Griffish Isles, Final Thoughts

A few hours later than I'd intended this post to go up, but here's my final (planned) post about Griffish Isles for the time being. The con will be sending out official requests for feedback at some point in the near future, and I certainly intend to complete mine – but I also want to give some thoughts in public. So...

Edit: Whoops, forgot to include a page break! This is fairly long, so I'll add one now.

The Good

• May was a good time of year to hold Griffish Isles. There are already two UK cons in the autumn, so GI needed to be far enough from those that people could actually afford to go to GI and one/two of the others. I wouldn't have liked it in the cold and dark of February or March, but May worked well.
• I really liked the St Thomas Centre itself. As a converted church, it had considerably more character than the usual slightly soulless conference hall, yet its main hall especially had plenty of room. The corridors were slightly cramped, but it wasn't too bad.
• Everyone's said this, but a special word of praise for Morris the security guard. For an event like this, you absolutely don't want someone with the demeanour of an old-school bouncer at a tough city-centre boozer. You want someone like Morris. If he's available next year, bring him back!
• Registration was quick and easy, though being near the front of the (Standard) queue probably helped! My wristband stayed stuck all day without feeling uncomfortable.
• The atmosphere was very nice. Given how used I've become to UK PonyCon's all-gens, all-ages approach, I did slightly wonder whether returning to an avowedly brony convention might have been awkward. It wasn't. Staff, volunteers, stallholders and fellow attendees alike seemed to be subscribing to show's message of friendship. Maybe not all of them were like that, but certainly those I actually spoke to were.
• The staff seemed on top of things throughout, barring the usual very minor bumps. The schedule was very well adhered to, you could actually hear the speakers speaking, they explained the important things clearly (even if not everyone listened!) and nobody came across as though running the con was a chore. I didn't have any problems that needed their attention, so I have no idea how good they were at handling that.
• Lee Tockar proved an excellent guest. I got mildly irritated with a few attendees constantly comparing him to Elley-Ray in 2018, since what use is that to those of us who weren't there then? I thought Tockar did a very fine job on his own merits and was a great asset to the con.
• Ali Milner was a very good choice of virtual guest. While her Skype chat was slightly marred by the usual technical problems (see "The Bad" below), Milner herself was an engaging and entertaining speaker who was clearly enjoying herself.
• The Griffish Isles events programme was satisfyingly full and varied for a small convention. There was surely something for everyone in there, and it was good to see a couple of panels that did something different from the norm, such as the Drs Crome/Kirkland panel on "MLP and the Meaning of Life". This sort of innovation helps to keep things fresh.
• The con book was well produced, and with one small exception (pointing people to the almost useless Ardwick rail station) very helpful and informative. The writers judged really nicely how to use a touch of humour in stuff like the rules section without it overwhelming important messages.
• I was happy with the number and variety of vendors, and I ended up spending considerably more than I'd planned. Okay, this is normal for conventions, but still. Once I'd found out how to find the second venue (signposting please!), it was pretty easy to skip between the two. I understand the vendors themselves had mixed feelings about this setup, but it worked for me as a buyer.
• The "Pony Museum" room, though nothing remarkable to those who are already familiar with other generations of MLP, was nevertheless a nice little extra. After all, before too long we'll all have to face a different gen being the current one!
• Karaoke! Admittedly when I sang it was in an almost empty room as the Cosplay Contest was about to start, but that's not on the con. Unlike a certain other convention I could name (hi there UKPC) the microphones were perfectly set up for scoring and speakers at the same time. It was fun.
• The pub pre-meet, though perhaps a little rowdier and more crowded than I personally prefer, was a nice event in an easily-found venue. It made for a good way to ease into the con. Everyone seemed in good spirits, and I'm sure everyone appreciated a very jet-lagged Lee Tockar putting in an unexpected appearance.
• Manchester (good section) – the city is something of a spiritual home for UK brony conventions, this being the seventh to be held there after four BUCKs, one GBBC and the previous GI. It had tremendous transport links and plenty of hotels and other places to stay to choose from. It was also only a short walk from Piccadilly rail station to the St Thomas Centre.

The Bad

• Having the charity auction in the evening was disappointing for those of us who couldn't stick around. We've since been told that an intriguingly unspecified "restriction" prevented it happening in the daytime, but whatever the problem is I hope it can be resolved for 2020.
• I was slightly irritated by the implication (perhaps unintentional) from one or two con staff that GI is unusual for sending more than just auction proceeds to charity. UK PonyCon has done this since long before GI was even in existence, and it's not the only one.
• Is there really no better option than Skype for chatting to a distant virtual guest? Every single Skype con chat I've ever been to has suffered from lags and jumps in a way that we should have moved past in 2019. Better a Skype chat than no chat, naturally, but it's still annoying.
• The T-shirt distribution was a little chaotic, with shirts of all sizes in a single large cardboard box. There were a very few unclaimed that were later sold (I bought one, and it's a very nice StormBlaze design) though with so few left perhaps they could have gone into the charity auction.
• Getting food was a bit of a pain, with very few options nearby. I appreciated that you were allowed to take food and drink into the (daytime) venue, something you rarely see nowadays, and this helped a bit. Even so, I'd strongly recommend a big breakfast if you go to GI!
• The GI website was a little neglected in the weeks and months before the con, with basic details such as the venue locations sometimes mentioned only on social media. This was disappointing and in my experience was a significant factor in some people's uncertainty over whether to commit to attending a new (for them) convention.
• Manchester (bad section) – this isn't a cheap city by any means. When staff point this out to justify this or that, it's hard to stop yourself thinking, "Well, you didn't have to hold it in Manchester, did you?" That's not really fair, but it is true that high costs affect us attendees as well as organisers, albeit in different ways.

Value for money
I'm treating this separately as it's not really possible to put it into the "Good" or "Bad" box. My Standard ticket cost me £34.16 (I refuse to exclude a booking fee I can't get out of) which is a great deal cheaper than BUCK was, especially towards the end of its life. On the other hand, it's almost as much as UK PonyCon, which is a two-day event – albeit one where economies of scale doubtless come into the equation.

I will admit that I was iffy about the price when I first saw it, but having experienced GI, I think it was worth it – and certainly would have been had I been able to stay for the evening. The VIP tickets at almost £100 did seem pretty expensive for what you got, but VIP attendees I spoke to were generally satisfied, so I guess it's seen as including a large chunk of "Con Support" money too.

Summing up
You'll see from my comments above that there's a lot more in the Good section than in the Bad one, and that reflects the experience I had at Griffish Isles 2019. It was a tiny bit rough around the edges in places, a little like the suburb (Ardwick) where it was held, but for me at least not enough so to cause any real problems. I can't speak for the evening section, not having been there.

It's clear from staff comments during and after the convention that they'd like there to be a 2020 iteration as well. Would I go back? Yes. Will I go back? Maybe. I have an expensive holiday next year that will be at a similar time of year, so it may not be possible. But if there is a Griffish Isles 2020, I'll certainly at least recommend other people to think about it.