UK PonyCon SOLD OUT · 8:04pm Aug 31st, 2018
For the fourth year in a row, the largest British MLP convention, UK PonyCon, has completely sold out of tickets. That's despite using larger venues each year -- this time will see 1,000 attendees. Only BUCK has ever before reached four figures in the UK fandom, so it's quite an achievement. I have my ticket, so with lots of luck and a following wind, I'll be there in October. Hooves crossed!
Selling out is such a weird concept. All the US conventions let you buy tickets on site.
Woo-hoo!
I don't understand why they would place an upper limit on attendees. That's just shitty planning.
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British fire safety regulations. Public venues have a maximum rated capacity, based on things like the location and size of emergency exits. If your venue is rated for 1,000 and you let in 1,500, you're putting yourself at risk of potentially serious legal consequences. Unlimited attendance not only isn't a thing here, but it can't be a thing. Sure, if you have a venue rated for 1,000 and you only sell 750 tickets, you can sell another 250 at the door if you want. But you still have to stop at that point.
As for the reason why the con doesn't use a venue rated for, say, 2,000 people... it's because the number of venues with a capacity over 1,000 in this country is pretty small, at least until you get to the mega-halls like the NEC that no Pony con could possibly afford. The economics of running a convention in this country are apparently (I'm not an insider) very different in some areas from what they are in the US -- many things which you may take as read simply don't translate.
The last MLP con I went to where you could buy on the door was UK PonyCon 2014, back when it was a lot smaller (around 370 attendees, from memory). Since then, there have been 10-12 Pony conventions in the UK, and every one has been fully ticketed. The same applies for most other fandoms -- you can't buy tickets for ConFuzzled (furry) or DWCon (Discworld) on the door either. It's not at all unusual here.
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Indeed! It's really nice to see that the fandom here is not at all ready to lie down and die just yet. Well, given that this is a multi-gen convention, I hope it never will be. G5 is not something to fear for people who've been around since G1!
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It's no different than the US. There are still ways to plan. You estimate attendance from preregistration and plan the venue accordingly. Generally you want to select a venue that's comfortably large enough to accommodate some growth.
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That's the point, though: venues you could classify as "1,000 plus a comfortable margin" are like hen's teeth, except for those that are simply too expensive for a con like this. BUCK managed it, true, but BUCK had a budget well into six figures (pounds), which is huge for this fandom in this country and certainly a great deal larger than UKPC's. Even then, BUCK could only make the sums add up by charging much higher ticket prices than for American cons -- we're talking £60 or so for Standard tickets in 2014. (I can't remember exactly what I paid.)
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Ah, that's a different story then. I'm used to potential venues being plentiful in mid-sized cities and up.