So I figured now that there's under a month left we should arrange when and where we're all meeting up. I'll be getting in to Manchester Picadilly at roughly 10:30 on the Saturday, and I know some of us are arriving on Friday. So I thought it'd be handy to agree on where the people arriving Friday should meet before checking in, and where/when myself and any other Saturday arrivals should meet up with the rest of you folks.

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Hostel check-in should be any time after 2pm, but I put in a random expected time (8pm) when booking.

Also, how early did you have in mind? Avoiding the absurd on-peak ticket prices, it'll probably be noon-ish or 1pm on Friday for me. Hopefully not so late that you or Beert will be hanging around for very long if you're heading there for the morning.

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So far I only know of you and Jeryn that are arriving Saturday. If you've got stuff that needs dropping off at the hostel then we can go there from the station before heading to EventCity.

Reckon a Skype group will be needed nearer the date to allow for more flexible planning. But meeting points ought to be either the station or hostel at this point.

5109522 Barring any delays my flight is scheduled to arrive in Manchester at 7:15 Saturday morning. If you'd want I can meet up with you at the station, I was planning on taking the train to Picadilly anyway.

5110537 My flight is scheduled to arrive at 12:20am(20min after noon, I can never remember whether I put am or pm in such a case). I'll most likely take a train and arrive at Picadilly train station at 1/1:30pm. I think it would be convenient to meet at the train station. As for the Skype chat, I agree with the "chat" part but personally I'd rather use Discord.

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Early afternoon station meet up on Friday sounds good. It still gives is plenty of time to check out the area if we feel inclined.

If anybody else favours using Discord (understandably), I can set up a Joorist server whenever and dish out invites?

5112537 Discord is good, it's handy in that I can use it on my phone whereas the skype app is godawful on my device.

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Right, so with barely a week to go I might as well get that Discord group up and running. Even if it doesn't get much use until next Friday.

Invites: Come get them while they're hot!

If you don't have the app or would prefer to use Skype for IMs, then simply PM me your contact info.

Just so you all know, I go by "cdos93" on Discord, so don't be confused if you see that username on the list of server members

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Hey guys. Unfortunately I'll be delivering bad news. Real life happened(both regarding what I'd miss from Friday to Monday and my final exams in May) and in the long run it looks like it's better to focus on it. I won't be lying, I'm sad. It sucks that I'll miss my idea come to life, it sucks that I won't get to meet you guys and it sucks that I'll miss the con itself. I'd like to wish you all a great event nonetheless and I hope you'll have fun and bring back great memories.

Maybe next year

5157505
Ahh, bummer :/

Still, I wish you all the best and thank you for giving us the drive to put your plan into motion. I'm not entirely sure if there will be a "next year" since this is apparently the last BUCK event as we know it. Though there are always other European alternatives.

Just waiting to see if Hatters can alter the reservation. They ought to with 12 hours left until the cancellation/change deadline.

5157505 I'm sorry to hear that Beert, hopefully there will be another opportunity down the road to all meet up again. Good luck on those exams!

5157505 Oh man, that sucks. I know this is BUCK's last year, so its a shame, but I hope you can go to one of the EU cons as codalux says.

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If you find WiFi at Piccadilly then could you let us know when you've arrived?

Edit: Oh hey airport security...

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Welp, with the end of the year approaching it's almost time for me to start scheduling my vacation time for next year. Is anybody interested in doing this again? Even if Austraeoh is on an indefinite hiatus I had a blast last time and am getting the itch to travel again. Are there any events that would be easier to attend for you guys than others?

