ALRIGHTY
So I ended up attending BronyQueue 2016 so we could get Tabitha to sign the Sisters quilt. This year's adventure started a little differently as instead of taking the train downtown on Thursday by myself, I drove my mom to the convention center as she went inside to grab the badges. And she brought a friend with. A friend who had heard things about My Little Pony, but had no idea about the true scope. She also has a hard time filtering out what she says. She had fun just grabbing badges, and she wants to go next year, but I can see her getting into some trouble if she's not careful. Which sounds fun! I was kind of surprised at seeing how many people were in full costume on Thursday.
I also had the idea of bringing a four foot Darth Vader toy along to dress up, but I realized that, with how much time is going to be spent waiting in line, it wasn't going to be worth it.
We couldn't have timed Saturday any better as I was literally putting coins into the ticket machine as the train pulled up.
Things had shifted around from last year. The vendor market and autograph section were on the east end of the building instead of the west, and people were allowed inside before opening up, which was nice.
They had us queue up on some tape before letting us into the autographs section so we could line up
there instead. Thankfully we brought a camping shair for Mom to sit in.
A view from inside the line.
This was the autograph voucher line after roughly an hour. It was here that I had my first encounter with someone who made me seem socially well adjusted.
After getting our vouchers, we immediately moved to the line for Tara Strong, as my mom had whipped up a Princess Twilight Sparkle quilt. They had a "No photos!" policy for the autograph section, which I respected, so I have no photos from that. Mom snuck a few photos of things in, though. I can only describe some of the things I saw there:
-Someone with the voice and face of a middle aged man, but with boobs that were too perfect to be natural.
-A heavyset person of ambiguous gender dressed as Pinkie Pie. S/he was carrying
this balloon cluster (photo not mine) but eventually lost control of it, and people started bouncing it between each other like a volleyball. Keeping in mind that this happened before 10AM, they were still bouncing it around after we returned later that afternoon.
They were bouncing it around for at least 10 hours.
-
This chick. She got in line in full costume, but after 20 minutes was back in her civvies. Before then, she kept reaching her hand into her mask's mouth, an act that amused and terrified me at the same time.
-A Vinyl Scratch themed luchador who carried a cardboard MLP bookcase with him. I think he had speakers built into his socks.
After getting Tara to sign the quilt, someone else in line wanted to talking to Mom about possible commissions or an etsy shop, and, shortly after getting an appluase from the line for her Royal Sisters quilt, even encouraged her to set up a vendor booth for next year. PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS MOM
We then hit up Tabitha's line with little incident. We got a photo voucher with her, but her handler got confused by my camera and ended up taking six photos.
This was my favorite. Mom had no idea she pointed at her in that one.
Tabitha was certainly an interesting one. Holy cow, was she energetic! We also got her to sign the Rarity quilt my young niece has, and she was generous enough (ha!) to throw in a signed pictured of Rarity free of charge.
It was shortly after 12 when we managed to escape the line. The convention was going to hold a panel featuring all four of the main actresses at 1:30, and knowing that this was going to be a hugely popular event, we needed to get in line soon. Papa John's had a booth set up, so we picked up a couple of stale personal pizzas for $10 a piece. Hooray for venue markup!
The panel was going to be hosted on literally the opposite end of the building - fourth floor of the west block - so I had plenty of photo ops on the way.
A shot of the main lobby right outside the autograph section.
Scootaloo! There were actually quite a few fursuiters there this year.
Mom stepping out of the registration room. Note the Fluttershy/Discord couple.
Fuzzy shot of a crowd of people who just yelled something.
View of the lobby from above.
Spitfire taking the escalator down.
And a changeling following not far behind. I hope that person's neck is all right.
At this point I should mention that the convention has a, "Cosplay is not consent!" rule, IE, ask before taking pictures of anyone. This was a rule I ignored with gleeful abandon because I much prefer candid photos.
View of the next escalator ride up.
Crowded hall shot. Fuzzy because I was moving as I took it.
Fursuit couple, presumably of some OCs. Photo is dim because my camera doesn't combine zoom with flash very well.
People eating lunch.
At this point we reach the line for the panel.
Snapped a photo of Rainbow Daft, who is surprisingly hard to see in this photo. I seem to recall seeing Pinkie Punk wandering around somewhere, but never got a photo.
Here's a shot of the entire line for the panel.
Waiting in line can be quite tiring, so a lot of people sat down or even took naps. That's when I spotted what is
possibly the most inconsiderate photo I took. His eyes must have opened right before I took the photo, because they were closed as I was angling the shot. After he got up, he kept carressing that doll in a way that unsettled me.
When they started escorting people into the hall, I swear we spent five minutes just walking through the queues. Some people took up "bro hoofing" as they passed each other.
The hall for the panel was, once again, a "no photo zone." Mom still snuck in some pictures. Seated around us were Big Mac as
Little Mac and some green thing in a hat I later identified as The Schmooze.
