Ponycon NYC 2016: Was it Actually February Spaghetti?

If you squint hard enough, you can see the pasta already developing in the clouds a day before the con started.
Folks, are a lot of claims about Ponycon NYC. Some of them are true, and some of them are just plain ol' bullshit. Join me as we sort through many of them to find out just how spaghetti Ponycon NYC 2016 was, and whether or not it qualifies to fulfill the brony fandom drama curse of February.

Just an FYI, I was there for all 3 days of the con and then some as a vendor, so expect the vendor section to be long. My waifu/ #1 boy toy Calpain was there as a community guest and can fill in the blanks that I wasn't present for, such as the VIP dinner. (Which, sadly enough, did not serve actual spaghetti. Missed opportunity, staff! :^)

Oh what, this 'ol vendor booth? ...I-I'm not a whore, you're a whore!

 

The Con Location Smelled / was Filthy

 

Personally I thought the location was pretty neat, but holy shit did it lead to most of the con's problems.

Ok, so right off the bat I can tell you that the con smelled fine. If anything, it smelled better then your average Summer con because it was too cold for people to start sweating. As for it being dirty, well... the vast majority of the public areas were perfectly fine. The theater had plenty of staff cleaning, cooking, and preparing drinking water all over the building. The main area I heard complaints about was the staff/VIP room upstairs where certain people could get snacks (such as soup). According to Calpain, the place wasn't dirty so much as really old and out of shape. The dust wasn't cleaned in unused areas of the room and the walls were peeling heavily. Unfortunately when Cal tried to take pictures, even when he said they were just of the walls, staff told him to stop.

The Location was Too Cold

 

TLDR; The theater is historically old and that weekend hit record lows in NYC.
First of all, that weekend in general was FUCKING FREEZING. According to this article the city wasn't just chilly, it was 100 year record breaking ball breaking cold. And if that wasn't bad enough, Sunday ( which thanks to their Sat/Sun/Mon schedule ended up being a very panel packed day), was incredibly windy. Going outdoors to your hotel or to get some food was miserable, and it only started to warm up decently near the end of Tuesday when the con was long over. To top it off, the con this year was located in a historically old theater, meaning that their heating system could only do so much, especially for big open spaces like the main hall and some of the vendor areas.

This snow was from Monday, and quite frankly as a Floridian I'm super butt hurt about waiting too long to go play in it.
So yes, the place was colder then what most people find comfortable and a lot of people kept an extra layer of clothing on. But I mean... fuck, do you really expect the con to plan for a 100 year record breaking chill? That's just bad luck. Even if they had gone for a normal Fri/Sat/Sun schedule they still would have hit Sunday, which was easily the worst day that weekend. It certainly would have made traveling back home more difficult.

The Vendor Room Setup was Really Weird...

 

Aaaaand this is the part where the article gets really photo heavy. Observe the sun room part of the vendor area.
 Just a little FYI, while I like using photo filters I tried not to add them to most of the photos I took of this particular con. Especially not the vendor areas. Why? Because lighting was easily the worst part of the setup, and yes, that includes the 3 way vendor area split which also sucked. So the sun room was the vendor's room I was in, and lighting was fine... as long as the sun was out. Luckily that was the vast majority of the time for us, and apparently it even lead to that room being the warmest room in the entire con.

While Andy Price did have just enough light to vend at night, it wasn't enough to draw with.
Yay, right? Well at night (for about the last two hours every day) it was dark as fuck, which lead to comic artists that were doing commissions leaving early to go finish up their work in their much better lit hotel rooms. But the rest of us didn't really seem to give much of a fuck considering that business died right at 5:00pm and didn't come back until an hour or two into the next morning. At least that's how it was for us and the poor folks in the room connected to us.

Those poor vendors... Remember, no photo filters here.
This is the second part of the vendor area. Sure, it would be cute to call it the moon room since the other room was the sun room, but I'm going to be honest and call it the get fucked room. While there was originally a big glass ceiling area in the middle of that room that could have at least given light to some of the rooms, it was out of commission and had blue tarp covering all of it up. For some weird reason, the theater staff did not turn on the additional lighting during the day even though that area desperately needed it. On the bright (heh) side, they did turn them on at night, and it lead to their area being brighter then ours for those two oh so precious (aka deserted) hours at night.
Area 3: The "There's ANOTHER vendor's room!?" Room
Last part of the vendor's room, I swear. This area was completely inside in the building and had ok lighting the entire time regardless of what time it was. The thing about this venue is that all the lighting was soft mood lighting, whereas most hotels/convention centers will have harsh, bright lighting. This is because this theater is more for hosting shows and weddings, not conventions. And... SIGH, yes I'll fucking admit it: This is not an appropriate venue for a brony convention, even if it was kind of a cool idea.

A lot of the multi-table vendors got put down here.
 Depending on who you ask, this could have been the easiest room to find or "Whoa, there was another area downstairs?" Correct me if I'm wrong on this but it seemed like you had to go through the game room to get to this room. This lead to many gamers heading to this room before the other one. Some didn't even realize that there were two more vendor areas upstairs before they ran out of spending money. (Dear several underage boys: please stop telling me that you want an amiibo but you already spent all your money downstairs. GODDAMN LITTLE SHITS, GO ASK UR MUM FOR MORE!)

Chrysalis is second best waifu~ Sunset Shimmer is obviously first place!
While you think this terrible setup would lead to most of the vendors going for broke, sales were actually pretty OK according to the vendors I talked to. While hardly anyone sold out (I think 2 vendors total did, including an expensive plushie maker) Most people that had to either fly in and/or get a hotel room hit 4 digits in sales. I personally had to fly in, but Calpain and I were staying with friends that drove us everywhere, so we personally ended up saving a ton of money. Otherwise I probably would have just barely broken even. Taxis are expensive in NYC!

The Concerts were Too Loud

 

Is that a rave stick in your pocket or is your dick just radioactive?
A few special guests, such as Peter New, publicly complained that the concerts in the main hall were so loud that they had to shout over them to talk to people right next to them. Unfortunately this isn't much of an exaggeration. Even from the vendor's room (you know, the one with two walls and a room in between to help block the sound) we could all hear the singing perfectly fine. The autograph room only had one wall as a barrier, so I imagine their situation was even worse then ours. On the bright side, the con did get some pretty great singers for the main concerts, so at least they were a nice distraction as all the potential customers in the rooms vanished to go listen. Quite frankly I'm surprised the autograph room had a line at one point during the concerts. Lucky!

Why was the Last Day of the Con Monday? LOL FAILED CON!1!


 
His mom made his cosplay. You can tell he's 100% consensual about all this.
Long story short, if you were one of these people I want you to go look at a 2016 calendar. Go look at Feb 15th. WHOA, what's that? Feb 15th is President's Day, an American national holiday that many people get the day off for? Gee, look where 2 seconds of googling got you! And yes, I know some of you are international. I don't care, you can still google American holidays.

Why not get a V-Day mystery bag for your waifu? Oh, what's that, you two are actually out in NYC having lives? OK...
From what I know, the con organizers made this a Sat/Sun/Mon con instead of a normal Fri/Sat/Sun con because it meant both cheaper booking and they were counting on extra people showing up for both Valentine's Day and President's Day. But surprise, surprise, the vast majority of visitors were locals that had other things to do with their lives on those days off besides going outside in the freezing cold and enjoying ponies. Saturday was easily the busiest (and warmest) day, followed by Sunday. Sunday had hardly any couples walking around. Instead it was filled with small children (thank the spaghetti monster in the sky I packed a shit ton of necklaces and rings to sell). Monday was easily the emptiest day, but there were still enough one day families coming in to make sure most of the vendors didn't leave broke. This and the horrible weather is why the con barely hit the 2,000 mark, and even then I'm lead to believe their total 2,083 number includes staff, vendors, ect.

