Inside BronyCon 2018

(Psst! Before you read the blog, be sure to check out my vlog and footage reel from BronyCon 2018 on my YouTube channel, where I film a lot of the panels and talk about my experiences at BronyCon!)

Hey every pony! This is a post that was due months ago, yet with life getting in the way, here I am posting it now. Back at the end of July I went to BronyCon 2018 in Baltimore, Maryland. It was kind of a spontaneous decision. I was not a hardcore “My Little Pony” fan like many of the attendees at the convention, yet I was a fan so I decided to attend anyway. I only began liking the show and its characters last fall, when my boyfriend and I went to go see the movie in theaters as a joke. However, I ended up really enjoying it. After the movie, I went home and watched all 7 seasons on Netflix and even started my own collection of “My Little Pony” merchandise and memorabilia. So when I discovered this convention in Baltimore that is home to thousands of attendees each year, I decided to buy a plane ticket, and away we went! This year, the event ran from Friday, July 27th until Sunday, July 29th at the Baltimore Convention Center in downtown Baltimore. 5,465 was the number of people in attendance, which is noted to be significantly lower than in previous years.

As many of the die-hard fans of the convention know, it was announced at the closing ceremonies that 2019 will be BronyCon’s final year. It will consist of a 4 day convention, as opposed to the usual 3 days. When it was announced that the convention was coming to its end, a lot of the fans in the center were in tears. People were crying in hysterics, hugging each other, even singing the “My Little Pony” TV show theme song with the Equestria flag held up, hands on their hearts and everything. Seriously, it was a thing. I will definitely be there in attendance for 2019. I mean, I started my first year with the second last year. It makes sense to go to the final one. It’s like being apart of a piece of history. I foresee it being a pretty emotional weekend, but hopefully the BronyCon team puts together something epic seeing as it is the last one ever. (That we know of).

Jacob and I had tons of fun. We booked a room for 4 nights at the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel, which was a little pricey for the outdated look of the hotel’s rooms. Being Canadians, we tried Chick-fil-A for the first time. I really liked it, but Jacob became obsessed, basically wanting it for every meal we had. Some of the time we spent walking around downtown, looking at the harbor, going out to eat, or venturing into the little shops. The other time we spent at the convention itself, of course.

One of BronyCon’s perks is that each year, they have a variety of guests who have some sort of relation to the show that come and do panels, autographs, and take pictures with fans. This can include: voice actors, animators, writers, or community guests, like YouTubers and bloggers. In 2018 they had a list of star-studded guests, like Tony Award winner Lena Hall and a bunch of the voices from “My Little Pony”. Being the fangirl that I am, of course I had to take pictures with some of my favorites! I met Michelle Creber, the voice of Apple Bloom; Tabitha St. Germain, the voice of Rarity and Princess Luna; and Peter New, the voice of Big Mac. I got an autographed poster from each of them, and a signed copy of Michelle’s latest CD, “On Display”. The cast of the show were all super sweet, and it was cool that they were all Canadians, from Vancouver, British Columbia. It made us feel at home. Tabitha said to us as we were all taking a picture together: “Get close, it’s a Canadian sandwich.” In her Rarity voice, of course. Michelle was friendly, and I was so amazed at how successful she is for being only 18 years old. I asked her how she manages it all and deals with her success. She told me: “It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s all worth it.” Peter New was probably the funniest of them all, with a blunt, sarcastic sense of humor. I told him I had a crush on his character, Big Mac, and that I didn’t understand what makes his girlfriend, Sugar Belle so special. After that, he said to me in the voice of Big Mac: “You could be Sugar Belle.” Sounds good to me!

Tabitha St. Germain

Michelle Creber

Peter New

One of the days, I tried to do a cosplay of Rarity but I failed horribly. I bought a skirt that I transformed into a dress and stitched Rarity’s diamond cutie mark pattern on, which was the only redeeming quality of the entire look. I ran out of purple hairspray so I had to use pink, which dried out my hair and made it look nothing like Rarity’s. I messed up on the makeup too. It was just a train wreck and a bad idea all around. For BronyCon 2019, I’m either going all out, or not bothering dressing up like a character at all. At least I got these cool pony ears and unicorn horn combination.

Although I wasn’t a major fan and didn’t know much about the community so therefore didn’t really feel like I “fit in” much per se, the people who I did meet were extremely nice, friendly, and welcoming. One of the great things about this convention is they give you a landyard and three different tags you can choose to attach to your landyard, called “Communication Cards”. Green means you want to engage in conversation and meet new friends, yellow means you only want to talk to people you know, and red means you do not want to talk. Attendees pick which one they feel comfortable with, and fellow attendees must honor their wishes (or security gets involved). I think this is a great idea to help not only prevent harassment, but also to help people feel more comfortable going to the convention, especially if they are usually introverted.

A large majority of the attendees dressed up and some of the costumes were outrageously good. Some even wore an entire mascot-eqsue suit. I imagine it must have gotten pretty warm being stuck in that all day. I met Scootaloo! That was one of the highlights of the entire weekend.

All in all, BronyCon 2018 was an amazing experience and I highly recommend any “My Little Pony” fan to come out to Baltimore, Maryland for the very last BronyCon in August 2019. Apparently the staff is closing BronyCon because the numbers in attendance are declining drastically, and they do not wish to go back to their smaller roots. Although I understand this, I feel sympathy towards those who went every single year to the event, made friends and memories each year, who had one place to be themselves and not be judged, and now all of that is being taken away from them. If you’re one of those people reading this right now, then I must say to you: I’m sorry, and I hope you make BronyCon 2019 your most memorable year yet!

BronyCon is the destination for all “My Little Pony” fans. With their panels, marketplace, guests, contests, and more, it is a dream come true for any fans of any generations of the show. For information on passes, sponsorships, vendors, running an event, volunteering or hotels for the convention, click here: