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BronyCon

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BronyCon (originally stylized as BroNYCon) was an annual (formerly bi-annual) convention for fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which ran on the United States east coast between 2011 and 2019.

BronyCon logo, used from the 2014 convention onwards.

The convention was the first of its kind in the brony fandom. Despite My Little Pony conventions and meet ups already existing before Friendship is Magic, BronyCon was the first that was not predominantly targeted at toy collectors or young children. Its success spawned a significant number of other conventions as well as influencing existing My Little Pony conventions, such as UK PonyCon, to begin accommodating the brony demographic.

For several years, BronyCon was the largest brony convention in the world, with the final outing in 2019 drawing an attendance of 10,215 people.

History

BronyCon initially grew out of the New York regional brony meet, which held its first event organized by Purple Tinker in Little Italy, New York City, in May 2011, drawing 30 attendees. Based on this success, the first official BroNYCon was held a month later in Midtown Manhattan, drawing 100 attendees. Two further events soon followed in September 2011 and January 2012, each one drawing successively larger crowds of 300[1] and 700 people respectively.

The fourth BronyCon was scheduled for June 2012, which saw a significant increase in the event's popularity due to a number of high-profile guests being confirmed as guests of honor, including show creator Lauren Faust and the majority of the main voice cast. With more than 4,000 people registered to attend the convention was forced to move to a convention center in Secaucus, New Jersey. It was at this time that the name BroNYCon was dropped. Purple Tinker resigned as convention chair prior to the beginning of the convention, with media liaison Zebranky replacing her.[2] A new non-profit organization, Lunar Solis Corporation, was created to operate this and future BronyCon events.

BronyCon moved again for the fifth edition to Baltimore, Maryland in August 2013, drawing 8,407 attendees. BronyCon 2014, held in August, was attended by 9,607 people.[3]. BronyCon's increase in attendance peaked in August 2015, with that year's convention attended by 10,011 people. It was estimated at the time that BronyCon was importing $5.5 million to Baltimore's economy each year, with over 5,000 hotel rooms booked over the convention weekend.[4]

Attendance fell significantly to 7,609 people in 2016, with the fall being anticipated by BronyCon staff and attributed to the convention being moved to a month earlier than usual,[5], however attendance continued to fall, drawing 6,319 attendees in August 2017 and 5,465 in July 2018. Shir Goldbird became convention chair following the 2017 convention.

Despite announcing via Twitter in October 2014 that BronyCon had dates set through 2025,[6] the 2018 convention ended with the announcement that 2019 would be BronyCon's last event.

To celebrate the final event, the convention was extended to a fourth day, running from August 1–4, 2019 and was able to secure numerous guests including Faust and the original My Little Pony creator Bonnie Zacherle.[7] Though the staff had only expected to get about seven to eight thousand attendees with the expanded schedule,[8] the final BronyCon event in 2019 ultimately drew 10,215 attendees, the highest attendance in its history.

Format

 
The vendor hall at the 2014 BronyCon Convention, with more than 200 freelance vendors selling handcrafted My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic artwork.

Since moving from the smaller venues, BronyCon typically offers upwards of one hundred panels and activities for attendees; many panels are dedicated to the convention's guests of honor but includes panels and presentations from members of the fanbase on art, music, writing, video productions, and other community aspects.[3] The convention also provides a number of activity rooms, such as for art, video games, cosplay, and with the introduction of the official Enterplay collectible card game based on the show, rooms for card game tourneys. The convention has included a musical concert over one or two nights called "Bronypalooza", featuring fan musicians performing for the attendees, at times joined by some of the guests of honor. The convention attracts a large number of freelance vendors (over 200 at the 2014 convention, for example), selling handmade art, along with selected retail vendors with licensed My Little Pony merchandise.[3]

The convention was designed to be family-friendly, and upwards of 10% of its attendees were children under 14 who also enjoy the show.[3] While the brony fandom tends to consist of mostly male fans (85% based on a 2013 unofficial survey), BronyCon also attracts a larger percentage of female fans; 34% of the attendees for the 2014 BronyCon were female.[3]

Attendance

Year Attendance
Attendees % change
Summer BroNYCon 2011 100 (approx.) -
Winter BroNYCon 2011 300 (approx.) +200
Winter BroNYCon 2012 700 (approx.) +133
Summer BronyCon 2012 4,000 (approx.)[9] +471
BronyCon 2013 8,407 +110
BronyCon 2014 9,607 +14
BronyCon 2015 10,011 +4
BronyCon 2016 7,609 -24
BronyCon 2017 6,319 -17
BronyCon 2018 5,465 -14
BronyCon 2019 10,215 +87

References

  1. ↑ Vauhini Vara and Ann Zimmerman. “Hey, Bro, That's My Little Pony!” (September 7, 2011). Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on September 23, 2011.
  2. ↑ “Bronycon Press Release: A Change In Leadership” (February 17, 2012). Derpy News. Retrieved on October 1, 2020.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Gregory, Jennifer Goforth. “The Bros Who Love My Little Pony” (August 8, 2014). The Atlantic. Retrieved on October 1, 2020.
  4. ↑ Meehan, Sarah. “8 things you need to know about BronyCon, the 'My Little Pony' convention” (August 7, 2015). Baltimore Business Journal, American City Business Journals. Retrieved on October 1, 2020.
  5. ↑ BronyCon [@bronycon]. “2016 attendance decline was expected when we made the move to July, we fixed it by moving back to August this year.” (Tweet). Posted on February 7, 2017. Retrieved on October 1, 2020.
  6. ↑ BronyCon [@bronycon]. “For those of you who think we’re joking, we’re not. We have plans to host a con through 2025… we’re not going anywhere!” (Tweet). Posted on October 21, 2014. Retrieved on October 1, 2020.
  7. ↑ Kaltenbach, Chris. “The last BronyCon: tears, but the promise of one big final party” (July 31, 2019). The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved on August 1, 2019.
  8. ↑ Mastromarino, James Perkins. “The Friends We Made Along The Way: After 9 Years, BronyCon Calls It Quits” (August 14, 2019). NPR. Retrieved on August 14, 2019.
  9. ↑ Adrian Chen and Max Read. “Here Are Some Adult My Little Pony Fanatics We Met at BronyCon” (January 8, 2012). Gawker. Retrieved on October 1, 2020.

External links

 

Some of this page is derived from Wikipedia. The original article was at BronyCon. The list of authors can be seen in the Wikipedia page history. As with Bronies.wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license.

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