The VIP Dinner was a Disaster

 

Part of the room where the dinner was hosted, but with more tables set up.
Let me start by saying I was not personally at this dinner. However, my boyfriend Calpain from Equestria Daily was as a community guest, and saw some shit go down. Then he told me about, and from there I procrastinated on making this article. So I'll give you guys the summarized version: This convention had a ton of special guests for attendees to interact with. Especially if they got a VIP ticket and even got the $150 VIP meal "deal". At the dinner, there were enough special guests to the point where one could be seated at each of the 14 tables. However, the two convention founders sat at one table together and decided to have both Lauren Faust and Bonnie Zacherle at their table since one of them is an older gen fan.

While this story really only effects a table full of people, it's still kind of sad, so have a couch full of ponies!

This, of course, led to one table having zero guests. I genuinely don't know why the con founders couldn't have just separated and each able to talk with the maker of their favorite pony generation at different tables. After all, they spent so much time together making the con happen. I guess at that point they had looked at their population numbers so far for the con and went "Ah fuck it! We're not going to hit our 3,000 goal, so let's just do what we want!" Mind you that's just my personal guess. Cal said that he heard their motivation for doing that was that they thought Bonnie wouldn't be a strong enough presence by herself, and WOW I hope she's not reading this right now because that's a bit insulting to say the least.
 
Poor Bonnie! Here, have a table full of OCs this time, including a dark edgy one with a tortured past.
So one table goes without a guest, and one of the people at the table starts crying because she paid a pricey $450 total for her and two family members to be at the dinner. Peter New walks over to her table, gets two other special guests to visit the table, and overall proved that he is a real human bean. Just try not to get too full of yourself if you're reading this, New. P-Please? By the way, at the end of the dinner (the entire venue being alcohol free that weekend didn't help the already incredibly average meal of meat and veggies) they made space in the middle for people to congregate and everyone got to talk to people around the room and get things signed. So if you're not super anti-social, yes you could talk to any of the guests you wanted to and even skip signature lines and fees. Cal even told me that if you wanted to you could probably get over $150 worth of signatures at that moment, making the meal an actual deal. I suppose whether it actually is or not is up to the individual... but it's still a better deal then having a skype call with Black Gryphon.

Overall, the Con was Full of Tasty Spaghetti! Curse Fulfilled for the Month!

Pfft, a Lauren Faust panel? T-That doesn't make this con cool or anything, b-baka...
 Oh jeez, I feel like I'm about to tell you shits that ponies aren't real and you'll never get to hug your fictional waifu. I'm so sorry, but I need you to sit down so that we can talk about this one on one: Ponycon NYC, while it had some faults, was an overall OK con. Sure, it was overly ambitious, but according to the con founders they were going all or nothing this year. They hired a lot of special guests and ultimately the vast majority of attendees had a good time at what most people there would consider a yearly local convention.
Just a side note here: DJ and Derpy sold TERRIBLY for many vendors at the con. Try not to overstock them this year.

"BUT WAIT!" I can hear Purple Tinker shriek in the distance, "Even most people that went to LPU had a good time!" Yeah PT, that's true, but what made LPU such a disaster is that they couldn't pay for shit, leading to everyone getting kicked out and some people even having to pay bills that the con should have paid. This con seems like it was able to pay everyone just fine. Every event, including closing ceremonies, was able to run, and as far as I know none of the guests have complained about not being paid. So please keep your hate hard on to yourself Tinker. This is not the spaghetti you are looking for.
It's ok to walk into the light this time.

So yeah, this con wasn't really that spaghetti. Certainly not spaghetti enough to fulfill the February fandom curse. And since nothing else major really happened last month, and today is the first of March, HOLY SHIT THE CURSE IS BROKEN! We did it you guys, as a fandom drama site we did absolutely jack shit and it all paid off! Well... not literally, none of us actually get paid in anything but used Klondike Bars (courtesy of Chelis). But hey, isn't it nice to know that the fandom is basically dead during the winter season? I mean, it's not like breaking the curse will bring an end to the fandom this year or anything, that's just stupid! ...Right?

