The TrotCon 2023 Report · 5:47pm Jul 10th, 2023
Man... where do I even begin with this weekend?
Let's do this one more time.
My name is Volrathxp, and I was bitten by a... wait wait wait, wrong franchise. Sorry about that folks.
Let's talk about Trotcon 2023.
Day 0
So... Day 0 of the event was a little strange. Trotcon 2023 was in my hometown of Dayton, OH. I live now literally 20 minutes from the venue the event was at (the Dayton Convention Center). Because of this, we had attempted to work out a way to get the incomparable Elley Ray out to come see our horses out at our barn on Day 0. The weather however, had other plans, and the off and on rain made it difficult for us to make that happen. Alas, next year, and next year we may be working on a way to bring the horses down to the public outside of the center for pony therapy and pets and stuff. Would be so cool to do for sure.
Instead of doing the horse thing, we nabbed my wife's parents (who were joining us this weekend for their very first pony convention ever) and went down to get our badges. There were some issues with badges for sure, as they couldn't find my CG badge or my wife's Earth tier sponsor badge. No worries really, there is a lot that is happening with these events and a lot of growing pains with the new venue and everything. Rest assured, Darkly was able to get us taken care of.
Day 0 was pretty uneventful otherwise, we had dinner and went home. lol.
Day 1
Day 1 was a really interesting blur of a day. We showed up in time to get the badge situation squared away and my wife Lucky scoured the vendor hall a bit before Opening Ceremonies. Opening did run a bit late because of AV issues, but it was fairly fun. I got to hang out with Elley Ray backstage (the best person, no lies) and also got to meet Brian Doe-Chua (voice of Timber Spruce) as well as Bahia Watson (voice of Misty from G5). Absolutely amazing folks. Also got to meet the rest of our CG lineup for the event including local Dayton brony Amber Evergreen and perennial Dayton brony The Brony Critic (who I've known for several years now because of Trotcon). Other greats of this lineup included the wonderful Thoth Penswell of Riffponies and also Befish / Fluffle Puff (YES THAT FLUFFLE PUFF).
I wore a horse mask on stage. It was hot, my face was melting. It also looked I was doing unforward things with the microphone. But it was funny.
After opening we ate lunch and had overpriced convention center food before going off to do various panels and checking out of the vendor hall. I made my way over to Tabletop Gaming for playing Magic with some folks as part of the overall event. This was a great time and a lot of goofy stuff happened (Slicer killing the entire table in the first game was gas). I gave away some playmats and a set of pony proxies.
My family had to bounce home after this as it was not feasible for them to stay. I had a panel at 1030 that evening as well as Community Guest Sponsor Meetup. I made my way up to that and it was fun chatting with some of the sponsors. One of them had a really sweet con sketch book with all of the community guests and guests of honor in it.
Absolutely heckin' wild stuff. I left that meetup and had some food before getting ready for my panel at 1030 - The Fillydelphia Fun Farm. The panel went really well overall, small-ish crowd but it was a good time. I left DCC around 1-ish in the morning and went home to sleep.
Day 2
Day 2 was weird for sure. I woke up with the intent of taking the dog to actually get his shots done that morning. He needed to have them done and this was the only time that worked. It was about this time of me leaving there and getting to the convention that my toothache really started hitting me hard. We ended up travelling out for lunch after making our way through the vendor hall yet again and had a local Arby's up the street which I don't recommend. It wasn't pleasant. My toothache got to the point where I had to decommit myself from attending the Hooverang panel as a guest with Amber Evergreen that evening (which was a hilarious mixed wire conversation that led to most of the CGs tagging me on Discord at 10pm that evening even though I was at home nursing Orajel and Tylenol).
At the very least things calmed down enough on me to help with my wife Lucky Star's panel on "Could a Pony Survive This?" Honestly I think she did a great job with the panel, as this is only the third time she's presented it, and the crowd was nice and engaging on the topics. It was well attended too, and I was really happy with it.
