Sunday 22 May 2016

Great British Brony Convention: I Aten't Dead

As I touched on very briefly the other day, the Great British Brony Convention (GBBC) Twitter account has suddenly been revived after a long silence. Unsurprisingly, this piqued my attention, given that I've been one of those wondering what the post-BUCK convention landscape might look like. GBBC have put out several tweets in the last few days, and here are a few that caught my eye:

It's thanks to the massive positive feedback from 2015's GBBC that we're even thinking of doing another. Couldn't be here without all you !

There's no doubt that GBBC was quite popular with the few people who attended that I've spoken to. One or two did voice small complaints that it felt more like an overgrown season finale event than a con as such, but I haven't heard anyone say they hated it and wished they hadn't gone. Considering the expensive tickets (and yes, £60 is expensive, even in the UK) that does speak of a convention that got plenty of things right.

A lot of conventions disclose their finances. We sort of didn't do that, and people assumed we ended massively in debt. We didn't.

Did people assume that? If they did, it wasn't in places I frequent. I certainly didn't assume anything of the sort. I have said that I was a little uncomfortable about the comments made (eg on UK of Equestria) before GBBC 2015, which gave the impression that the con was basically being bankrolled by one person. That's never a good idea, however well-heeled that person is. Of course, I don't know that was the case, but I can't remember it being contradicted. It's true that cons vary in terms of financial transparency – BronyScot is the gold standard, with BUCK putting out a general breakdown and UK PonyCon not really publishing much. However, UK PonyCon has been running for over a decade, and that track record is worth a lot. GBBC right now has a track record of one convention. Better than zero, of course!

What are we planning? It's a secret... ssh... we're not telling

Well, that's really helpful. :P But seriously, unless they're planning something substantial this year then I wouldn't expect details yet in any case. My guess right now is that they're aiming at 2017, in which case I wouldn't be surprised if it's a few months yet before anything appears. I can't help thinking that an announcement just before the UK PonyCon/BronyScot season (Oct-Nov) would be rather handy for building buzz, so I wonder whether we might hear something in the autumn – at least a more detailed hint, even if not full details.

3 comments:

  1. I wasn't around when the first GBBC happened so I don't know how there tickets sold, did they run out? Because if they're trying to replace buck then there's a big change they could get a huge increase in people wanting to attend. I don't know whether they're ready to handle a huge amount of people with only one years experience, although I could be proven wrong. BronyLyrics @BronyLyricsHD

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Honestly, I don't know as I didn't attend myself. I don't think it was a huge con -- it certainly didn't match up to the 500+ that UK PonyCon got -- but the very few videos around don't make it very clear. That's actually my main concern about GBBC: that there's a lot of stuff that's still unknown. I think that if they do choose to do something this year, they'll get a better response if (when the time is right) they're a bit clearer about what's going on.

      Delete
    2. yep, I expect more details will be released in the coming months.

      Delete