(I-If you want to go follow me on Twitter just so you can call me a faggot and then unfollow me I'm @ThePerlerPony. One last thing: I want to devote this article to Rari"friend", who made fun of me at a panel for not writing enough even though my PonyconNYC article came out before his. All this despite me getting seriously sick and binge playing the new Fire Emblem games. SUCK IT~)

Comments (49)

  1. Oh, and before PT gets super butthurt:

    Hate hard-ons can also apply to clits. Been there, done that. *The more you knoooow~*

    Also if anyone has any questions about the con that I didn't bring up in the article feel free to ask them here.

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    1. Question, why is an Undertalefag thinking he can talk shit about anyone, even PT?

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    2. Because even "Undertalefags" are better than some people, including PT.

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    3. Wait Calpain helped on this piece? I thought the EqD guys hated HN? Why did you not try and get this put on ED with him? That place has far greater readership and more people need to see it to clear the con's name.

      And nice farticle. I think the site needs more of this sort of stuff.

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    4. Whelp, I guess once Cal and I started screwing each other the two groups chilled with each other at cons more often. EQD tends to get better access to news and events while we tend to throw cool parties, so it all works out. One of those parties even involved Seth becoming a man. ;)

      As for this not being on EQD, 1. I'm not an EQD writer and 2. I assumed they would have released at least one article of their own by now. They haven't? Whoa, and I thought I procrastinated...

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    5. Ow. What sort of friction did you guys have? Why?

      ---On that note, why do HN get better access to things?

      Nope, still no farticle from them.

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  2. The new Fire Emblem? Jesus christ. How many inches of cock have you taken from Nintendo of America? Uh, I mean inches of raaaaawr, which is dragon for "just NoA my shit up?"

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    1. Uh oh, looks like someone is mad that they don't get to pet their waifu using the 3DS screen. Don't worry, you still get to blow them if you spend enough time with them! ;)

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    2. So you're angry that you can't pet your waifu, but you want to "troll slashvee" by playing it anyway. Nice projection, bitch boy. :^)

      I oppose it because Nintendies like you see no fault in ruining a story by giving the VAs no direction, making all characters two-dimensional, and raping the plot with memes. The gameplay doesn't make up for it because it's easier than Awakening. Go play the SNES trilogy you casual cuck.

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  3. In before this thread explodes i a bunch of faggots mad at an article written by someone who probably isn't a boyfriend-free girl.

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    1. >le PerlerGirler face

      Who the fuck keeps forcing this meme

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  4. Pretty good article Ren. I like how you kept as unbiased as possible while giving your opinion on the popular miconceptions/hearsay and making it entertaining all at the same time. Keep it up!

    Also per normal HN shitposting terms...

    H O R I Z O N T A L
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  5. I always find it amusing that I need to go to third party sites to try and figure out the history of some of these conventions before trying to formulate an opinion (like, why doesn't anyone keep a history of things so people know they're trustworthy).

    Regardless I found an article a great read and not really surprised by all that. It's easy to be shortsighted with how these conventions are ran with all the factors and selfishness that goes into them.

    Part of me wonders how long these things will last. I'm looking at my calendar I still think I got one pony related con this year. So many come and go. Like a penis.

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  6. PURPLE TRANNY
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  7. No mention of LENA HALL??? That was a MAJOR win for that con -- almost made up for the numbing cold.

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    1. Well I did say the concerts were great. At least from what I heard in the vendor's room, anyways.

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    2. Purple Tranny how is your dick doing?

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    3. PURPLE TRANNY
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    4. SANGRIA TRANSVESTITE
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  8. >Ren Haru article
    >Notice Me PT begins to play

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  9. Someone already beat you to it, http://shortcircuitpon.tumblr.com/post/139415187630/why-did-ponyconnyc-fail
    Like this article better to, gave facts with stuff to back it up other then just believing you. Also we get it you like spaghetti, it gets annoying when you use it 10 times within the same article and 4 times in the same paragraph.

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    1. Yeah... right after he wrote that he wouldn't stop bugging me on Twitter, so I know about it. He's one of the people that originally didn't know Monday was President's Day and concluded that the main reason they weren't doing it next year was money.

      The reality is that it looks like they managed to pay for everything but because their attendance was so low (2083 people) despite the huge guest roster they decided it wasn't worth the effort to do it again. Running cons is gruesome, exhausting work that sucks up almost all your free time.