5632504 Well, I'd be happy to actually participate this time, I'll prepare better Last year was BUCK's last and the only other "big" conventions in Europe that I know of are Galacon in Ludwigsburg, Germany and BronyFair in Berlin, Germany(duh). I dunno much about them but Germany is close and affordable enough for me. I'm also looking at two conventions in Poland. They're not too big though and not something to cross the ocean for but I'll put it here anyway. One is MEC(Middle Equestrian Convention) in Warsaw. From the YT vid I've seen the place was perfect for the amount of people that came so it looked like there were a lot. Which is unlike the one I've been to, PCG2016(PonyCongress2016) held in Elbląg this year. Tbh we had the whole Creber clan(+BlackGryph0n), ShadyVox, Re:Make(former AcousticBrony) and Przewalski's Ponies from Russia but the place still felt a bit empty at times. In 2017 PGC in gonna be held in either Cracow(which is more likely) or Warsaw so that guarantees more people.

Also, dates:
BronyFair is June 10th/11th 2017.
GlaCon is July 29th/30th 2017
PCG is July 8th/9th 2017

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I'll also plug Czequestria in Prague, Czech Republic. It's a smaller one and very affordable. (And the closest one to my position ). There isn't much info out yet, though. I personally expect it to be by the start of February at latest.
https://www.czequestria.cz/en/

I'm yet undecided on which I'll attend, except Galacon, where I'll try my hardest to get to.

5633205 I did a little browsing through EqD a while back and Galacon did look pretty nice and if I'm remembering right, I think it's the biggest one left in the EU. Germany would also be a cool place to visit but I'm not sure how hard that would be for the UK folks to make work.

I'd love to see Poland too but I'll have to get back with you on that one. I did some pricing on airfare to Germany and it was a good bit more expensive than last year's trip to England. If Poland is any more expensive I'd be cutting it pretty thin on money.

5634467 Getting to visit the Czech Republic would be awesome too but that might be a bit too soon for me to be able to make it. Since it's so close to Christmas it would probably depend on if I could get my tax returns back in time. I'd hate to have to pull out last minute and leave you guys hanging.

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Sorry, I didn't write clearly enough. I expect the info to be up by February, the con will be in the second half of August 2017.

5634484 If anything, flying to Poland might be pricey. But once you're here no matter what your currency, USD, Pound, Euro, everything is basically dirt cheap.
/edit
conversion rates

5634517 I finally got some time to crunch the numbers on airfare and for some reason Poland was the most expensive I've seen in Europe. The prices range from $1,705(7,036 PLN)-$10,620(43,851 PLN) (and that was just for economy!!). Warsaw ended up being only a tiny bit cheaper, so I'll probably have to scratch PCG off of my list.

5634488 No worries, I probably should have looked at their website first . I was a bit shocked at how cheap airfare to Prague was, so Czequestria is definitely still an option for me.

So do you guys just want to aim for Galacon since it's the only place that all three of us either plan to or are able to attend? I guess at the end of the day I'm happy going anywhere where we can get the biggest group together. If we can get a rough consensus I'll go ahead and make a new thread for planning and post something on the main Austraeoh forum for any others that might be interested.

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Galacon's the one I'd aim for. Standard con tickets should include access to all events for roughly half the cost of BUCK + SSC. That amount money saved would cover my flights. How much would it be for you to get to/from Stuttgart?

Con location and the nearest Ibis hotel are close enough that we wouldn't need to pay for transport. A pair of double rooms (each with a spare bunk = 3 per room) is also less than the cost of 3 nights/4 beds at Hatters.

It's a long way off and right now I'm strapped for cash but it is something I can build funds for.

5639765 As of now the cheapest I've been able to find is a British Airways flight for about $1,300 (1040 GBP) off of justfly.com. It's more than I was hoping to pay but with the cheaper con and lodging it's doable and I might be able to find something a little cheaper later on through Cleveland.

Is Brexit going to affect you guys at all? Last I heard they were hoping for a full pullout by 2019 but the news here tends to focus more on the geopolitical implications and I haven't heard if there are any immediate restrictions that have gone into effect.

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Brexit's a long way off regardless of how swiftly it comes into effect. I think the worst we can expect is having the pay a little extra (something like €5) for security vetting as non-EU travellers, but even that's yet to be decided.

The only thing that might sting a bit for now is the £/€ exchange rate. But then I've got enough spare Euros left over from my last trip in case of such rate changes.