FOB Equestria: Mission #003: TrotCon Debrief

Oh for pete's sake... Somepony go find Cadence!

Fillies and Gentle-colts: Welcome to your official FOB Equestria Debrief of the TrotCon Ohio Brony Convention. If you can all take your seats we'll get started. Lyra, stop slouching...

Here we go!

First, Taco Bell is trolling you:

Source from Aliens v. Ponies

HOW DID THEY KNOW?!!!

First, the summary:

Lets hit this with bullet points to answer some questions your asking:

Somewhere around 700 Bronies may have turned out, almost doubling the number expected!
The panels turned out to be genuinely entertaining, even though they were lacking big name voice actors and the like. Stars of the Brony community turned out and preformed well. Including one of the Speedfic's about "Crackle Comes to Ponyville"
The Artist's Alley had good quality work being done and sold by high quality artists with lots of nice prints.
The Vendors were also selling quality work as well, no one seems to be talking about half-hoofed work here. Not only that, but if you were thinking of being a vendor, you missed out. The vendors and artists reported making sizable profits.
Cosplay: You'll be able to see for yourself later on, but there were a few pony-suiter there and many rather good cosplayers as well. Check out Chyalis
SWAG: Lots of good swag, also, lots of cheap swag to. Apparently plenty of buttons to be had. T-shirts as well.
Atmosphere: Excellent. Commonly reported as some of the best times by just about every attendee that I could find. Lots of friendly Bronies. Even a report of Brony attendees, assisting Brony vendors in setting up.
Community reaction: 99% Very positive. 1% possible meth addict beggars.
Food: Wow, everyone loved the food.
The Taco Bell sign is a complete mystery.
Bronies love to have dance parties. This will probably end up being a tradition for Brony Cons
Unfortunately, I know very little about the Cherry Chimichanga

I know what your saying: "What went wrong." Over all, lots of minor things that did not effect the con as a whole much.

The convention was held the same days as a short run for fun, a Magic The Gathering tournament, and a possible bike race. All crossing the street that TrotCon was located on. You thought nobody did anything in Ohio except farm didn't you?
Some of the staff got into a minor accident due to traffic congestion on high street.
The time allotted for the convention within the Ohio Union space was cut short, and by definition, so was the opening ceremonies.
A few panels were rearranged about a day after the schedule went up because of a couple scheduling conflicts arose.
The convention staff had some trouble getting official Con Books on time to the attendees on the Friday before the con opened.

Viewing these bullets might not make up your mind on how people felt about TrotCon, so take it straight from the ponies mouth:

Take_Walker: "In all, this was a great con. I haven't been to any kind of real convention since Anthrocon '05, and it was nice to get out somewhere I could hang with like-minded people, buy, do and SEE awesome stuff, and more than that, share a kind of human experience of friendship, laughter and giving that I've never really encountered anywhere else."
Mewpocalypse: "All in all I had what can be called the best time of my life thus far. "
Allirea: "I don't usually write con reports anymore, but this is a special case, because I've never had such a great experience at a new con. Depending on your definition of a "con", this was somewhere between my 23rd and 35th con, ranging in size from under-100 meetups to the 20000+ attendees of Hamvention. Trotcon was arguably the best small con I've ever been to, but also one of the best con experiences I've ever had, period. So thank you, everyone, for making this rock so hard."
TheNewGrayMare: "The first day of TrotCon was absolutely amazing! I met so many wonderful people and was really inspired by all of the amazing art in Artists Alley. Getting to sleep in before heading out to the Con was also a nice treat after working two weeks of eleven hour days and not going to bed before midnight once."

Hmmmm... Maybe you want to go next time...

Alright. Lets get into some of the nitty gritty. First will do some memorable specific statements and descriptions, then we shall get into the pictures.

FOOD:

I want to go over the food first, because frankly: People had a lot to say about their food, and it supports local businesses:

Starshine on Chipotle: "Ran across the street to Chipotle when I had a short break mid-afternoon on Saturday. Casually asked the guy at the register if they'd had many customers wearing TrotCon badges. He was kind of out of it, but someone else looked up at me and said, "We've been so busy.... ponies everywhere today."

Sparklepeep on Skyline Chili: "Purple Tinker, My Little Dashie and My Little Punch and I went to Skyline Chili after the con. It was the most wonderful and marvelous chili ever and we tweeted a lot. Then it turns out our waitress loves ponies (her favorite is Pinkie Pie) and her manager also loves ponies (Rainbow Dash I believe?) and they were super excited that there's this pony convention in Columbus. And then Purple Tinker gave them ponies and we bought lots of hot sauce from them."

Allirea on Barley's: "Dinner on Saturday was fun, I joined a small group heading to Barley's, where I had the most mind-blowing BLT sandwich I've ever experienced. It may sound like a silly thing to include in a con report, especially since it's almost a $10 BLT, but it was THAT amazing"

Take_Walker on Phat Wraps: "Feeling hungry, I went to that wrap place, Phat Wraps. Turns out, they take and quick-grill your meat choice in a pita, then you put on whatever vegetables and sauces you want. I got lettuce, carrots, cucumbers and cilantro on shrimp, with Peruvian spicy mayo. No idea what made it Peruvian, but boy was it spicy!"

Mewpocalypse overall: "Where do I even begin? Well for one thing the food in Columbus is amazing. And that’s coming from a resident of Louisiana."

Now you know where you are gonna want to eat if you swing by Columbus, Ohio.

ATMOSPHERE:

From Drew Flashy: I had no less than ~20 people shout out of their cars how much they liked my cosplay. I was approached by one legal street vendor and one guy asked me if I wanted a tie for my costume. No one terribly bothered me or my group and there were a couple of guys that looked like jocks that were going to a wrestling match that surprisingly told Crackle, Alton, and I they loved our cosplays and they love dressing up at Ohayocon. All around good times.

THE PANELS:

Take_Walker on the Dramatic Reading Panel (I have no idea what's going on here): "I won by suggesting Last Roundup after they decided on episode script readings, and we were treated to the adventures of Gollum Pie, Vegetity, Napa Jubilee, Twilight Lynde and Cosbyshy. Oh man, Cosbyshy. Also Vos actually got tackled by Raelkun for "Rarity catch me!" I laughed until water came out of my eyes. Super Speedy Cider Squeezy has never been sexier (just imagine a sultry voice talking about Granny Smith's "south fields")."
Allirea on the Photography Panel: "The Con Photography panel on Saturday was the first time I've ever participated in a panel at a con, and to say I was nervous is an incredible understatement. I'm very shy about meeting new people, and public speaking is not a strength of mine, but I felt I had something to contribute, so I did it. Turnout was low, I estimate there were about a dozen attendees who weren't close friends (the three-member peanut gallery in the front row), and those attendees weren't there at the same time, but everyone who came seemed to enjoy it. Presenting it was fun, once I got the hang of it, and while the smaller group changed things up a bit, it was one of the biggest highlights of the entire con."

THE DANCE:

Allirea on Photographing the Dance: "The dance was probably the best photo opportunity I had all weekend. There weren't a lot of people dancing, but the ones who were dancing were very into it. After awhile, I even switched to a close-up lens and got right in there with them, which is about the closest I'll get to actual dancing. Even if I only get a few truly great shots out of it, it was a really fun event to shoot."