      And normally I'd tone down the spaghetti, but apparently every year shit has gone done in this fandom during Feb to the point where people call it a cursed month. And last month the only thing that happened was this con, so a lot of people went there/ observed online hoping it would fail. When bad things happened, but not to the point where the con would have failed, people started exaggerating certain things online. Thus why this article isn't in a Day 1/2/3 format and instead is organized by claims I've seen mostly on /mlp/ and Twitter.

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    2. I've helped run a con it is not that bad. If you can't handle it to just pass it off to some that can. I'm sure there is someone that will take it. And still having a con on Monday is a stupid idea, even if it is a holiday.

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    3. "I've helped run a con it is not that bad.", says the big tough anon. Unless you've been a chair or vice chair, you don't know shit, son. Chairing a con is hell on earth. There's a reason con chairs typically don't last longer than 2-3 events TOPS (and even 3 is rare).

      Source: I invented brony conventions and am friends with the chairs of 3 or 4 other brony conventions

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    4. (Addendum, I agree with you though that departing con orgs should pass on the con to others rather than shutter the con entirely.)

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    5. Purple Tranny everyone knows the only reason you couldn't continue running BronyCon was because you were forcibly removed from leadership due to being a controlling and abusive bastard, not because it was hard on you. You were so hated that you got kicked out of your own con.

      Kill yourself.

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    6. Twice, she's been kicked out of con leadership twice. She's barely welcome at most cons outside giving them money to vend overpriced retail goods and even then staff is warned what a pian in the ass she is gong to be in advance.

      Do love how she clings onto the idea she had anything, outside the name, todo with the mondern day Bronycon.

      Yeah, anon post because most people aren't part of the inner circle-jerk of the fandom hierarchy and don't want to made into social pariahs with a hate mob harassing us over something we said.

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    7. She clings to the idea that she founded something important because it's all she has left.

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    8. Never said running a Con is not hard work and takes loads dedication, but if you are calm under pressure, have a good team, good organization skills. Then most of that Hard Work and Dedication is not needed because you distribute it amongst other people. Been Helping the same Anime Con with the same team of awesome people for 6 years now. And if you see your self as a Con Chair that is not really the right way to go in my opinion, I think of my self more of a Team Leader to remind my self a con is a team effort. I don't own the con or did I even start it by myself, It was only with the team did it all happen. Yes we have down times when something happens, but it's all about how calm and organized you are when things get tough.
      Also pretty sure that is a lot more years then you have been heading a con.

      P.S. Nice posting my comment on twitter, Bitch

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    9. You're allowed to think whatever damn fool thing you want, Anon, but the reality is that of the two current or recent (as in '2015') con orgs who've responded to your "running a con isn't hard" comment, they both find it goddamned hilarious. As in, you're wrong. You're talking out of your butt. Also, you can't compare anime cons to brony cons. Totally different beasts, totally different sets of problems. Sorry, but you are not an expert on this issue. And the people who ARE experts on it are laughing at you.

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    10. You know what percentage of me cares what you or you "experts" think? 0% I run an awesome con, I have fun running it, been 6 years now and never once have I though at the end of the con "You know, I really don't want to do this next year" And the "you can't compare anime cons to Brony cons" They are both conventions for a fandom that is interested in a show or genre of show. Still have all the same issues, We have kids go, have problems with protesters, have trolls come, run events with talent, and have a vendor hall. I have staffed both, and both have the same issues.

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    11. Donno what to tell you, friend. But the founders of BronyCon, NMND, BABS and the former chair of EQLA all strongly disagree with you. Clearly you know better. *massive fake shrug*

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    12. Idk maybe you can learn something then, How old are all of those cons? This is going to be our 7th year.

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    13. Not that Tink would know much about running a successful anything, hence the attempt to name drop those that have, though it's questionable how successful most those cons really have been.

