The Massive Ponyville Ciderfest 2023 Wrap-Up Report

As of this writing it is now Wednesday after Ponyville Ciderfest 2023, and I've had a few days to sort of process my thoughts a little. This weekend was one for the history books, but also one that was intensely personal to myself and even my wife.

Before I start poking at the weekend details, I need to flash us back a little to the end of Whinny City 2023. Immediately after closing ceremonies, my family and I went out to dinner with one Vivid Syntax, where we discussed this project for Ponyville Ciderfest 2023. It was a fresh and ultimately utterly unique idea, where con guests would engage in a large scale alternate-reality style "game" based on storytelling, making choices like "choose-your-own adventure" books, and ultimately something that would have an impact on the very future of Ponyville Ciderfest itself.

To say I wasn't hooked immediately would be a massive lie. Vivid did such a great job explaining the entire thing to us, that I very much signed up within that same week of being out of Whinny City.

The work that followed through the next months up until this past weekend was honestly some of the most productive I have had in a long while. I'd felt rather reinvigorated in the pony space in the past few years, having begun work on "Fallout: Equestria - The Spark of Life" but I was rather beginning to run out of steam again. Getting a chance to work on something of this scale was of course very helpful to rebuilding not only my own confidence in my work but also my work ethic in general. Of course, due to the intense work I still haven't actually gotten to work on Spark of Life for a while, but the work I was doing on the project was incredibly fun.

A big portion of the event focused on stories that would be loaded into an app, where con attendees would read them and make choices that would tie to a specific faction. Writing these little bite-sized stories allowed me to really stretch my imagination in ways I didn't really think I had in me before. Some were goofy and super fun, some were very personal. In fact, you can check out all those stories over here.

At the same time as this, my wife also signed up with the goal of being one of the experience's actors. A large part of the convention experience would fall on actors portraying characters and interacting with the guests to further the story. She signed up with the intention of portraying her griffon character Gia in her fursuit, and by the end of this weekend she definitely achieved that. I wrote several stories for the app for her to use as physical, tangible handouts to give to guests. The weekend of Ponyville Ciderfest was also her birthday, so I wrote her a specific birthday story to use as well.

Through this time, both my wife and I made friends and connections with the other storytellers and actors involved in this experience. Major shoutouts here go to Janicethelight, Snowday, Nyronus, Sonicsuns, SmilesPerHour, and of course our friends Vivid Syntax and Crackle's Cousin. The friendships we made here will definitely last a long time, and I know each and every one of the people on this project (even if I didn't name you explicitly yet) will be awesome friends and collaborators down the line.

As part of this whole project, it was revealed that one of the big pieces of the project was to be a physical book that would be sold at the convention. Participating in this was by sign-up only and as soon as sign-ups went out I jumped on it pretty much immediately. This book would end up becoming "Scattered Pages: Tales From the Book of All Stories" and the story I wrote for it was something I could not get out of my brain that I went and wrote it in like three days. It ended up being both a fun little G5-esque romp featuring Pipp Petals and Hitch Trailblazer alongside two of Ciderfest's mascots Barley and Caramel with Daring Do. It was super fun to write, and even further was the fact that my wife did the cover art for it that appears in the book.

Working our way up to a certain point in the project, roughly 2-2.5 months ago is when things started getting a lot more intense in my involvement in the project. One of the things we identified was that the usage of props was going to be difficult to manage, so I stepped in to help organize the spreadsheets we were using to begin assisting with that. This led to me working very directly with one of the leadership team SteeltheWarrior on helping to assign where all these code words going into the app would be seen at the convention. This part of the project was quite a bit of work, trying to ensure that every code word of over 300ish stories would have a place and could be possibly seen throughout the convention. To that end, we also quickly identified an issue with the hotel proper in that the hotel had very strict rules of not placing things on the walls.

This led to me working with Snowday on a system that would let us display things like posters to the attendees that we could put code words on. I had already made a few posters for some of my own stories at this point. Snowday came up with a system of cardboard pillars that we could assemble onsite to display them. I can't take a lot of credit for this, because Snowday did a lot of awesome work in making these a reality, and for their practical use at the convention they worked beautifully. To that end, I started cranking out some more posters and soon had quite a few of them. I was very happy with this part because frankly I think they really elevated a part of the experience for the attendees.