We had pretty much decided at that point to go home and rest because of my tooth. While we were talking with some friends, the convention center fire alarm went off! Apparently an electrical issue caused a brown-out in the area that reset the alarm system causing it to go off. We quickly exited and watched the commotion of hundreds of bronies outside the convention center while the Fire Department arrived to give the all clear before going home.
As noted, after being home, I did get a bunch of tags because I didn't well communicate my absence from the Hooverang panel. Amber took it upon herself to play as me in some of the rounds, allowing me to attend in spirit. I heard it was pretty funny.
I slept, or at least tried to sleep because of dental pain.
Day 3
Day 3 was a quick wakeup and meet with the rest of the family at the center to go check out vendor hall stuff again before the TrotCon Charity Auction. We settled into things at the TrotCon Charity Auction and wow, what an emotional event. TrotCon 2023 was the final event for the Traveling Pony Museum (and my good friend Inky Notebook who is amazing), so most of the Museum's collection was auctioned off for charity. There were some absolutely insanely unique pieces in this collection. I mean, insane. Stuff like the piece of the light from the BronyCon 2012 fire, a Discord custom plush signed by John DeLancie, and multiple Tara Strong signed pieces. It was wild.
I was able to get my horse mask signed by the GOHs and later started to get signed by CGs and the charity team. I will say yet again, Foalpapers absolutely rocked this charity auction, and the effort put forth by Cosmic Keyframe and Thoth during the event was stellar.
I brought two major items to the Charity auction this year. One of those was a copy of Fallout: Equestria - Mending Hearts which was the first copy of that pretty much ever. I don't even own a copy. It went for $250 for charity.
The other one was a MTG focused thing. It was a custom foil proxy full EDH deck for Princess Twilight Sparkle in a nice deckbox. I was able to get the deckbox signed by all the Guests of Honor. Inky Notebook kicked in a full set of the "Ponies: The Galloping" set alongside it, and it went for a stunning $1,150! I cannot believe this, it was so good.
The Charity auction raised over 40 THOUSAND DOLLARS for the Kaleidoscope Youth center out of Columbus, OH. Insane. Absolutely insane.
We went back to the vendor hall for a final time where my wife found a sweet Equestria Girls Minis Rarity set that was with our friends at Crackle's Cousin Cosplay, who are in the process of selling a lot of unique stuff to help fund some medical issues that their leader is having. Wishing to help support our friends in any way possible I bought the set, as it was also signed by Tabitha St. Germain. I got a hug from Jenny. She's awesome.
Seriously though, continue to sent love to Crackle's and friends. They need it. (Twitter link - https://twitter.com/s_crackle)
Closing Ceremonies! I wore my horse head again on stage. Again it was very hot. Drew signed my horse mask while I was wearing it on stage. My tooth was definitely bugging me some more and once we got through the CG section, I said my goodbyes to my fellow CGs of the weekend (such an amazing crew of folks) and headed home and got dinner with my family.
Day 4
Crap there's no more convention!
I'm actually feeling a lot better today mouth-wise, so that's exceptional for sure. This weekend was a wild blur and things were super fun. I really appreciate my wife Lucky Star and my daughter for all their support of me but also I really enjoy doing panels with Lucky, she did a great job and it was fun to spend time that way. It was also nice to know that my in-laws really enjoyed themselves this weekend and they found interesting stuff to do at the convention.
I also really am thankful for the other CGs this year. Awesome group the lot of them, and it felt nice to be included on things (even if I couldn't make it to one of them).
ALSO I MET FLUFFLE PUFF.
Onward to Ponyville Ciderfest! I think if anyone reading this is on the fence about going to this convention... get over the fence it's going to be epic.
- V
Awesome! Sounds like a great time. We're super lucky that our GOHs and CGs in this fandom are such amazing people (and yes, you're in that group
).
And I will win those Magic Horse Cards at Ciderfest.