noise."Con report: PVCF 2023 · 3:54am Nov 22nd, 2023
Hey, it's been over a year since I wrote a con blog post.
Well, not if you count the very late SeaquestriaFest blog post.
So let's talk about Ponyville Ciderfest while it's still fresh in my mind.
This isn't gonna be one of those where I shoutout everyone that I hung out with over the con. I'm kinda terrible at that, to be honest, and then I feel guilty 'cause I forgot to mention someone that I spent an hour chatting with or shared a room with . . . memory's funny like that, isn't it? And, for reasons I'll get into, some of the most memorable parts of the con started months before.
I decided to set out early and get through Chicago at night, in the hopes that traffic would be better. Unlike my manager's usual plan of keeping me as long as he can the day before I go on vacation, this time he let me leave only a half hour after we closed.
Would have liked getting off the rural roads before dusk, so I'd have a better chance of avoiding deer, but on the other hand I was rewarded by driving into a very pretty sunset.
Chicago traffic was what is was, and I stopped for the night in Pleasant Prairie, which was pleasant enough. The next morning I mostly ran along the coast so I could take pictures of trains for my Instagram. Didn't get everything I wanted, but I got Racine, and that was one goal.
After that, got to the hotel, met my first roomie for the first time: NavelColt. AlwaysDressesInStyle showed up fashionably late, and then it was onto the con.
Others will have described the con experience better than I will, so read their blogs if you want to know about the vendor hall with all its glorious pony merch (I bought an unreasonable number of shoulder ponies from Hibiscus Stitch!) or the Grand Galloping Gala which I didn't attend, or the opening ceremonies which I also didn't attend, or the panels which I also didn't attend . . . there's a bit of a theme going on there. 
The con was focused on writers and writing; in some ways, an Everfree Northwest Lite. We had a bookstore which . . . well, I don't know how it did, I haven't yet seen the numbers. I do know that we sold out of some titles, including Vivid Syntax's book which is TikTok famous (he even did a panel on that, which I didn't attend).
We had an Iron Author, which I didn't win.
And then there was the charity auction.
Maybe you've already seen it mentioned on Equestria Daily, but one of Charlie's goals was to smash Bronycon's last charity auction . . . I think the number they were going for was $78k. When I arrived, about fifteen minutes before closing ceremonies were supposed to start, they were in the 30s. A few bids later they passed 40k, and then fifty and all of sudden we were an hour overtime and also well north of 80k with only one item left to bid on.
I don't remember exactly how it went—when the video is eventually posted on YouTube y'all will be able to see it for yourself, but here's a close approximation:
Bid's somewhere around $1500 for the final item of the night, and Railershy offers two grand and wins. We smashed Bronycon's final total, and we had just over a tenth of the attendees with which to do so. Everyone's cheering, and then Railershy raises his bid . . . by ten grand. He's already won this thing, but he's gonna smash it out of the park . . . and then he offered to triple-match everyone who donated for the final group photo, as if one grand slam wasn't good enough. That isn't knocking it out of the ballpark, that's knocking it into the next ballpark . . . and then out of that one, too.
Telling you that the crowd went wild isn't doing it justice. Things were flying.
Including ponies, 'cause it's a MLP con.
Did I mention it was a writer's con? Vivid Syntax and Nyronus were in charge of the writing track, and Vivid pitched the idea of an in-con app which would feature multiple-choice stories written by community members. There'd be three different options (stories had two or three choices at the end), and that would affect the ending of the con. Hero, Villain, and Chaos . . . Chaos won, for what it's worth.
Codes would be hidden around the con for people to find, and when they did they could enter them into the app, read a new story maybe from their favorite author or maybe from me, and then vote. Not only were there codes on room signs or posters or props, they were given out at panels or by cosplayers around the con, and nearly everybody got into it.
Sometimes humorously
I'm assuming that this is one that volrathxp made, and even after the con and several conversations with him, I still can't pronounce his username
I don't know what kind of participation Vivid and Nyronus were expecting, but what they got was over 300 app stories, with somewhere around a hundred authors participating. I couldn't possible list them all, but I can give you some statistics: there were over 11,000 app interactions during the weekend, and the total amount of words written for the con story, the apps, the cosplayer scripts, and the book were over 900,000. For comparison's sake, that's just shorter than the combined word count of The Lord of the Rings trilogy plus The Chronicles of Narnia.