A few other interesting things came to light in the months before both with and within the project. Inside of the project, I had written an app story based on Sunny Starscout and her friends finding an Ogres & Oubliettes game box and playing the game. One of our editors on the project, the social media head Noteworthy, commented on how this should just be a real game. This very much led me down the rabbit hole of beginning to write a D&D one shot to run at the convention. I submitted it on the panel applications and was committed. We'll come back to that one later here.

Another fun tidbit is that we found out that one of the other authors from the FoE community, a little known guy by the name of Somber (yes, that Somber) was going to be attending the convention possibly as a community guest and also partaking in the experience project. Somber and I talked over the course of the few months with him agreeing to come hang out on my "Fillydelphia Fun Farm" FoE panel I usually give at conventions. We will also get to that soon here.

Throughout this, I do want to give a special shoutout to one Blackjack Clone. Blackjack Clone I met at Whinny City earlier this year, and we have definitely become fast friends over the past few months. Blackjack Clone's generosity is unparalleled, and he is simply an amazing and wonderful person. He's the one who initially connected me up with Somber and he also lavished us with whatever help he could give us as a local to Milwaukee.

I guess by now I should get to the convention proper.

THURSDAY

We had left for Milwaukee technically the night before, having made a stop in Merrilville, IN (at a pretty crappy Baymont hotel sadly) overnight on Wednesday. We came in the rest of the way on Thursday and was able to check into our hotel before going to have some lunch with Blackjack Clone and Phauxe Kitsune (at a pretty neat sushi place called Spicy Tuna). Blackjack Clone was kind enough to gift my wife some really cool stuff for her birthday, and then we made it back to the hotel to meet up with my wife's parents (who also joined us for this convention weekend!)

I very quickly made my way down to the rooms we were handling experience stuff out of, needing to bring things like the posters and sponsor dinner table stuff down there and met up with Nyronus, Snowday, and Vivid.

Thursday evening was a bit of a wild blur overall. My father in law had opted to go on the pub trot, and as a Community Guest of the con I was helping Eliwood with the Pub Trot in an official capacity. We had a lot of really good fun on the trot and nobody got hurt thankfully and everyone got back to the convention safe and sound.

Not much else happened here. Although I did hear that my daughter got to run around the Writer's Ballroom a bunch with Charlie's dog Ahsoka after Buckball.

FRIDAY

THE EVENT BEGINS.

Seriously though, Friday was possibly one of the busier days of the convention for us. It was also the beginning of seeing whether or not people at the convention were going to be into this experience we had created. For me it was also an exercise in making executive decisions as I assisted Snowday in finding places for the pillars that wouldn't cause traffic issues and looked good. We succeeded, and right after we went on stage for opening as Community Guests, I beelined out and put up all of the posters for the experience. My thought process was a bit of "Equestrian Magic", in that the Book of All Stories was now opened and we were inside this new world so when people walked out of Opening they would see these posters.

I think it worked? I'm not really sure.

After Opening I was able to spend some time getting things together and walked around with my wife in her fursuit as she passed out griffon mail. It took people a bit to grasp what was happening, but people definitely got into it after a bit, and the vendors especially were happy to be involved in the experience by her passing out mail to them all.

I also opted to get one of my autographs on Friday because it was well known that Kelly Sheridan (voice of Starlight Glimmer) would not be around past Saturday, and I was not able to make it to the session on Saturday. Kelly was pretty awesome and I got her to sign my horse mask (she signed it on the ear!). I met up with my wife and mother in law in the Writer's Ballroom later on and she was doing a one-page writing competition, during which Kelly came in and sat next to her when I was out getting snackies for us.

Things were a bit of a blur until it was time to get ready for the Gala. We got ready and dressed in our cosplays (my wife did a Prom Queen Starlight Glimmer cosplay, and I cosplayed as her date Trixie) and went off to the Gala. Didn't really dance much or anything, but the food was nice and the music was great (between Do the Daring Dew and 4EverfreeBrony) and the scripted event written by Snowday was awesome to watch. We had to leave somewhat early on as we had to head up a room party that was organized for the Storytelling Experience Team. My wife bartended the party and it was fun (albeit a little overwhelming). We also were given a really cool pin for taking part in the experience, as well as those of us who participated in the creation of the Scattered Pages book received our paperback copies of it. Signatures occurred of course between all the writers present for the book. I was also able to give Vivid Syntax his gift, a custom full proxy foil Commander deck. :)

After the room party and cleaning up I headed off to meet up with Somber for my panel - The Fillydelphia Fun Farm! It was my first time having a cohost for the panel, and especially one that was as esteemed as Somber was for his work on Project Horizons. We had a lot of fun in the panel and I definitely want to seek out having cohosts in the future for it, because it made it fun and interesting to have someone to bounce off of.

