Bronycon Memories 2018 Part 1 · 1:40am Sep 22nd, 2018
I decided to post my memories of Bronycon 2018. While I am no stranger to fan conventions, I’ve been to an anime convention in the past, this was my first Pony convention.
Part 1: Thursday and Friday
I live in Northeast PA, so to get to Bronycon I took a bus to NYC and then an Amtrak train to Baltimore. I found the Amtrak train to be a nice ride, despite the train being a half hour late. Once I arrived at Baltimore Penn Station, I took the light rail into downtown and checked into my first hotel of the trip. I say first because I was only able to get the Hilton Baltimore for Friday and Saturday nights. I had to use two different hotels for Thursday and Sunday nights. After checking into my Thursday night hotel, I went down to the convention center to pick up my badge.
Thanks to a helpful Bronycon staff member, I found the badge pick up area inside the center. The line moved quickly and I got my badge. So many bronies were hanging around the convention center and the Hilton along with people hawking ice cold water and Orioles gear. I didn’t stick around because I’m pretty shy. That and I needed to get dinner, which I got from Subway after dropping off my badge at the hotel room. The hotel I was staying at that night had a couple of fellow con-goers, but nothing like the area around the convention center and Hilton.
The next day, I checked out of my Thursday night hotel and walked to Inner Harbor. I had breakfast at a Starbucks and took a picture of the harbor before proceeding to the convention center. I went to Opening Ceremonies and was pumped. We were all ready to get this party started! I was unsure of where to go first, but I ended up choosing a panel called “The Beats of Bronypalooza.” The panel featured various DJs talking about their work such as what software they used and what inspired their songs. It was an interesting panel. I’m not familiar with the Brony music scene, so it was cool to learn something about it.
I ate a Nathan’s hot dog for lunch and then I attended “Quillin’ It” in Mane Event’s Hall. It was neat to hear the writers talk about what goes into writing an episode script. The writers (Amy Keating Rogers, Larson, Nick Confalone), are very nice people and have a great sense of humor. After that, I checked into the Hilton Baltimore and had lunch at Jimmy John’s. I had the #13, which was freaking excellent! After that, I went to the vendor hall for the first time. The hall was pretty big. I bought a Rainbow Dash plush from the Lunar Shine booth and took it back to my hotel room. I really wanted some other characters too such as Soarin and Braeburn, but I couldn’t find them. I wasn’t sure where to go next so I spent about an hour or so pondering my options and checking Discord until I eventually settled on going to the Match Game panel in the Hall of Chaos.
The Match Game panel was fun. I used to watch the game show in re-runs when I was younger. In the role of the celebrities, most of the writers from “Quillin’ It” were there along with Peter New, the voice of Big Mac. Guy has a great sense of humor. Amy Keating Rogers must have watched the original show too because she made a joke about being the Brett Summers in the group. The contestants were volunteers from the audience. The questions were in the pony universe and a little on the risqué side (it was a 21+ panel after all). I like how Bronycon has these more “adult” panels as well as the usual SFW ones.
I attended the Pony Programming Panel after that, which was pretty interesting.
Afterwards, I went to Bronypalooza. The rock bands were playing, which was cool. Prince Whatever did a good cover of the Countess Coloratura song (“I am the Countess”/”Razzle Dazzle” unsure of the official title). Cyril the Wolf was on next he started off good with a song about Tirek. Had a Judas Priest kind of vibe, which I really liked. He did good covers of “City Escape” from Sonic Adventure 2 and “Open up your eyes” from the MLP movie. After his set, I decided to leave Bronypalooza and go to another panel, Cadence’s Chaotic Crackships.
C3 was pretty fun, I liked seeing the different combinations of pairings that came up on the roulette wheel.
After that, I got a couple things out of the vending machine and went back to my room for the rest of the night. I will say that I’m glad the Hilton Baltimore is attached to the convention center. It makes going to the late night events much easier.
This concludes part 1 of this story. The next part will be about Saturday.
Not bad. I had also planned on stopping by the Hall of Chaos for an event, but other things got in the way. Sounds like there was some good fun to be had, though.