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    14. Invented? Purple it takes a team to run a convention. You had an idea that did NOT have to be sold to people and many others wanted to bring the magic to life. How do I know this? Because outside of the obvious shit a lot of your other projects seem to fall flat on your face. This isn't because people hate you but it is because your way of marketing is proven to not be effective (promoting 'oneself' rather than trying to sell to the audience). Don't forget there were times you got pissed at me simply because I voiced my concern on something that I've had far more experience dealing with that you acted like a complete greenhorn. Again, you didn't invent shit just found the right group of people to bring your ideas to fruition.

      The biggest reason why I would never run a brony related convention is because of the ungodly amount of nepotism involved and that it's all about asskissing if nepotism is irrelevant. While I have 'staffed' a convention (unofficially, as I kept an ungodly distance from the group by never using Facebook) there's a lot of shit that went down simply because in addition to the above, and my experiences with shit like LoE, that most people with our fandom have to have a single person 'with the final say so' which stalls the process and nothing gets done in a timely fashion. Sure, getting VAs is the only thing that people did properly but everything else was thrown in without a lot of afterthought.

      In fact, some of the best conventions I've been to, not brony related of course, I don't know who runs it or the con chair that built it. Why? Because it's irrelevant and they want congoers to have a great time (and not fuel some insecurities bronies tend to have, sadly).

      So yeah. tl;dr an entire person running a con it's going to be fucking hard. Drop the parade and have proper people do the proper work and it's actually rather easy (Hell, most of these cons take a YEAR of planning. I could probably work full time and have an organizational system set up that it could easily be done. Fill in the gaps with enough people...That is...If they're willing to put up with it).

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    15. Anime cons succeed because multiple people come together to make a group effort and work hard without the attention being specifically on one person. Most cons you go to, you wouldn't know who runs it. Anime cons will go on for years, if not decades.

      Brony cons flounder and die after a year because 99% of their events exist to stroke the massive ego of the con founder. Any given con that you go to will have a very clear leader who spent the last six months petting their own dick so hard they almost stroked out.

      Bronycon almost failed because it might have well been called TrannyCon, since it was only supposed to exist to stroke Tinker's undeserved massive ego.

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    16. I heard PT embezzled funds.

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    17. It's hard to think of a good supplemental to an already great remark, 01:40, but I believe too is that brony fandoms are merely an investment in just ONE show so the scales tip fairly easily (and not in our favor). You have to look at the fact getting some guests cost significantly more than others on the brony cons and there is some 'exclusivity' to it. Anime conventions are varied so content is fresher and I am going to blindly assume easier to budget with a much larger selection of ideas and guests. I haven't been to an anime convention that needed to go greater than the previous one just to keep it rolling.

      My personal theory is that I've tended to prefer cons to where it's 60% relaxation and 40% content. There has been long speculation in that I've wondered by cramming so much brony content into a con really shortens the life of the con. Having all the VAs appear in a year or so not only yields the exact same mundane questions but once they're all met and signed off there isn't much left to go by.

      It's probably why BronyCon, despite me only going in 2014, ranks lowest in convention to me is solely because it lacks enough variety to make it enjoyable.

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    18. Also forgot the part that most brony conventions rarely serve the local area but attempt to bring people to them. $_$.

      3:33 - With how many crowdfunding attempts were done over the years I've long since felt the same as well. Especially pawning off the cat without properly treating its diarrhea.

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    19. Why do you think Purple Tinker runs so many "charity" streams? I'd say a good 10-20% is going straight into her pocket - for "operating fees" of course, so in her head it's justifiable.

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  10. Hey HN, you going to cover Peter New's ongoing spectacular meltdown? It's been hilarious so far.

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    1. Remember that time he made up a phony-ass story about having a transsexual sister so he could justify not being morally outraged at Big Mac crossdressing? Because if he was morally outraged, that would mean walking out on this successful cartoon and no more big horse money?

      I'd snitch his racist tweets out to Hasbro, but the asshole voices a minor character who only ever says two words. The only reason anyone is talking about him at all is because everyone loves gawking at neckbearded manchildren having white liberal guilt tantrums.

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    2. Is there an archived thread showing New's latest drama? I only caught bits and pieces of it and not sure what the fuck all happened.

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