VERY LATE the next morning, I went to sleep.

SATURDAY

Saturday we woke up and bombed down to Starbucks in the hotel for some breakfast. I had an Applejack Chai. It was gucci.

Pretty soon it was time for me to get ready for a SECRET EVENT. As part of the overall experience during the weekend, some of the story codes went to these little bite sized secret events that involved the Guests of Honor and usually a Community Guest. Getting assigned a Secret Event for the CHAOS faction allowed me to really lean into that faction during the weekend for sure, especially with my little Chaos Creator helper in my daughter. We headed down to the Writer's Ballroom and set up a sweet little craft involving making Senor Butterscotch masks (the trash pony that Izzy Moonbow makes in the new series). Elley Ray stopped by and hung out for a little bit and then it was time to head up for the GoH Script Reading.

I have never had as much fun at a convention as this script reading was. The blend of the GoHs for this weekend was absolutely perfect, from getting to have Kelly as Starlight, Bill Newton as both Bright Mac and the Pony of Shadows, to ELLEY RAY as Grandma Figgy, it was incredibly fun. It was also incredibly emotional, from knowing the eventual fate of Bright Mac in the series, to the letters read to Fizzy during the reading, there were certainly a lot of emotions being had. The letters to Fizzy were another thing that had started on Friday at the convention, where con guests were encouraged to write letters to Fizzy Glitch (the Kirin mascot of the convention who kicked off the main storyline by opening the Book of All Stories and sucking the convention inside) to make her feel better and show her that she is loved. It was certainly amazing. My hats off to Vivid Syntax for this script. I will never look at Grandma Figgy the same way ever again.

After that it was functionally time for me to get ready to run a D&D one shot. I mentioned this earlier. I was an exceptional ball of mess getting ready for this, even though I felt like I was pretty prepared for it. Before this weekend I hadn't ran an actual game in years. I was joined by good friend and social media head Noteworthy who was one of my players and a few other folks making up a full party of six (for the G5 Mane Six). And wow... what a fun four hours this was that it didn't even feel like four hours! Everypony in the party got a chance to shine, and we had some great moments of tension and character roleplay. A few highlights here involved roleplaying a conversation between a Squirrel and the Hitch player that was super funny. Being able to use Izzy's abilities as a Unicycling Artificer to build a pulley elevator. Sunny turning undead on some zombies. And of course... both Hitch and Misty fighting the dragon where Misty did over 60+ damage in one strike (D&D 5E ROGUES, AM I RIGHT?!) and Hitch ironically getting the killing blow on it (With a quick "Sparky, look away!") The players also managed to avert the return of the Squizard and didn't even have to fight him, stopping the ritual casting in one lucky shot by Hitch and one VERY bad Concentration check by the skeleton pony priest.

All in all, it was a true success and everyone had a lot of fun and my anxiety calmed a bit. It definitely reminded me of how much fun GM'ing was and how much I enjoyed it.

After D&D and signing some books for Blackjack Clone, we went off to get some food before the Community Guest meetup. I got to meet a few of the CGs I hadn't formally met, including the folks from Friendship is Content (who were super cool!).

I wandered off to see my wife at Railershy's Cards Against Equestria charity panel, apparently missing her turn. From there I had to be in the AD Vendor Hall to help work the AD Con Book Store. One of the things that this convention did this year is because of the theme is that they had a convention book store for people to sell their work in. They had one of these for the daytime and one for AD. Those of us on the storytelling team were given the opportunity to volunteer to help fun the store for shifts. For this convention, we had five 2-book set copies ordered of "Fallout: Equestria - Starlight" in paperback and those were sold in the AD Book Store. I'm a firm believer of Fallout: Equestria stories definitely being much more mature on theme and thus wanted it to be done there. I had not realized by my shift on Saturday that all five copies of it sold out on Friday night. I got to sign one of them (which was Railershy's). I spent the rest of the night hanging out with Admiral Biscuit and Vivid Syntax in there helping to see books.

Again, wildly late in the next morning, I went to sleep.

