In a (big) nutshell:
Day 1: The Summer Sun Celebration, lots of pony related musicians and DJs playing in a big club atmosphere. Not all of it pony related music, there were remixes of course but a lot of other tunes - some singing, some acoustic, then quite a lot of this modern "wub wub" bass cannon drop stuff (oh dear, I'm getting old), which I did gain quite an appreciation for. Like many of the shy pones there I was surprised how much bouncing it made me do.
Got to chat with our special guest Michelle Creber (Apple Bloom!) who was also singing and then did personalised autograph copies of her CDs, her musician parents Monique and Michael were also there. Did you know Michael is responsible for bananaphone
SSC was just awesome, and we partied so hard we blew the doors off Manchester Central. (Well, one of them, and it just kinda fell off, but we caused it with all the music, bass drops and jumping around xD)
Day 2: Got to peruse some merch, empty my wallet etc. I picked up a Build-a-bear Dashie, a bunch of the IDW comics, and some posters from one of the artists there. Saw a really good cosplay catwalk, watch a Q&A panel with some voice actors, listened to some pretty good karaoke, then various "lower key than SSC but also really good" music performances as the night drew in. There was loads going on at any one time (http://www.buckcon.org/wp-content/up...shed-draft.png) and we could've done with a mirror pool, but those are the things I chose to attend. After closing, had a good few drinks back at the hotel with a small herd from the UK Equestria site.
Day 3: Watched writer and art Q&A panels which were interesting, finally got to see Double Rainboom (on a big screen) which I loved, it was silly and funny and well done, then there was a panel with some of its creators. Had a browse around at some of the little competition things going on and watched a stupidly hard pub quiz. Then the BIG and exciting Q&A panel with Michelle Creber, writer Cindy Morrow, and via Skype: Meghan McCarthy and Amy Keating Rogers and a grand finale.
It doesn't sound much when it's written out, but believe me, it was huge with just so much going on! Quite a lot was the crowd in general too, gathering in the foyer and doing their own thing.
Pinkie doesn't just stop after 3 parties, she then goes for an after-party. Basically, a more limited number of us officially took over a bar and squeezed the last drops of partying out of the weekend.
It was absolutely awesome, and the highlight was the truly buzzing, energetic, positive, super friendly, enthusiastic peopleAs my first con for anything big like this, I don't think I've seen such a happy crowd enjoying themselves so much in my life, it was amazing.
I couldn't make the nutshell any smaller, too excited.
--- tldr version ---
Con was awesome awesome awesome. Loved every minute! Well, apart from it ending :P
One thing I found interesting was that the queues to get into the music do and the con, were both as much fun (FUN FUN FUN) as the events themselves, that is not to say the events weren't as good as they could be (they were awesome), but rather that people really had such a great time getting to show off their cosplays and partake in various shenanigans while we waited, that the queueing was just another of the highlights.
The Summer Sun Celebration music event was so epic, we blew the bloody doors off the venue XD I'm not joking, one of the doors seriously fell out of its frame we shook the place so hard O_o (luckily the event was insured for accidental damage like that)
Glad to have taken that opportunity to see Michelle Creber and her parents (also professional musicians) Monique and Michael as well, I don't know what the line was like at the con but it was reasonable enough at SSC that we each got time for a quick chat, which was surreal really getting to talk to a star like that (my favourite CMC no less) and I was super nervous :P
Con was great, so much to see and do that I really hope they provide a mirror pool next year (I'm very tempted to go again next year) so we can clone ourselves xD I went to a lot of the Q&A panels, most of which were with fan content producers (for example the voice acting panel was with people who fan-voice things like Double Rainboom and are well on track for careers in voice acting), those were really interesting as we got to listen to how they learned to do what they do. The drawing one was interesting as well, as they mentioned that it's perfectly acceptable to use other pictures as a reference when drawing (I always thought that was "cheating" and avoided it), so long as you don't trace, which does nothing for improving your skills. That makes me think about trying to draw again.
Cosplay catwalk was good to watch, there were some really awesome outfits (especially the girl from our hotel herd who did Celestia and Rarity who did a fantastic job with it).. it's interesting as when I've seen cosplay images on the internet I've often thought "oh dear, guys, you look ridiculous" but I guess being there makes all the difference, or in general I think most of them were just so good and people picked what suited them. I think what you often see online is people highlighting the bad (as usual) e.g. things like an oversized man in a neckbeard trying to pull off Fluttershy and it reeeeally doesn't work (if you're big you're probably better off with a fursuit, Fluffle Puff or might be able to pull off somepony like Big Mac) but people seemed to pick the right cosplays for their build and appearance.
