BroNYcon

On a whim, I realized I had nothing better to do, so I decided to go up to New York for the day and see if I couldn't get into this BroNYcon convention. I like going to conventions so this seemed like an infallible good idea at the time. It was going to be an adventure! This was about a week before Saturday January 7. By the middle of the week beforehand, I decided I was absolutely going to go to New York. And then I figured I'd buy a ticket Thursday. They were sold out at 650 tickets. Oh. This now begins to put the convention into the 'fun' category.  So it was decided that getting there early was a good idea Saturday morning.

Derpy keeps my backpack in order.

Saturday arrived and now I was required to get to New York. I armed myself with my Derpy Patched Backpack of Holding with some survival items (flares*, bagels, sketchpad, ponies, etc) and it was time to go. Getting to New York early meant getting up at 5:50am, leaving at 6 am, catching the bus at 6:30 am and then finally arriving at Hotel Pennsylvania at 9 am.




Note: All the pictures here can be found in much larger sizes here

Morning

I got in at the Port Authority about 8:30 am and after getting lost immediately inside the Port, I eventually ended up walking in mostly the correct direction. While walking through the streets of NY, I passed a guy in a Fluttershy shirt a few blocks away from Hotel Pennsylvania. I arrived promptly at 9 am. I wondered how I was find other pony people when I entered the hotel. I did not have to look very far at all...

Huffable Ponies. I'm pretty sure pinkie is like the Orange kitten.

All over the lobby

A giant sign, in case I didn't see the cosplayers

Line 1 of 5

 ... I was pretty sure I found the correct spot. A few minutes after arriving, in case I still wasn't sure I had the right spot, a group of bronys broke out into spontaneous song of Giggle at the Ghosties, followed minutes later by Every Pony Should Know. There was no dancing.

The first line began to move around 9:30 and vanished into hotel. I was told that walk ins needed to wait a while, so I decided to get breakfast and left the building.

At this point I will take the time to note, I did not no anyone or expecting to run into anyone I thought I may know. I am also very much like Twilight in that you need to force me to make friends. Case in point, I failed to remember to introduce myself to anyone that I had talked to for longer then five minutes for the entirety of the con, except to Sethisto, and that was after talking to him for a half hour and I was leaving for the night. (friends?? *eye twitch* )

After breakfast at Roy Rogers I resumed standing around in the lobby. By this time, Line 2 had formed and had to be relocated from the lobby to outside. It began moving presently though at this time it was said that us late comers wouldn't probably be able to get in until noon. It was now 10 am. I wasn't going to stand in a line for two hours on the off chance it may move, so I did the next logical thing. I went to Ground Zero by Subway.

It turned out there wasn't much to see. There were new buildings being built that were being protected by a 2 story high opaque fence force field. Even the memorial was surrounded by this force field and they wanted me to pay them money to go look at it. Granted it was in the middle of a construction war zone and I probably needed a hard hat or something. I went over to the church because it was a free memorial and they had free restrooms that weren't locked.

Afternoon

It was now nearing 12 pm and I made my way back up to Hotel Pennsylvania via the subway to see if I might be able to get into the convention. I was greeted with Line 3. It wasn't nearly as long as lines 1 or 2 had been but it was still a line. After walking up and down the hallway I discovered.... Line 4. This line was outside on the street. This is where they had sent all the non prereg'd rabble. And rabble they did. Singing my little pony songs to whoever decided to walk on the block. There was also much cheering, I'm not sure what, I was at the end of the very end of this line. I waited for around 45 minutes or an hour. Whichever came first.

Around 1:30 it was announce that while everyone was going to get in, it was still probably going to be another two hours. I did the next best logical thing and walked to Times Square and had lunch at Mc Donalds.

Time Square Sparkles

I found left over New years Confetti!

Oh gosh what??

Oh look! Ponies!

While I was at times square, I walked through the Toys R Us store and the Disney Store. I couldn't remember where the shiney Apple store was or the really big toy store was or were FAO Swartzs was. (they were just below Central Park). I inquired about the prices for some Broadway plays ($156 for The Lion King, $50 for Phantom of the Opera).

Now I was getting very tired of walking at this point as I pretty much been standing or walking since early morning. I decided to go see the Statue of Liberty from afar. I got back onto the subway and headed down to the bottom of New York. I got on the first ferry that was in front of me upon arrival at the South Ferry and we were off to see the Statue of Liberty! Then we went right past it. And kept on going.... At this point I had no idea what I had actually gotten onto but it had been free. And 25 minutes long. And that's how I found myself on Staten Island. I had no idea what was on Staten Island and thus hurriedly made my escape back to Manhattan. Hurriedly was another 25 minute boat ride back.