I promised Vivid that I'd hit him with a pipe wrench if he didn't give a proper shout-out to the editors who had to read through all of that on short notice . . . luckily, I didn't have to, but I did get a chance to brandish it during closing ceremonies.
Source
(Yes, that's a socket wrench not a pipe wrench, but you get what you get)
For those of you who are curious who wrote the most stories, it wasn't me. I did pretty good with 33. AlwaysDressesInStyle wrote 39, I think, or somewhere around there, and between the two of us we came up well short of JaniceTheLight who figuratively said 'hold my beer and watch this' by writing nearly ninety stories.
(And as if that wasn't enough participation, she also made props for the con and cosplayed during the con.)
Soon enough, you'll have access to those stories. Vivid and company are working on making the app available, and of course a lot of the writers will be posting their stories on FimFic sooner or later, myself included. One of the things I wanted to do for the stories—since for some reason I have a loyal following—was include a bunch of ponies from previous stories that you know and love. We weren't allowed to use OCs (mostly; I begged Vivid to let me include one), but you will get stories featuring Silver Glow, Sky Sweeper, Peachy Sweet, Apple Honey, Silver Spanner, Ambrosia, Apple Honey, Sunbeam, Sweetsong, Princess Erroria (she's canon [ish]), the Barrel Twins, Cinder Glow, Starlight (not Glimmer), Hayseed Turnip Truck, Darknight Moonwing, and others.
You're also gonna get the story that was in Scattered Pages, and probably an unabridged version of it as well 'cause when I'm unfettered by word counts I go on and on 
Until then, if you haven't, you can read the con story HERE. According to Sonicsuns, "There were 6 possible endings and over 500 ways to get there."
Meanwhile, back at the con . . . spent Monday morning with AlwaysDressesInStyle at an undisclosed location for an undisclosed purpose (I'll let him tell you about that in the eventual blog post) and then I made my leisurely way back home. Since I was close to the parts of Chicago that have all the trains, I decided to stop and take some pictures. Through no skill of my own, I managed to find myself at the right place in the right time to film a meet:
Yes, those are historical rail cars on both sides of the track.
Also, bonus fact: after watching a bunch of hobo videos, I now pay attention to the ends of railcars, just to see if there's anybody—or anypony—riding along.
And speaking of hobos . . .
The one prop I made was a N-scale covered hopper with #hobo on the side of it, which led to a story about Sweetsong hopping a train. I gave that to Sky Railroad (he's the vendor you've seen at cons before with a N-scale train on his table); if for whatever reason he didn't want to run the car, my backup plan was an O-gauge Lionel gondola, complete with a blind bag Sweetsong to go inside.
He took the hopper, and I took the gondola and Sweetsong back to my room . . . except she never made it back; somewhere along the line she escaped and was never seen again.
I was kind of bummed, but at the same time, it's totally appropriate that a hobo pony would vanish, her destination unknown.
If I don't list all the editors, I'll have to hit myself with a wrench, so here you go!
Sonicsuns
Aria E. Diamond
Solodric
Skywriter
Ellwyn
Ghost Note
Overlord Pony
RQK
Shade Hunter
Shottsy
Snowday
Note Worthy
Celestilune
I don't know all their FimFic accounts (or even if they all have FimFic accounts); I tagged the ones I could find. If you know anyone I missed, let me know
EDIT: Nyronus has informed me that "Sonicsuns and SteelTheWarrior were also on the leadership team" and Steel headed up the app team.
What aspect of trains are you in to?
5755900
Thomas
Man, it sounds like everyone went to PVCF this year! Seems like it was a great time.
Next year, I shall go.
Fashionably late is in style, darling.
My drive was just a smidge longer: over twelve hours, and that's not counting stops (though I also had the benefit of gaining an hour thanks to time zones). That's also why I didn't get in until after 3AM this morning. My head hit the pillow a few minutes after 4 and I didn't wake up until this afternoon...
Legit. Biscuit handed me his Derpy and told me he'd be back. He came back brandishing a red pipe wrench.
I'm from New Jersey. I didn't ask questions. I just assumed someone was having a plumbing leak...
...I may have also moved Derpy to strategically cover my kneecaps since she makes a great lap pony.
39 is correct for me. What Biscuit has failed to state is he also acted as the liaison between my stories and the PVCF document where this was hosted because I didn't have access to it. So Biscuit not only wrote his stories and had to take care of editing them, he was also in charge of editing all of mine as well. Mad props to you, my friend! I literally couldn't have done it without you.