SUNDAY

A lot of Sunday morning was walking around and prepping stuff to give to the charity auction folks that the Storytelling group was auctioning off. I had volunteered to help assemble those things, primarily the posters and the Sponsor Dinner props we had made. After getting all of that stuff delivered, I went and picked up another autograph voucher and got to see Giles Panton. Giles... Giles was such a cool dude and he seemed like a ton of fun to hang out with. I got to tell him about one of the stories I'd written specifically for him. He was certainly amazing.

I also got to check in on the Storyteller panel with the leadership team (Vivid, Sonicsuns, Nyronus, Steel, and Brandon the app developer) which was pretty great.

THE CHARITY AUCTION

So... first off, I had some things I brought for this auction as well as the stuff for the Storyteller team. I brought a custom full proxy Commander deck and a copy of "Fallout: Equestria - Mending Hearts" to the auction.

At some point during the convention weekend a post cropped up showing an item that had been donated anonymously. Two boxes containing every script from Season 2 - 9 of MLP G4 and much more.

To say that this Charity Auction was unprecedented was a massive understatement. This auction was emotionally charged and so very powerful for this community. To break the highest record set by BronyCon in 2019 was incredible. But, at the end of the day it was not a competition, and I could see in the eyes of all of the volunteers from the Wisconsin Humane Society in attendance that this money was sorely needed and that it really was going to help many animals and people through the sheer generosity of the brony community. This community never ceases to amaze me at all when it comes to their willingness to help others.

While the auction did run rather late, and closing ceremonies had to be pushed a bit, it was tremendous to be a part of this moment in history for me.

Closing Ceremonies revealed that SURPRISE CHAOS WON! We all felt that was the outcome given how good of a lead it seemed the faction had during the weekend. I'd like to thank Dashu for being the chaos crew's voice of insanity by walking around voicing Hooty from the Owl House the entire Saturday. And that leads us to next years theme of CREATIVITY UNLEASHED! So excited for that one.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

I have a lot on my mind about this event, so I'm going to try to break it down.

To the con guests - I'm so glad you all enjoyed the theme and participated in the game we proposed to play. One of the biggest fears certainly was putting all this together and people not engaging with it. And yet, people definitely did just that and showed how into it they were. Forming the various factions on Discord, sharing codes with one another and really getting into the secret events. It was incredible getting to see how much people enjoyed this and it made all the work worth it.

To my wife - You are amazing. You did all this fursuiting stuff plus bartended a great room party and I know it was overwhelming for a weekend, but you are incredible and I am so happy you had a great birthday weekend. I am forever in awe of how awesome you are.

To my daughter - My little chaos creator. I'm sure many of the con guests saw her as a parasprite Sunday morning, being chased about to gather parasprites for Celestia. You were awesome! You really helped out a lot and you were so much fun to hang out with.

To Vivid Syntax - Thank you for being my friend and for bringing me into this project. It was amazing work, and it has only been great getting to know you better. I hope that we can do more together in the future in collaboration, and also just finally be able to hang out enough to sit down to play an actual game of Magic! Also, you absolutely KILLED it as Sombra for sure.

To the Leadership Team (Nyronus, Sonicsuns, Steel, Crackle) - Y'all are amazing folks and you put in all of the hardest work for this project. I am so thrilled having to gotten to know you all better and work with you. You all did wonderfully!

To Somber - Thank you so much for agreeing to do my panel with me! You were great fun to hang out with and I hope to do it again in the future.

To the rest of the Storytelling and Acting team - Your work was so good this weekend. Everything about this team was stellar. I look forward to working more closely with any of you in the future.

To Charlie and Michelle and the entire team behind Ciderfest - You are the real heart and soul of these events. You promote nothing but positivity and awesomeness, and I absolutely have enjoyed working with you all. Always thank your volunteers for sure, they are invaluable. And of course... who could forget Ahsoka. The true power behind the throne!

Special note to Janicethelight and Snowday - You two are absolutely INCREDIBLE. For those unaware, Janicethelight wrote 80+ stories for this event, including a print book story, PLUS acted all weekend. Snowday wrote a KILLER script for the Gala, wrote a really solid and wonderful print book story, and was just all around an awesome guy to get to know. You two are a dynamic force, and I want you both to never stop creating and never stop dreaming, because you both have the chops and the skill to do whatever it is you set out to accomplish. I really hope to spend more time with you both in the future even if it's just hanging out.

So thus ends Ponyville Ciderfest 2023. My heart feels happy for a lot of reasons from this event, and I will have exceptionally fond memories of every little bit of this past weekend for a long time to come.

Until next time...

- Joe "volrathxp"