EFNW 2019 Retrospective · 6:57am May 26th, 2019
I managed to make it to Everfree Northwest this year and it was an absolute blast!
This was my first brony con (besides Crystal Mountain Pony Con) I’d ever been to and it was surprisingly worth the trip!
Main highlights:
Cathy Weseluck—give this woman a TED talk
The voice actor for Spike is an absolute gem of humanity. She did not answer very many questions from the audience but she just spent the entire time at her panel giving life advice about all sorts of things. In general, spend less time on phones and more time in nature.
Basically, just pretend the following vine is being said by the nicest grandma you’ve ever met that just wants you to succeed, and it’s an hour long:
My wife did the awkward thing of not actually asking a question—but giving a long comment about how we both met as a couple because of Spike the dragon. (Which looking back—doesn’t make much sense. I met my wife at a Season 6 premiere party. Spike was barely in that episode. (Wait—I don’t think I would have continued watching MLP if it weren’t for Spike, he was immediately my favorite character when I first started watching the show. Wait—does that mean Spike the dragon is the reason I met my wife!?)))
Did—did Spike get me laid?
My wife recorded the whole panel on her phone. Let me know if that's something you guys think I should put somewhere online.
Daniel Ingram — AKA the Music Panel
Not to be dramatic or anything, but I would die for Daniel Ingram. Amongst many other people/things to die for.
Daniel performed a bunch of acoustic covers of MLP songs, as well as a demo version of one of the songs from the movie. He can't actually release any of his work in progress songs, as they are all technically owned by Hasbro. And they made a big deal out of saying: "Don't record this." Though he may put some acoustic covers on his forthcoming YouTube channel—which doesn't exist yet.
Oh, and fun fact: The actual My Little Pony intro song that we have on every episode. That was the FIRST version of that song that Daniel made. He literally made a small rendition and asked Lauren Faust, "What do you think of this?" And Lauren was like: "PERFECT! Let's go with that."
He mentioned that looking back he would have preferred to do a few more versions and try out a few more things before choosing the MLP theme we got stuck with permanently. Oh well.
There is one upside to the show ending, Daniel Ingram can listen to fan songs now! He was expressly forbidden from listening to them before, but now that the show is over he can just watch/listen/read anything he wants to now. I distinctly remember him mentioning that he can finally read "Fallout Equestria." I'm strongly tempted to @ him on twitter with a barrage of Brony stuff from the last few years.
Though this does beg the question, who on earth is doing the songs for Gen5!? I mean the only person alive that may be more musically talented than Daniel Ingram is Lin Manuel Miranda. It seems like Gen5 is being made completely by new people. Which is exciting, however— Daniel knows what he's doing, and is absolutely fantastic. I wonder if they'll just get rid of songs entirely for Gen5?
Twi Talks—and other writing panels
I didn't go to nearly as many writing events as I wanted to. There was just too much overlap with everything else that was also awesome. Though I did like the Twi-talks I went to on Friday. Xepher is an awesome person (with INCREDIBLE branding. Putting his avatar on a shirt and wearing it throughout the convention—GENIUS! I need to do this)
I met with SuperTrampoline, who's awesome! Then I saw FanOfMostEverything from far away but was too chicken to say anything the whole convention. (I apparently can't handle very well seeing internet people in real life.)
I chilled in the Writing room for the "Writers and Artists Hangout," but kept falling asleep, and so I just went back to my hotel room to sleep.
There were a few people I was really hoping would be there, but it doesn't look like they went to the con this year.
SCRIPTFEST — AKA Aquaman being awesome
For Scriptfest, anyone who wanted to could submit a "show style" script. The limitation being that the script must only include the characters that would be at EFNW (The Student 6, Cozy Glow, Tirek, Starlight, Spike), so that they could perform the script as if it was a show episode.
(I racked my mind for a week trying to figure out a plotline that would somehow include Cozy Glow and Tirek and NOT be too over the top epic for a single episode. Nothing came to mind, so I didn't enter)
Well anyway, Aquaman wrote the best, funniest, most amazing script possible. And I laughed so hard throughout the episode as each of the voice actors performed it. I walked away desperately wanting an animated version. It was better than 90% of most episodes of the show.
You can read Aquaman's perspective on the script here.
Of course for legal reasons it couldn't be recorded. 
The Gala
I did not expect the Gala to be this awesome.
We got there pretty late and missed EileMonty because my wife was trying desperately to finish her costume. (Her costume being her Alicorn OC, Autumn Mist, though I think she mostly just wanted an occasion to wear her wedding dress again :)
Pics hidden in case you don't like face reveals.
Pic01, 02.
The Gala was an absolute blast. There was this guy, VocalScore, he absolutely NAILED every song. He put every fiber of his being into singing into that microphone. It helped that most of his songs were covers of show songs so I recognized all of them. His cover of Discord (Eurobeat Brony) was exceptional. (My biggest annoyance is that nowhere on his YouTube channel does he have the songs in a similar style he sung at EFNW)
And then later that night, I experienced the best concert I have ever been to in my life. Gabriel Brown and his brother (AKA Blackgryph0n and Baasik), absolutely rocking. What got me were the sheer amount of cameos. Cathy Weseluck appearing at the end of Quest! Daniel Ingram playing guitar alongside them! And a whole host of other VA's and community guests getting onstage at certain points.
That, and Gabe is so full of energy on stage. I mean—what kind of artist can sing AND do that sheer amount of dancing and jumping during it!?
They played quite a few unreleased songs too, my favorite of which was a more emotional/mental health-y song: "It's gonna get better." I hope they release that one soon.
There were so many good panels at Everfree. And unfortunately they often overlapped. The scheduling was really interesting though as they had lots of panels that started on the :15 or :45 mark. I ended up taking advantage of that by running around and catching a portion of a panel here and there throughout the weekend.
All-in-all, EFNW was an incredible experience! Man, I wish I had been in the financial position to go to more of these years ago.
Overall, both my wife and I discovered that we are not road trip people. At all. Oof.
A full day of driving, two days of con, and a full day of driving back. 26 hours driving. Oof. Man, I hope we can just afford plane tickets next year.
Also, we were able to share a room AT the convention. Which was SUPER nice and convenient. Anytime I needed to be introverted I could just go back to the hotel room.
My wife bought this giant blanket that is now staring at me while I sleep.
So yeah, Everfree Northwest. Pretty awesome 
FoME is a chill guy. I’m sure he would have been delighted to meet you.
I’m really glad y’all had a great time! I’m really upset I missed the Daniel Ingram and Aquaman script panels.
Black Gryph0n makes awesome music but doesn’t have the best reputation among other Brony musicians. I once made a song making fun of him (at the time for $100 you could call him on skype)—and he liked it!
See you next year?
Don't listen to Ingram, he's been bumping fandom musicians for years. :P
And you had me to help drive/keep you company! But I agree that a longer trip or going by plane would be much better next year.