Last weekend the first European pony convention, The Galacon, took place in Stuttgart, Germany. (A well chosen place if you ask me, because the name Stuttgart derives from Stutengarten which translates as Mare Garden). I attended as an volunteer and thought I compile a little report about the event.

The short version: I had a lot of fun and an amazing weekend.

The longer version with some pictures (click for larger versions):

The Galacon took place on Saturday and Sunday, but most volunteers already arrived on Friday for the preparations. So did I. I was supposed to be the driver for the guests of honor, Julia Meynen (the voice of German Twilight Sparkle) and Anneli Heed (Swedish Spitfire, among other), show them around town a little. But alas, Weatherhoof (one of the initiators of Galacon) and I got stuck in traffic and arrived two hours late. So somebody else took on that job and we helped with the con's preparations.

But I also got to meet other bronies face to face for the first time (never attended one of the local meet ups before) and had great time just talking with them, and not only about ponies.

The Saturday came around, which of course meant working, since I was a volunteer. But I still had lots of time to mingle, look around and enjoy the con.

Before the dealer's room opened, I used my volunteers badge and snuck in. One of the vendors had a lot of pony plushies on display, but wasn't selling anything yet. I took a picture, since I knew I would probably not get to buy one as the line in front of the room was already very long. And I was right, after one hour all plushies were gone. But I still got a WeLoveFine shirt, some blindbag ponies and a deck of pony tarot cards.

Some of the lucky bronies who got their hands on one. The guy with the Derpy plushie got up at 6 am and spent the whole morning in the line to get it.

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There was fursuit vendor. His job is crafting giant mascots for sport teams etc, but he also took up making pony suit and even does commissions. They're not cheap, but high quality since this guy knows his business. I got to take a picture with the suit he made for the Galacon's mascot, Canni Soda, and even got to try on one of the heads.

There were also panels with the voice actors, a pony animation panel with Mr. Poniator, a demonstration of Legends of Equestria, but I missed most of those due to working my shifts. But I attended the karaoke hour (but not on stage ;P ) and played some pony poker.

The main event was the gala event in the evening. Every attendee was required to wear (at least casual) formal outfits and boy did the bronies deliver. The event was meant to start out as a real gala ball with formal dances and then move on to some jazz before it finishes of with club music. I wasn't there for the beginning, but I was told the ball descended into a brony disco already thirty minutes in (to the understandable annoyance of some people). I for one arrived late at 11 pm and found exactly what I was looking for: Bronies dancing to brony music and singing pony songs together. Needless to say the next three hours passed by in a breeze of exhaustive dancing. Bronies are actually capable to pull of those instant mass choreograph dances, you only see in musical numbers (I think my favorite were the zombie robots, when Rainbow Factory was played). There was one guy in a Flim (or Flam) cosplay – I think he was Dutch – who just put on the slickest moves. And the swiss bronies also had a lot of energy. My personal highlight was when the DJ put on Smile Smile Smile (on my request) and the whole dance floor descended into one big group hug of friendship.

Needless to say I went to bed that night (morning actually) exhausted, but very happy and with a big smile on my face.

There was a guy with a video camera on stage the whole time I was dancing, so I think most it will appear on Youtube sooner or later.

Sunday passed a lot shorter. The main event on the second day was definitely the Bronies for Good charity auction. And boy, did that escalate quickly – mostly thanks to the swiss bronies, which just went crazy. If I remember correctly, they (or least some of their group) bought at least Weatherhoof's fedora for 90 euros, the Robo Dash Helmet for 200, a Lyra custom for 300, the Canni banner by John Joseco for 900 and a handmade Gamer Luna sculpture for freaking 1650 euros. I don't have good pictures of everything, I was sitting too far back. Also I had to leave early, so I missed the end of the auction, but apparently over 8000 euros went to Bronies for Good, which is said to be more than the auction at BronyCon made.

The con wasn't perfect. The sound stage had to deal with a lot of technical issues and volunteer coordination needs to be improved, but that was to be expected of a new convention. I think almost everybody had a great time at Galacon. I certainly had!

And to put the weekend into perspective: The reason I had to leave early was that I had tickets for the Supercup in Munich. Visiting the Allianz Arena is not common occurrence for me, also we had great seats watching Germany's top two teams battling it out and all I could think was: "This is only the second coolest thing I attended the weekend."

So much for my Galacon report. Were any of you there?

NTL