hotel costs roughly $200, assuming you only stay for the Con weekend (Thu-Sun nights, leaving Monday) and 4-way split. Tack on $70 for the con, then whatever it costs you to travel by plane, assuming you're not local. Then you add on $50-100 per day for food, then whatever you're willing to spend on autographs ($20 per) and con goodies. The con swag can range from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars, and that's if you don't go to the charity auction.
2360463
True love.
2360417
This is a two-part trilogy! And the king I was referring to was Cosmo.
2360417
When Gary told me about Sibsy's response, it made my day. Thus, I intend to write Wild Fire: Part II some time eventually.
2360479
Aside from the one meal we snagged at Five Guys, and the Tex-Mex taco place right before we left on monday, I don't think I had a single dinner bill that was under $60... But the drinks were FANTASTIC!
2362679
PF Chang's was $30 a person. Most of my dinners were below $60, I believe.