The panel was quite fun. It wasn't a Q&A. Rather, Tabitha St. Germain wrote a screenplay for a hypothetical episode, and all four acted out their parts, with some extras to fill in some additional roles, like for Celestia and a really bad Spike. The premise was that Luna was going to be teaching the mane six about dreaming, but just before the first lesson, Pinkie Pie managed to crack one of the princess's teeth with a cupcake. This ended up being a huge point of anxiety for her, because Princesses are supposed to be Perfect, she is forbidden by law from using magic for her own benefit, and she has an unhealthy fear of dentists. Hilarity ensues as she tries to not talk to anyone during the lessons. Also, Luna was presented as an elephant during the dream sequence just so Fluttershy could drop a quip about, "Addressing the elephant in the room."
Everyone was there for the four actresses, but the real star of the show was the dude who did the obnoxiously nasal Spike. He also did I. Yankum, The Singing Dentist, and holy
crap can that guy sing! You'll have to keep an eye Bronycon's youtube channel for when they upload. Biggest gripe I had, though, was Tabitha's insistence on referencing the Equestria Girls in order justify dentists in Equestria. Totally unnecesarry.
After everything was over, there was a poorly organized Q&A right after that we weren't interested in, so we go up to get in line for Ashleigh Ball, all the way back at the opposite end of the convention center, where we started. On my way out,
I got a picture of King Sombra and some dalmatian pony? I dunno. Dark because of stupid zoom/flash issues.
Vinyl Scratch with Luna's head because why not. S/he was doing a little dance as I took this picture.
It's the weird-necked changeling with someone else!
And those two with Spitfire and Derpy the paper bag wizard! The Derpy was in the autograph line with us earlier.
Right as I snapped this phot of people playing Smash Bros. WiiU on a projector, someone right behind me started playing
Hopes and Dreams on some portable speakers behind me. This brings me to another point: there was a not-insignificant presence of Undertale there, even though most of it was just pins and fanart for sale at the vendor market. One girl was carrying around a plate with Flowey on it, but his body was a pile of spaghetti. Yeah, sure.
An oversized Twilight Sparkle doll. I'm surprised this one turned out so well, because I had to disable the flash and hold the camera extra still for a prolonged exposure while zoomed all the way in.
A partial fursuiter sitting down for lunch.
A brave Zebra warrior running up the steps.
When we arrived at the autograph station, we had to wait a bit to get in. I wandered the vendor market briefly.
EquestriaPlush had a table right as you wandered in. Everything else was, of course, fanart prints. I made a point to not go around around photographing everyone's merch, as that would be extremely rude, but
My Little Raptor was too precious to pass up. Twilight Sparkle was featured just on the other side of these.
Fursuiter wearing a Shing Armor jacket. This photograph freaked out my sister-in-law for some reason.
I swear, Ashleigh's line took the longest. Not entirely sure why, but it took two hours to get us through. There was this one guy who had a My Little Pony sleeve tattoo on his upper arm that he seemed to be getting everyone to autograph. Rumor had it that he was going to hit up some tattoo parlor right afterward to get the autographs permanently inked onto his body. Someone in line remarked that Ashleigh looked uncomfortable with this, but was being polite anyway. He seemed to take five minutes just talking to her about it. One guy right behind us kept kvetching about how long the line was taking that was moderately amusing at first, but got old quick. Fortunately he left and took his whining with him to Tabitha's line. After waiting five and a half hours for John Delancie last year, this was child's play.
And after we got Ashleigh Ball to autograph a Rainbow Dash quilt,
I can now say hat I have spoken to all the major actresses of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which was pretty much the whole intent this year. Rather meh on the nerd bragging rights, but it'll score me quite a few Cool Uncle points.
Andrea Libman was at a table right next to Ashleigh.
There was absolutely nobody in line for the venerable Fluttershy. I briefly got her attention after getting that last autograph, but she didn't seem to remember us. Understandable, but disappointing.
At this point, things were getting late, and we needed to get ready to go. Mom wanted to hit up the vendors real quick, see if there was anything she wanted.
Yet another fursuiter. No clue who of though. Dinky Doo maybe?
Check out the fro on this dude.
Around this point, I saw two black guys dressed as Mario and Luigi. They were holding a sign saying, "Mario Bros Princess Protection Program."
They depicted Mario and Luigi as ponies on this sign. Why?!
Another generic crowd shot.
And the crown jewels of all my photographs! This one
really freaked my brother out. He was in line for autographs earlier. Glad I saw him at the vendors, because I was not leaving without his photo!
Coupla wizardly types.
Oh, I remember this guy from last year!
And one last very boring photo of a wall. Scootaloo's riding an RC car there.
One photo I failed to get was someone dressed as a Twilight Sparkled themed Master Chief. I actually did go in to get a photo of that, but a staffer decided to enforce the, "Cosplay is not consent!" rule on me.
We got home around 6:30PM. I didn't get much sleep the night before, so I ended up Hindenburging my bed for several hours.
And... that's pretty much it for my Bronycon experience. I got all the major autographs from people on the show. Will I go again? If I do, it's only to observe my mom's friend's behavior, and, if he's there, to get Daniel Ingram to sign my
Princess Celestia edition of the show's soundtrack on vinyl. Other than that, there's not a whole lot there for me aside from people watching. But I guess it was fun in the end.
Best part of this year: Absolutely
flummoxing someone in line behind us by announcing that I'm really not into the show that much, and haven't even finished season 1. The idea that someone was at this event
wearing this shirt but doesn't watch the show completely blew his mind.
