Good Day Ponquestria,
The following is a review of TrotCon (or is it “Trotcon?”) that I wrote a while back. My notes said that it was spellchecked and ready to post, so I’m going to assume it is. Different ponies told me not to go, but I went anyway. Although I only got the one-day experience, in retrospect, it could have been a lot better. There was, of course, a lack of mares (which I was warned about), but there was also a lack of friendship-in-general, if that makes any sense. Image captions were mostly written today. Anyways, onto the review…..
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Original Review Date: 7/16/2024
Good afternoon everyfaggot,
Last Saturday, having not been to a pony con in over 5 years, I decided to drop by TrotCon to check out the state of the herd. :jointheherd: Thinking back, I knew the fandom had peaked back at BronyCon 2015 when at BronyCon 2016, a concession stand was added to the back of the rave that made the rave smell like sweet and sour cow vagina, there were fewer brohoofs, and there was a shortage of plushfags for the plushtrain. TrotCon, however, being a smaller con, had lasted at least a few years longer and was doing alright the last time I was there. Then, COVID happened; I didn’t feel like dealing with the COVID drama at a festival of friendship, and I stopped going to cons.
So, with the COVID restrictions having been dropped for TrotCon 2024, I decided to check it out for at least a day. Saturday happened to be that day.
________________________________________________gas station stop
Driving into Dayton, I noted the city wasn’t quite as big as I had originally expected. According to Wikipedia, its population is 137,644. In comparing it with other cities, Columbus (where TrotCon had been previously held) currently has a population of 905,748, and Baltimare (where BronyCon had been held) has a population of 585,708 with 2,838,327 in the Baltimare metropolitan area. The city seemed nice :flutternice:. Compared to the parking garage at Ohayocon (an anime con in Columbus with a usual attendance of over 10,000), the parking garage at TrotCon 2024 was calm. The hotel was a shorter walk than expected, and unlike at BronyCon, there was hardly anyone walking the streets (including bronies).
TrotCon 2024 was held at a convention center with no attached hotel (still undergoing renovations). There was, however, a shuttle bus that went to a nearby hotel near (or on) the University of Dayton campus where some ponies elected to stay during the convention. (And upon later further investigation, the skybridge attached to both the hotel and parking garage, which for those who drove to the convention made it a very comfortable walk to your car (or vehicle).
As other ponies have said as much, there was a lot of extra space at the convention center and attendance seemed smaller than usual; I noticed a lot of extra badges left over on the registration table.
At the Dealer’s Hall, while I did find a few gems, there wasn’t enough pony plushies or pony prints.
Panels: Although my experience was con-lite, due to only attending one day and not sleeping over, the panels appeared to me to be a bit too adhd. For example, in the finish-the-lyrics (“Don’t Forget The Lyrics!”) panel that I attended, everypony lined up and had to finish a verse of the lyrics to a well-known pony song or they got out. While the concept was neat, in practice, it was a bit much listening to snippets of every popular pony song you’ve ever heard. While this would have been OK had it been competitive, to my surprise, the pretense of competition seemed to break down within 5 minutes of the panel, with ponies lining up to sing just 5 seconds of a song and then some circling back around to sing another 5 seconds, regardless of if they got out or not. Somewhat surprisingly, almost all the ponies there knew all the lyrics from the original G3 Season 1 MLP, as well the fandom songs of that ear. New ponies joined the line before everypony could get out, so it was hard to tell how many lines any one pony had completed. In retrospect, it was almost like the G5 version of karaoke.
I decided to check out of the panel early and go over to the “SFM Ponies Nostalgia” panel since the only other thing going on was the cosplay contest, and OG ponies don’t go to cosplay contests unless they’re in them. (I later watched the cosplay contest online, and I didn’t miss much – it was short and there were hardly any cosplayers, and many were non-pony-related.) While this panel was mostly showing adhd pony videos, most of which I hadn’t seen before, the respectably-populated room of ponies here seemed more relaxed.
Next up was food and the rave. I ate outside with some friendly-looking rocks because the convention center, which is run by the Judean People’s Front, have a no-outside-food-and-drinks policy, and I wasn’t really in the mood to see if they would enforce it. There was a loud concert outside across the street; the decibel rating according to my dumbphone was louder than the fireworks I had gone to for the 4th of July.
At the rave, My Little Romance (PrinceWhatever and MelodyBrony) played some songs. They were alright. TrotCon never really had great rave setups, and this year continued the tradition. You walk in from the right. The recording and sound stuff was halfway across the room between the stage and back wall, and there was a big empty space behind it. There was a large metal wire-cover cupofdirt covering some wires, I guess, between the second and third quadrants, at 180 degrees; Despite its size, I still saw one pony almost trip over it.
In the first and second quadrants was a bunch of chairs set up. The crowd couldn’t really spread out wide near the front of the stage (if they wanted to) due to some of the chairs being so close to the stage near the middle. There was a small open spot in between the left and right sections of chairs where ponies could gather and do whatever ponies do at raves. Overall, I think the setup would make it difficult for ponies near the outside edges to migrate in towards the middle.
I have prepared two figures: one (Figure 1) with the current rave setup and noted dynamics, as well as a second figure (Figure 2) with an improved rave setup with a predicted more desirable dynamic. Note that there is plenty of space to move around and for plushfags to make a plushtrain, if desired. The room is also more balanced. (Sorry the figures are so poorly-made; I’ve spent too much time writing this dumb review, I’m hungry, and I’m not editing them, so please kindly stop reading and go away if they happen to burn your eyes.)
After PrinceWhatever, who didn’t really play any recognizable songs (although I did recognize a few lines of notes here and there), I decided to try an alcohol at a bar in the conspace a random non-attendee alcohol pony seemed to have set up (maybe the hotel?). Actually, I tried two separate alcohols. The first was Celestia-themed and the second was Elder Scroll-themed. I’m not sure Celestia tastes that sweet, but the Elder Scroll one with mostly rum seemed appropriate.
There weren’t any crotchtits at the AD Hall, so I had to settle. I’m still thinking about what to do with my AD Hall horseswag.
I went to see EverShade next, which was the highlight of the con. I was going to see IvoryBrony but they’re no classic Silva Hound, and so I got drawn away by a Mario Kart panel, which I hadn’t thought about attending, spending too much time in there. The energy in the Mario Kart panel started out alright, but it got stale too fast. There also wasn’t any beer, despite the panelists themselves drinking. I returned to the rave to see the last few seconds of NeighGative_, followed by an obligatory thing where all the artists who had performed at TrotCon go up on stage and do a thing.
Overall, TrotCon 2024 was alright, especially considering I had only stopped by for not even an entire day. The fandom is older with more life experience. The wide-open spaces were somewhat awkward at times but relaxing at others. I had always thought of TrotCon as special because it was a 24-hour con – but not this year; the convention center closed at 2:00 A.M. Sadly, there was no karaoke or drinking panel this year. There were few children there (actually, I don’t remember seeing any at all), and many if not most of the attendees were veteran TrotCon-goers. In terms of the furry vs. pony debate, there wasn’t enough pony at the con. While some ponies think that TrotCon may disappear soon, I think that it will probably stick around for a while, due perhaps primarily, to its devoted following. How much pony it will have in the future, however, is unknown.
Other Notes: There were was nothing about the “Heroes vs. Villains” theme in the conbook.
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Works Cited
Images in Photos: Lauren Faust, et al. MLP:FiM. [Probably Season 1]. Fluttershy. Internet. [“Fluttershy Being Shy,” “Fluttershy Startle”].