Pon3con Retrospective
Under cut for length!
So, Pon3con. This was one of the most exciting cons for me for a buuuuunch of reasons! It was absolutely great and I had a great time. However, our story of that weekend starts before pon3con.
I flew out to Omaha, Nebraska on thursday. I was pretty nervous the entire time, since a certain someone who is in a relationship with me was gonna be there and I had never talked to him face to face before. So I was that weird mixture of nervous and excited and stomach butterflies that comes with that stuff. The flight went fine and on time, and I landed in omaha. I shoot Nate a quick text to let him know I'm here, and he sent back that he was waiting. Well, I walk down to baggage claim, looking around for him. I see a guy checking his phone that looks familiar, and he puts away the phone, looks up, and runs STRAIGHT AT ME.
He tackles me with a hug and I just stand there and hold him , enjoying the feeling. I suppose I should clarify at this point that the one latched onto my chest was Nate. We grabbed my luggage and got into his car. He drove me over to a local sushi place and we had lunch with someone he knows, and it was gooooood. After that, we drove back to his apartment, where I met Icy Beats slash Alec, who is a total goof despite looking like a hockey player. Whitney was in the shower when I arrived, but she eventually got out and I met her too. She was honestly a lot more attractive than I expected - her mod pics tend to cut off at the neck, but she was pretty curvy.
She ended up going on a date thing to go see Iron Man 3, and I fell asleep watching Nate and Alec play League. It had been a long day for me! When I woke up, Alec had left to spend the night at his parent's place, and it was just me and Nate. We cuddled a bit on the couch and watched some How I Met Your Mother, I watched him play some more league, and eventually we went to sleep.
Friday, we woke up around 10ish, iirc, and I got my stuff packed up since Nate had a hair appointment at 12:45 and I wanted to be at the hotel early in case there was any setting up to do. He dropped me off, and after discovering that I had no idea where people were and I couldn't check into the hotel yet, I sat in the lobby on my phone. Eventually, Andrew, who you all know as AJTexasRanger or Pill Pusher, walked by and noticed my Bronycon staff shirt and badge, and walked over. "You're Conner, right?"
We spoke a bit and he informed me that Onyx Marble, the tech supervisor, might not be there because of family things. "You might end up being the tech supervisor instead." Um, okay! I ask if there is anything that needs doing and after being told there wasn't, I went back to sitting down. Eventually Alec showed up with a guy in tow who I didn't immediately recognize. He introduced me to Rion-Noire, a guy who does AMAZING sculpts and we play league with all the time. I had no idea at the time that Rion was coming, so it was super cool to see him!
I played some EDH with a few people in the lobby, got caught up on stuff with Onyx Marble, and eventually the con began! I spend most of the first few hours in the Game Room with Nate since there weren't any panels I was super interested in. I went to the Artist Alley for a bit too, and saw Brae, Randy, Amiti, and Jackle. Randy ran up and gave me a hug, Brae said hi, and the rest were distracted at the moment. I didn't recognize amiti at first, actually. He had a much more masculine face than I expected and like a perfect roman nose. The first panel I ended up going to was How to draw Ponies with Drawponies, where I ended up being selected as a panel photographer for DrawPonies. It was pretty cool!
I went and got dinner with Alec and Nate at burger king, and got back right at the end of MLP Karaoke. Nate wouldn't sing anything with me :c
After that, the 18+ section of the con rolled around. The first panel I went to was the 18+ Artists panel, starring Brae, RCR, and Vertex. Andrew was up there too for some reason??? It was pretty cool, and absolutely hilarious for most of it. Fun fact: I've drawn Randy's OC more times than Brae has. :u Afterwards, I went to the BroNEcast after dark panel, which consisted mostly of silly fanfic reading. I got called up to narrate at one point, so if you listen to the cast, I'll be in there at one point! Overall, it was much tamer than it was last time according to Alec and Nate. After that, I retired to my room and talked to nate for like 3 hours before going to sleep.
I ended up waking up in the middle of the night like 3 times with a terrible piercing headache. Nate had work in the morning, so I tried not to wake him, and actually ended up vomiting after he got up and left for work. I fell back asleep and woke up late, so I missed the cosplay photoshoot that I wanted to go to. I did get into my Braeburn cosplay anyway, and was almost tackled by an AJ cosplayer and her Applebloom friend, so that was fun. Not many cosplayers at pon3con! I kinda wasted some time that morning in the game room, and finally went to the pony v. pony panel for a little while. Ended up leaving because the panel leader slash debate moderator wasn't moderating well and it just became a yelling contest. Bleh.
I went out to lunch with Nate - JIMMY JOHNS IS AMAZING - and ended up getting back in time to watch the game room for a bit. I talked with Alec and Rion in the lobby for a little while, and went to take a nap. I overslept again and missed the after dark sketch panel, but got up in time to see Andrew's roast which was... wow. I've been told it was closer to last year's after dark. There was shaving and many other things that I won't go into detail about! After that, I hung in the lobby with Whit and Alec and Rion and Nate until the wee hours of the morning, and then retired to the room, talked with Nate, and fell asleep.
Sunday morning was a relaxing wakeup since there weren't any panels I was too interested in. I went to the How to Make an OC panel, which was good and helped fuel the fire for a soon-to-come minor OC redesign of Icy - mostly just his color scheme. (You can also blame adolphbartels for that since he had some thoughts on Icy's color that I agree with) Then I went to the Jam with the Musicians panel, which Alec was on, and helped get some of the tech worked out there - cables, etc. It was chaotic early on, but after they all got used to each other it cooled down and got really awesome, as they all started really playing together.
After that was closing ceremonies, then checking out, grabbing lunch with Nate and Whit again, and flying home.
Overall, Pon3con was probably the best con I've been to. Unlike most of the east coast cons, I went into this one knowing who everybody was. I might not talk to them often, but many of the people there I consider at least acquaintances. Laugh Track, Grooves, Randy, Alec, Nate, Whit, etc. I had an awesome time and really want to make it out west for the next one if I possibly can.