Also mad props to Janicethelight, who has an account here. Hopefully she posts all of her stories: https://www.fimfiction.net/user/136747/Janicethelight
I wonder what kind of adventures she's having now?
It shouldn't be too hard to find you a replacement - I'll be on the lookout.
Soon.™
Specifically, December 14th.
Also, and this is hilarious - Biscuit and I took different paths home. We left the undisclosed location in convoy and eventually I passed Biscuit... only to take the next exit to gas up and have lunch at Mac's Macaroni & Cheese Shop. I also made a stop at a Meijer and a Target. Biscuit, meanwhile, took the scenic route, as mentioned above.
...I totally caught up to him again around the Illinois/Indiana border.) Then he took the exit for Gary and I took the next exit, for I-65 South, and that was where our paths diverged for this year.
Fortunately, I expect we'll run into each other again in Ocean City, sometime in May. Onward to SeaquestriaFest '24!
Only problem with the auction blowout was that closing ceremonies started two hours twenty three minutes behind schedule. Not to mention that I heard the A/V and crew didn't get done tearing down the stage until 2:00 AM that night!
Actually, scratch that. I'm not even mad. It was amazing to watch.
Even accounting for inflation, the gauntlet has been thrown down.
I did, however, gently rib them on the PVCF Discord (all in good fun of course):
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/354035617509933056/1176370328528765009/Untitled.jpg?ex=656e9f3e&is=655c2a3e&hm=238ddc9f7409f7da1802bbfb3f6f33087e80194421fa67c90248abf0fea686ee&
5755911
Never go to Gary.
5755917
I ended up in downtown Gary by accident years ago. Suffice it to say, I 100% agree: do not recommend.
Sounds like a tremendously fun one. Happy to hear that you had a great time!
I'd love to go to a MLP Con at least once, sadly I missed my chance with Galacon this year (mostly because work snuck up at me, and suddenly it was the weekend), but maybe next year...
5755912 A friend who does stage setup and teardown says that's not the worst he's ever had to do. n_n
Glad you had fun biscuit and I swear we'll hang out again someday whether at a con or in Toronto n_n
Two quick corrections Mr. Biscuit:
Solo's Fimfic account is here.
And Sonicsuns and SteelTheWarrior were also on the leadership team. Steel did a lot of the hard work for the logistics of putting the game together at the con, and Sonic was the head of the editing team! Both of them were incredibly important to the team! We literally couldn't have done it without them.
I really hope the con book will become available for those who weren't able to attend.
That said; thank you for all your help and I'm glad you (and everyone) could participate! Everyone who helped make this con a reality has my gratitude.
It looks like you had a crescent moon to guide you through the twilight toward the con, although that could be a camera-shake artifact. ^_^
Sounds like a fun time all around! And a double-huzzah for smashing charity records!
Your own fault, really, for being so darn likable
5755900
Pretty much all of it. Not to the level of knowing train numbers or having a scanner that picks up railroad frequencies (yet), but I like watching 'em go by, and I've also got a fair number of trains in HO, O, and N. No real layout yet, maybe this winter if I have free time.
5755903
Never really did get into that show. Seen bits and pieces, but it's not really something I'm terribly interested in.
5755904
It was a blast! I don't know what they're doing for the con next year to make it special (and they probably don't, either), but one way or another it'll be fun.
Huzzah!
5755911
Oh, I had it all along, you just didn't notice. One of those skills you pick up as a mechanic.
Also I wouldn't dare take a swing at Derpy.
It was a pleasure
I don't know, it's hard to say. I just hope that whoever has her now isn't disappointed when she decides to leave on a new adventure.
It's not terribly difficult; she pops up every now and again. As one would expect with a hobo pony, I guess.
Even funnier, that wouldn't have happened except that I thought I was closer to Gary than I was and took the exit for Calumet City, then did a big loop to get back on the interstate, causing a minor delay.
Yes, indeed! Looking forward to it!
5755912
As a former techie (in college), the late nights are part and parcel of the job. If things went really really well--like the auction--you aren't even mad about the late night. Heck, I did some overnights in the light shop, fixing stuff for the next show. Kinda peaceful to be there all by yourself.
Yeah, and I don't know who can beat it. Maybe Babs, maybe EFNW if they work at it. Attracting poor writers might not be the best way to set a record at the charity auction, though.
