BronyCon, Day 2 · 7:21am Aug 13th, 2019
Day 2:
Hi there! This is part of my blog series on the adventure that was the last BronyCon! If you're just joining us, you should probably start here:
Day 0
Part 1 of Day 1
Part 2 of Day 1
Part 1 of Day 2
Part 2 of Day 2
Part 1 of Day 3
Part 2 of Day 3
Day 4
Epilogue
Friday morning was special, because I had arranged to meet up and hang out with a very cool artist I enjoy chatting with (and sometimes getting into bizarre emoji staring contests with): Hexfloog! She's been a pony con vendor before, and done a lot of pony art, including I believe designing the banners for Everfree Northwest in 2015.
She was just arriving at the con on Friday, coming in on a train and reaching the convention center at about 9am or so (if memory serves). We met in the main downstairs lobby, after a few text messages back and forth trying to figure out how to find each other, since neither of us had any idea what the other looked like. Her self-description was, "I, uh... I look like a fuckin' normie", shortly then followed by a much more specific description. After a few minutes and walking past each other once without realizing it, we found each other. I waited outside the registration hall while she went in to pick up her badge, which fortunately she was able to do immediately since there was no line. I was worried that Friday lines might be just as bad as the ones on Thursday, since it seemed distinctly possible that a ton of people who couldn't get Thursday off would show up on Friday for the more usual 3-day con experience. But this seems to have been generally speaking not the case; most things actually felt a little calmer after the Thursday feeding frenzy.
With Hexfloog thus badged, we proceeded to attend to priority one for a convention morning: caffeine. The Starbucks on level 3 of the convention center was the most convenient. I'm not a big coffee drinker. I think I mentioned that. But Starbucks has some options that fit me, like the S'mores frappuchino I decided on. Hexfloog ordered some other type of frappuchino, something chocolately I think. We sat down to work on those, and while we did, Hex checked her Nintendo DS. I've never had one, but as she explained it, there's some feature on it that will use wireless signalling to automatically leave greetings for the users of other DS consoles you happen to pass nearby. It shows your avatar and a speech bubble, I guess. She noted that her DS's automatic greeting was just "Hi," which she commented was pretty lame. Her avatar was interesting, though, with a top-hat and a wide, creepy grin. We pondered a bit together over what a snappier greeting might be. I suggested that if you're gonna do the creepy avatar thing, you might as well go all the way with it and have a creepy greeting, you know, maybe something about telling people they smell nice... end result? She changed her greeting to, "You smell nice..." and left it on that for the whole weekend. XD
Once again, sometimes I am a bad influence.
I feel like I should offer the kids at home a disclaimer:
Or, more optimistically, maybe I'm an awesome influence.
It's a toss-up, really.
At the very least, I'm sure it made somepony out there's BronyCon weekend just that little bit more interesting.
Sorry, and/or you're welcome, to anypony who got told they smell nice on their DS by a creeper with a weird hat and a Cheshire cat grin.
Aaaaaanyway, after getting coffee'd up, Hex wanted to cruise the vendor hall, and I thought that would be a fine idea, since I hadn't even tried to get in there yesterday, given the absolute nightmare it would have been, and the line was now much more tolerable on Friday.
So we made our way in there and stuck together while we cruised the booths and took in the sights. It's usually a good convention vending hall practice to do a first pass through everything and scope out what merch you want to prioritize, lest you get cleaned out impulse-buying and then end up kicking yourself when you run across that thing you just can't live without a couple booths away but you no longer have the budget for it.
The vendor hall, by the way, was huge. Waaaaay bigger than the ones at other cons I've been to. Hex and I actually got lost a couple times trying to get through it all. And like at Quills and Sofas, I saw a bunch of artists in person there who had hitherto just been names on the internet. I also saw a few familiar faces I routinely see from Everfree Northwest, among then Ruirik (who does awesome woodcraft stuff, among other things) and S.R. Foxley (a certified all-around Good Dude who very generously opens up his home to throw the Everfree Northwest staff parties there about three times a year).
"But Winston," you ask, "you're talking about the vendor hall. So get to the good stuff: what did you BUY? Huh? Huh?"
The answer is... well, not much, to be honest. I wasn't about to leave empty-hooved, of course. But at the same time, I did have to fly home across the continent. That meant that buying bulky heavy things like physical books was out. *gasp* How could I, being an author, not buy books?!? I wanted to. I really did. And I mean no disrespect to any of the printed authors who had books at the convention. I just really did have to make that hard decision about what my luggage would bear, and the amount and type of stuff I wanted to accumulate to add to my existing pony merch.
Understand, I don't go hog wild and buy a ton at conventions because, honestly, just having piles of merch brings me no real joy. For me, it's all about finding those meaningful pieces, the perfect souvenir that reminds me of how special the con it came from was.
And this convention was no exception. I found that one special thing I really wanted.
"Don't keep us in suspense!" I hear you cry. "What was it?!?"
Alright, alright, keep your pants on. It was this 9x12 print by Silfoe:
Sunset Shimmer, and especially her relationship and reconciliation with Celestia, means a lot to me.
But what really-really made it the souvenir was that Rebecca Shoichet was at BronyCon. I'd never been able to get her autograph, and it was the last one left on my "must-have" list. Getting it on this would have been just about everything I could ask for.
And so that brings me to what happened after the vendor hall. Once we'd walked through together and bought the stuff we wanted, Hex and I drifted over to the autograph hall. She wanted to get Nicole Oliver, and I wanted Rebecca, so that's where we parted ways for the time to pursue our respective goals.
I got into Rebecca's line at about 1:20pm. Her next block of autographing time started at 2pm. She was scheduled until 3:30pm.
Guess when I got my autograph?
Go on. Guess.
Oh, okay, fine! I'll tell you.
5pm.
Rebecca Shoichet was just the nicest and stayed an extra hour and a half to get to everyone in her line. She didn't have to do that, and I suspect a lot of people wouldn't; the fact that she did only makes her autograph that much more special to me. Thank you, Ms. Shoichet. It really is a nice feeling of completion and leaves me with a satisfying sense of symmetry that the last autograph I'd been really wanting for a long time was the one I finally got at the last BronyCon.
Totally worth the wait in line, no complaints about that. Close to four hours on my feet in line was rough, though. Just standing around doesn't sound like it'd be that bad, but it's harder on you than you'd think after a while. That line was one of the most tiring of the various endurance challenges BronyCon had in store for me.
So, after that, I was ready for a break. It seemed like a good time to catch a panel, since those are a thing you can at least sit down at for a while.
Which one to go to? Well, before we get into it, this seems like a good place to break another long blog entry.
C'mon back and find out soon in the exciting conclusion to Day 2! 
You want to know something really crazy? The vendor hall was actually smaller than past Bronycons.
Yes, really.
Also, dang. I should've aimed for a Rebeccagraph. Possibly kept a copy of Oversaturation for myself. (Of course, I probably would've left the line long before I got it, but still.)