What future for MLP's social fandom?

As the months of the pandemic drag on and on, many of us are missing our in-person social interactions with other fans more and more. In my case, the last time I met any other ponyfan in person was when I attended our final Worcester ponymeet, five months ago today. I suspect that at the time many of us quietly hoped it would only be a few months before the meets could restart. Sadly, it now looks like being a good deal longer than that. I don't think there's any realistic chance at all of restarting in September, a hope some of us perhaps entertained in early summer.

It's a lonely time for many of us. So how long will it be before we can all meet up again in something like the old way? Well, who knows? That depends on all kinds of things, and since discussion of those can stray into the realms of politics I'll try to avoid some aspects here. But the fact remains that for a lot of people – by no means all, but a lot – being with friends who share our love for and enjoyment of MLP has been a highlight of our time in the fandom, and something we're missing very badly. What happens next?

Lots of musing on this after the page break.

Restarting some kind of informal meets should be a reasonably quick and easy thing once that becomes possible again. Here in England, you're currently not supposed to mix more than two households/bubbles at the same table indoors, so a bunch of us sitting in a café in the way we did until March is simply not an option. Even if it were allowed, I suspect many of us would be somewhat wary. I would, I think, though perhaps not quite as much so as I once would have been. But when we finally do return to some kind of normality, I imagine meets will bounce back.

Incidentally, outdoor gatherings do have looser restrictions. But for a whole variety of reasons, those would not be easy for a significant number of Worcester attendees – and that's even without considering the vagaries of the British weather. As far as I'm aware, no regular UK meetup group has hosted a picnic or the like this summer, even though a reasonably small one would have been within the rules at least in recent weeks. And as autumn closes in, that ceases to be even a theoretically sensible prospect.

Looking more closely at the Worcester meets specifically, since that's what I know best, what would we need to get going again? Obviously the above restrictions would have to have gone. Quite a few of us come by train, several considerable distances, so enough people would need to feel comfortable doing that. We'd need to feel reasonably relaxed – that last meet in March was noticeably edgy, and though it was still very much worth having it's not an aspect I much enjoyed.

What continuing restrictions could we live with? I can't speak for everyone of course, but for myself: I could deal with wearing a mask when not actually eating or drinking. We could ask people not to bring plushies and the like. We could have a booked table – and, connected with that, we could deal with a time limit, though inevitably some might not feel it worth travelling to Worcester for an hour or two. Going monthly instead of twice-monthly would be doable. I suppose we could even try not to laugh too much, though that would be a bigger disappointment!

Still, I do very much expect meets to return when they can. Conventions, though... they may be another matter. Many con organisers are being quite bullish in public about 2021, partly to avoid any contractual problems with venues – but I have to say I wonder whether they're all quite so sanguine behind closed doors. Not because holding larger gatherings would necessarily be impossible next year, but because the one thing no organiser can do is make people attend if they don't want to. And for myself, while I'd love to go back to cons, I will not do it unless the circumstances are right for me.

What does that mean? Well, obviously I'd need to feel safe. A zero-risk world is not a realistic one, but I'd need to feel safe enough. But I'd also need the con to feel like a con. I really have little interest in going to an event if there are all manner of extra rules and restrictions and requirements over and above what we expected in 2019. Imagine a convention where you couldn't sing out loud, had to wear a mask much of the time, couldn't hug, had to register for each panel, couldn't wander down to the pub together... quite frankly, I doubt I'd find that kind of con very appealing.

Cost would also come into it. All leisure organisers will need to work in a world where a lot of people have a lot less disposable income. That means simply hiking up ticket prices by large amounts to cover extra costs may not be a workable option, at least not unless the events accept that doing that would price large numbers out altogether – something that would itself change the atmosphere of that con. A convention weekend costs as much as a holiday – because for me at least it is a holiday. I can only spare that kind of money if I'm sure I'll enjoy the experience.

There's also the harsh fact that the FiM fandom is just not as big as it once was. While I don't think it's going to disappear any time soon, and while I do think the critical mass will be there for convention numbers for years to come, that may not mean big conventions. We may never again see cons with hefty four-figure attendances – though it's certainly possible that I could be wrong there and that when (and if...) they finally resume there will be large amounts of pent-up demand. I'd be delighted to see that.

Actually, one potential medium-term future is that larger gatherings would be allowed, but only up to a few hundred people. It's not especially hard to imagine a situation with a limit of say 500 – meaning that a smaller convention like Griffish Isles could run at its normal size, but a larger one like UK PonyCon would have to make severe cuts to its capacity. What happens to viability then? I'm sure people are quietly discussing this for specific events, but I think the general issue needs to be raised publicly. So here I am raising it!

Clearly we cannot live under current restrictions for the rest of time, not even if the worst happens and we never get an effective vaccine. If that pessimistic scenario comes to pass, we will have a hard choice to make: either get back to some kind of socialising and accept that it's riskier than it used to be, or stop socialising in person altogether. As it happens, I am personally fairly optimistic about the chances of a vaccine, though even in the best scenario that's still months away. But nothing is certain.

I really do not want to live in a world where my only interaction with fellow ponyfans is online for evermore. I am enormously grateful to be able to interact with my friends online and have virtual meets and even cons. I reflect that not that many years ago, such a thing would have been impossible. But great as they are, they're not the same. As such, for me I think there would come a point (certainly within a year, perhaps sooner) at which accepting some extra risk would become the lesser of two evils. For one thing, the mental and emotional risks of continued isolation are real; Covid-19 itself is not the only health issue to be considered.

That is a very personal decision, of course, and everyone will have their own feelings on it. Quite rightly so. Perhaps for some people the future of fandom socialisation is entirely online. Of course, for a significant number it's never been anything else. In the end, though, I am really pretty confident that there is a future for the in-person social side of My Little Pony fandom. What I'm currently much less confident about is what form that might take, especially where conventions are concerned.