I decided now would be a good time to go see about the convention again. I rode subway back to the Hotel and Success! I could get in. There was much rejoicing! ~yay.

Late Afternoon / Evening

At 4:30. I managed to get into the convention finally. Well at this point there was no line at all. I immediately took looking at was left over from the artists alley. And discovering the reason for the insanity of earlier. It was a long hallway, a short fat hallway and the convention hall, which sat only 475 people according to the very large sign on the wall. I'm sure there were far, far more then 475 people in that room. I caught the tale end of the VA Q&A session. I didn't follow it very closely since it was wrapping up. 

Stuff to buy!

More to buy!

Luna!

Bronycon!

Artists Alley Hallway

There was a giant banner with woona and the word SCIENCE from the tumblr Moonstruck. It turns out I did not actually take a picture of the banner, which makes me sad. But an image of it can be located following this finely crafted link. I'm not sure if I was talking to Egophiliac or his slave business partner. Either way there was nothing to buy from him. So I gave him $1.50. Unsure of what to do with $1.50 he gave me a handful of rubber bands.

I ordered a shot glass with twilight sparkle's cutie mark on it as they were completely sold out long before I arrived. I also bought the Bronycon calender that was for sale for a while at some point in the recent past for some reason. It shall decorate the top shelf quite nicely as I never use calendars ( I should start, really).

From that point Daniel Ingram showed up Skype and chatted to us raving lunatics for about an hour or so. It was neat to hear about how production on a project goes for him since I generally see the animation sides of a project. It's very different and unnatural.

Next was shown the new EPIC PIE TIME short video. Then apparently the people who created that were all on Skype at the same time by happenstance so they had an impromptu chat with them for a bit.

After this was the Cosplay Contest. Everyone had a moment to say a line as they came up on the stage one by one. Then we attempted to take a vote. Cheering ensued. Then we took a vote after someone was smart enough to write down who everyone had been. Then we voted for second and third place. Derpy picked Applebloom for first.

All the Cosplay

She could pick up letters and hand them to people one hoofed. IT WAS MAGIC

Discord Doctor, Zecora, Fluttershy and Peachy Pie ( I think)

Pinky Pie

The winner went to a nine year old playing Appleboom. Second place went to Derpy. Third went to Granny Smith. Then. Before they all scattered... we all sang a song...

There was a short break while they then set up the room for the auction. I went to go have dinner at Mc Donalds... again... I came back to witness glorious insanity. People were bidding outrageous sums of money on pony.

• Lyra Acid Etched Glass Tumbler - 168
• Scarfs with cutie marks on them - 140 (each)
• Cake with Cupcakes on it - 100 I believe
• Egophiliac's really long poster - a lot
• Pinkie Pie made out of SUGAR - 600
• A plain wallet with a vector trace of some pony - more then it should have 
• The list goes on and I can't remember any more items.

She is made of Sugar

Really

 The group of people that I was standing with (including the girl who did the lyra acid etched tumbler) decided that every pony in the audience was CRAZY and that they have way too much money on hand. We also decided that we needed to make something pony and sell it to this crowd and get in on this money pie.

Once the auction ended at about 9:50, the dance party began to setup. Well it wasn't much of a dance party as all the chairs stayed in place. But that didn't get underway until about 10:30.

During this time, I played two Demos - Fighting is Magic  and Dream Valley. I got my plot handed to me in the Fighting is Magic. I never played those kinds of games, and the guy who played against me was semi-pro. It was still fun. Dream Valley is some kind of story game. It was in pre-alpha but they had a build that ran. You could run around as one of the mane six and switch between them kind of similar to Trine in that they had different abilities. I really liked what they had so far and rather interested to see how it turns out. I gave them some feed back and we talked building games in other systems (ie the UDK)

At some point I ended up with two adorable badges - Rainbow Dash and Twilight. I can't remember when I actually bought them or where.

While talking to some other group of people, Sethisto was pointed out to me so I went over to say hello. He invited me to join their loose non-circular group of idleness and I agreed to the arrangement. In the group we covered such topics as cars, batteries, SOPA, Go Daddy, and ponies. Not in that order.

At 11 pm I realized my bus ride home was about to turn back into a pumpkin and I had to bid goodnight and leave. On the way home I watched Friendship is Witchcraft.

All in all, even though only half the day was ponies and not a full day, I enjoyed the convention very much. They had their growing pains like all small conventions that suddenly turn into large conventions do. I think they did a very good job with what they had to do.