UK PonyCon 2025 report, part four: Sunday, first half

Yes, 7:30 am. Having been evacuated four hours earlier. These people are amazing

Well, this was an interesting morning. That's as in "may you live in interesting times" interesting. I woke up well on time and got my stuff together. There are no Sunday buses where I live, but this was not a deal-breaker. I'd been offered a lift into Halesowen, which was nice.¹ The weather was pretty decent, a bit chilly and breezy but largely sunny, so after being dropped off I was happy enough waiting at the bus station. The X10 duly arrived, and as it was a double-decker as usual I went upstairs for a lovely view of... well, Halesowen. Look, I was in a good mood, all right?
¹ This is not a sentence you will read very often. 

I flicked over to the UK PonyCon Discord while on the bus – and that was when I realised something was up. Long story short, the HSBC bank right in Birmingham city centre had caught fire and the area had had to be evacuated at around 3 am. No significant injuries, thankfully. The snag was that right above this bank was a Premier Inn hotel. And this hotel was where a large proportion of the convention staff were staying. They'd been given shelter in New Street station next door prior to being redistributed to other hotels, but one thing they hadn't had was any real sleep.

I went to the Soloman Cutler Wetherspoons pub on the outskirts of the city centre for breakfast, as I knew it would be quiet at that time in the morning. There I had a breakfast muffin and several cups of coffee while I kept in touch with both the con and my Worcester group friends. The staff had done a truly wonderful job in rescheduling to fit in nearly everything while delaying opening from 10 am to midday to allow themselves some kind of rest and preparation. This really does deserve tremendous appreciation, so here I am tremendously appreciating it!

Matthew Boulton, James Watt and William Murdoch arguing whether to do karaoke or G3 merch shopping

Because of the delay, I was able to book into my own Premier Inn before heading to the con; fortunately it wasn't the evacuated one. Unfortunately the mess meant the check-in kiosks and main computer weren't working properly, but in the end I did get my room. As it was a Sunday night, the cheapest night of the week, I'd splashed out on a Premier Plus room, which was up on the seventh floor and had luxuries I wasn't accustomed to like a shower with halfway decent hair and body wash. Also, a couple more free mini chocolate bars! Green and Blacks this time.

Then it was off to UKPC. Everyone seemed in a good mood, and I was pleased to see a very strong feeling of appreciation towards the convention staff. The queue was again fairly long, but again it was handled efficiently and quickly. Once inside the venue, I made a point of thanking Bexi as she went past, but she rather played down her efforts, noting that she'd stayed in a different hotel and so had had some sleep. The venue staff had seemed slightly fussier about reminding everyone not to bring external food and drink in this morning, which as I said earlier they weren't always that consistent about. Ah well.

The first thing I headed for was the "Fluttershy Fan Club" panel, because the schedule rejig had meant the original clash with "Britannia Mare-ster" (of which more in a minute) had been avoided. This panel was intended to be a celebration of why Fluttershy is Best Pony. Obviously the fact of that is beyond question, but I was looking forward to basking in our mutual admiration for Flutters. Sadly, for reasons I never discovered but perhaps connected with the fire, the host didn't make it. We ended up watching Fluttershy clips for half an hour and then calling it a day. Could have been worse!

This was actually fairly relaxing. Not for the Gala animals, though...

That meant some time to spare, so I split that between chatting to friends and wandering around the stalls. It was just too busy to be comfortable, and I wasn't really in a merch-buying mood anyway, although I did make sure to stop by Imalou's table and buy an extremely amusing print of Izzy and Sprout – you can see that in the merch haul pic at the end of this series. Imalou was very nice considering the busyness, her prices were very fair, and I think all of us feel she would be extremely welcome if she ever wants to come to UK PonyCon again.

Then it really was time for Britannia Marester. That's a truly horrible pun – bravo! This has become a bit of a favourite for UKPC over the last few years. Based to an extent on the show Taskmaster, this sees a panel of contestants including the special guests set ridiculous tasks. In this case, things like choosing ten words from the FiM theme that nobody else would pick, running around collecting as many stickers as possible (Hawthorn was not a fan of this one) and designing an OC in a couple of minutes. Imalou's OC, "Fish Chips", was maybe the highlight of the whole game! Rebecca Shoichet won, but she immediately gave up her victory in favour of Amlaur. It was all a lot of fun.

Lunchtime! I decided to pop over to the Dragon again – and wonder of wonders, Britain's Got Talent had finally finished and so I could actually move. I wasn't that hungry so I confined myself to a soft drink and some chips. I'd been expecting to eat alone, but Roku joined me for a while which was very pleasant. This recce had been valuable, as it meant the Dragon was now a more viable choice for our Worcester group Sunday evening meal than the Briar Rose, which was apparently going to be full of Aston Villa fans...

Britannia Marester. A very boring photo of a very entertaining panel

Next time: Bingo!