It certainly wasn't all about people selling stuff (this was just one floor and there wasn't a massive emphasis on it), which was a worry I had before going. There was loads of non-selling stuff going on. But hey, it was very interesting to see so much pony merch in England of all places and good to see BAB there selling Dash and Twilicorn, of which I grabbed the incredibly adorable Dashie (for a fraction of the price of the fan made plushies there, some were going for £150+, these were £20, that's economies of scale for ya)
Occasionally popped up to watch the karaoke singers, who were good at singing (why was everyone so good at what they do at this con!), I think the highlight for me there was Anthropology (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4dWMxTWTXE), a catchy little Lyra song that someone was singing really well.
Finally got to see Double Rainboom and a panel about it. I think they said it took something like 2.5 years to produce, wow. I enjoyed it and it tied in quite well with a comment in the fanfic writing Q&A, which was to avoid deus ex machina (meaning a solution to a problem out of nowhere) where possible but that it can be good if it's explained and done really well. Turns out Double Rainboom was a perfect example of this, with the inspired use of (SPOILER)Pinkie to "unzip" the world and rescue Dash after discovering the secrets of the universe (Adobe Flash) from drinking the potion. Very funny and very well done.
A friend in the US told me lots of people hated Double Rainboom, I don't see why, everyone here loved it.
A big highlight of course was the Q&A with Cindy Morrow, Michelle Creber, Meghan McCarthy (via Skype) and Amy Keating-Rogers (also via Skype), generally interesting stuff, no spoilers were allowed but we did get a heavy hint that we'll be seeing more of Discord
One item that I think will interest the fandom (some branches of the fandom more than others, no doubt *coughcough*) was a confirmation that in the creators' minds, the ponies are considered to be young adults since they're out of school and working, and around late teens to early 20s. But also that they're kind of timeless and ageless really as it's a unique universe so ultimately people can really interpret their ages however they wish.
On the smaller highlights (which actually ended up very popular and not-so small) the pub quiz was good as well. Many of the questions were ridiculous trivia that you'd have to be a super meganerd / trivia fan to know (what was Fluttershy's first wingpower rating... FYI it was 0.5) but some were interesting like finding out that Fluttershy was originally an earth pony and Pinkie a pegasus, and the very silly horse-related questions in the last round (how do you sound if you have a dysphonic voice?)
The afterparty was also good, we all piled into a hired bar and basically, there was much drinking, much pony music in the background, and many dances and singalongs.
Overall it was truly awesome, and good to meet some people from the UKoE forum too. I forgot to mention, on the Saturday the con closed at 10pm with nothing after it, and was left free for everyone to group together for our own fringe events. Great idea! Our hotel herd got together in the common room with booze we'd brought along and had some good brony fun together
The ending to the weekend happened twice, once at the con and once at the afterparty (which had fewer people - limited tickets), and it was typical brony style: we had a massive group hug outside at the end (things like this weren't organised or anything, they were spontaneous, someone yelled "group hugggg!" and everyone nearby was straight on that xD)
That was one of the great things about this, there was so much liveliness and spontaneity. Random groups of con-goers would just suddenly start singing one of the fan songs and dancing, or start the EQG stomp-stomp-clap and loads would join in, or we'd be all sat in the auditorium and half the crowd would end up singing "pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows" out of the blue XD
Not to mention the meme of everyone shouting "FUN?! FUN?! FUN?!" like the mirror pool Pinkies whenever anyone said the word "fun"... it meant the people on the panels kept having to say "er... doing this was... er... enjoyable!", it was very amusing xD But it actually annoyed the organisers towards the end as Michelle and Cindy were getting caught out with it all the time (it meant they kept getting interrupted) and so they banned it part way through the Q&A. :P
I think one of the truly amazing things was that I never heard a negative word about anything all weekend. Usually there's at least someone spreading doom and gloom, maybe ranting about twilicorn and EQG etc, or being unfriendly with someone. But no. Not one. It was astonishing. It was the happiest, friendliest atmosphere I've seen, and I'm pretty darn sure I'll be going again next year.
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Earlier in the year I thought the fandom was falling apart, which would be a huge shame as like FF it can be a really nice fandom. Season 3 wasn't as well received as 1 and 2, there was drama about Twilicorn, there was all the doom and gloom about how EQG would be terrible and ruin everything etc. EQG was very well received over here though (perhaps less in the US *shrugs*) and then the con just blew me away with how much love and enthusiasm was there and completely obliterated any thoughts of the fandom dying. I am back to maximum excitement for MLP again, and love it.
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Originally Posted by Cloudane