Heh, I saw that when I was scrolling through, but I didn't realize you were the one who'd posted it.
5755917
But that's where the trains are.
And it's not as bad as Flint; at least the water isn't poison.
(also helps that I have a vehicle that blends in, a fifteen year old minivan with significant body rust.)
5755927
It was great! I love cons, even if I've gotten past the desire to attend all the panels and instead just hang out with friends. Especially at a more casual (to me) con like PVCF.
I was considering Galacon this year, but it just didn't work out in terms of the scheduling and stuff. That's one I would like to go to sometime, just to have done it.
5755980
I would like to hang out in Toronto again, they had the most fabulous cheese shop and also the Greek bakery/olive store near where we were staying. Also butter tarts! I got my record cleaned so border security should be a more pleasant experience going forward.
5755998
Corrections made, thank you! ;heart:
5756001
I think if there's enough demand it might be, but I don't know. I'm not sure if the publisher is a print-on-demand or something else. AFAIK they did sell out at the con.
5756002
Dude, it was my pleasure. It's one of the most fun and most crazy things I've done in the fandom! Thank you and Vivid for not only running with the idea, but also personally asking that I join!
5756082
It was indeed a crescent moon, and it was very pretty. As expected, the cell phone camera doesn't do it full justice, but it tried its best and that's really all you can ask.
It was a nice drive out there, and the weather was more perfect than I had any right to expect in November. For some of it, I was cruising with the window down, even.
5756090
It was fantastic, and it was great to see all our hard work paying off. One of the memorable moments was on an elevator of all places; someone noticed that I had a hashtag on my hat (I don't know how many other people noticed, but he was the first to remark on it)--as he got off the elevator, I saw him punching the code into the app.
I also had someone sitting next to me at the charity auction using it, and I gave him a code he hadn't had before.
5756147
Is there any possible way to let them know that there is a demand?
5756151
That I don't know. You could send a PM to Vivid directly, I suppose. It would be really cool if they did offer a second printing of the book, I think a lot of people would want to get their hands on it, not only for the stories but for the art as well.
5756145
Absolutely n_n i'm hoping to lure some UK folk down next year though that's still very tentative so I won't say who. And yay for clearing records!
5756154
Oh, let me know if you do--I know a few brits and have only met a few of them here and there.
5756155
Absolutely! I think my hope is to do a mini-meetup sort of thing one day with folks who're around/able to come out. Kinda like we did when Lise visited oh so long ago. n_n
5756156
Might be able to find a few other people from the States who want to join so long as we have reasonable advance notice 
Yeah, that'd be way cool! Do let me know and if you can schedule it on a weekend, 'cause that's more convenient
5756157
o7
5756001
5756152
When I asked Charlie (the Con Chair) the current plan is not to release the complete book digitally. I also believe it is meant to not be re-printed to keep it as an special exclusive to the event kind of thing. I bought a copy due to him saying that and I have to say it is a great book. Was surprised it was only 25 dollars to be honest with the quality and includes color artwork. That said may of the authors are releasing the shorts and are very much worth reading even out of context!
As for stories on the app, you can download the app and insert any code you can find now. Like #hobo from this post, really fun story I am sad I missed it at the con! The only thing that won't work is the voting for the stories as the story line is done.
Thanks for being my hero at the AD vendor hall (and also for not breaking my knees)!
Still need to get to my own retrospective post, but I'm trying to catch/keep up on a number of things at the moment.
Sorry about the Sweetsong, but aye, appropriate pony for it, at least.
5756394
I do wish he'd gotten more books, but of course you never know when you're ordering in advance. Nobody wants to be stuck with over a hundred books that people haven't bought (trust me, I know).
I expect that most authors will put their stories up on FimFiction sooner or later, and people can read them that way. Not the same as having the actual book, of course.
Maybe he'll decide to do a reprint for PVCF's 20th anniversary.
5756721
You're quite welcome for both!
5756801
Heh, I know that feel. I've still got a bunch to catch up on and not enough time. It'll all get done sooner or later, I suppose.
It's a shame she's gone, but now she's off on a new adventure!
5757042
"Heh, I know that feel. I've still got a bunch to catch up on and not enough time. It'll all get done sooner or later, I suppose."
Hah, well, good luck to both of us. :)
(Though I have by now gotten my retrospective blog up, at least.)
"It's a shame she's gone, but now she's off on a new adventure!"
Yep, and hopefully a good one.