All this and Imalou too!

Not content with bringing us both Tabitha St. Germain and Andrea Libman, UK PonyCon 2026 will also feature a very welcome returnee from last year: none other than Imalou! She was extremely popular with attendees in Birmingham in 2025, and was very complimentary about UKPC itself in her closing ceremony speech. That rounds out an incredibly strong trio of guests of honour!

UK PonyCon completes the Manes (kind of)

 UK PonyCon has announced guests for this year's convention at the end of October: both Andrea Libman, who has been at UKPC before, and Tabitha St. Germain, who hasn't. The latter was announced in the past but had to pull out due to work commitments. Let's hope lightning doesn't strike twice where that is concerned! Unsurprisingly, there was a great deal of excitement when the identities of the guests were concerned. Very impressive work by the UK PonyCon team!

As for my title? Well, if Tabitha St. Germain does indeed make it, she adds Rarity to the existing UKPC alumni: Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie (Andrea Libman), Applejack and Rainbow Dash (Ashleigh Ball), and Twilight (Rebecca Shoichet). Six out of six! And as Ghost Mike pointed out, you can also add Spike owing to Tabitha St. Germain voicing him in Pony Life. A full house!

UK PonyCon: Saturday/Weekend tickets SOLD OUT

The world's longest-running My Little Pony convention continues on, heading for its fourth generation of MLP toys since its launch in 2004. And as usually happens these days, the con has now sold out of Saturday and Weekend tickets thanks to reaching capacity. As the Leicester venue is a new one for UKPC, I'm not sure what capacity actually is, but in the recent past the convention has generally seen about 1,000 attendees, er, attending.

Tickets for the Friday night concert and for Sunday of the main event are still on sale, but for how much longer? If you want to attend either/both of these days and haven't yet bought your ticket, I suggest you get in soon! 

Just to prove I really am still very much into MLP!

Yes, I'm off to UK PonyCon again this autumn! As usual, I had to leave buying the ticket a bit later than I'd have liked, and around 75% of them have already sold. Still, I have mine, and this Halloween I shall be heading for Leicester. You will, of course, be subjected to a report when the time comes. :D

UK PonyCon 2026 prices announced!

There isn't a formal post about this on the UK PonyCon website, but the Tickets page has now been updated with 2026 ticket tiers and prices! As I usually do on these occasions, I'm going to go through each tier and see how it compares to last year. In fact, there isn't a lot of change – but there is some, so keep reading.

First, the tickets go on sale at 18:00 on Saturday 18th April. That time is BST. Unlike last year, we get plenty of notice! It's very nice to have time to think once more. 

As for those all-important prices, for 2026 we have:

Standard: £75 (held at 2025 price) – entrance to all days of the convention (including the Friday night music), con book, basic blue lanyard. You can have a personalised con badge if you book by 1st August.

Bronze: £99 (held at 2025 price) – nicer lanyard, Bronze sponsor badge, name in con book (if you want it), Bronze button badge, sponsor-exclusive magnet, £5 donation to UKPC's long-standing charity, the RDA. As with last year, you get the option to purchase (for £60) the sponsor hoodie. As far as I can see at a glance, the one change is the replacement of the sticker sheet with the magnet.

Silver: £220 (+5%) – priority queue, silver sponsor badge, messenger bag, Silver/Gold sponsor-exclusive T-shirt or long-sleeve shirt, beanie, sticker collecting book, vinyl stickers, enamel pin, two autograph/photo tokens, one photo print if relevant, £10 RDA donation. Several changes here, for example the art print and water bottle have gone but the beanie and sticker book are new. We're also back to messenger bags after last year's drawstring variety. There will be 75 Silver tickets.

Gold: £525 (held at 2025 price) – all the Silver perks and sponsor hoodie, Britannia plushie, top-table seating at Afternoon Tea, personalised welcome letter, four autograph/photo tokens, £20 RDA donation. That hand-made Britannia plushie with themed accessory, which this year will come from Noxi Plushies, is probably the stand-out among the various exclusive merch. There will be five Gold tickets.

Platinum: £950 (new!) – this is a brand new tier which consists largely of the UKPC folks throwing¹ everything they can think of at you. As well as the Gold perks, some of what you get here is admission for a plus one, being the very first person through the doors, £50 RDA donation, eight autograph/photo credits, a 3D printed figure of Britannia and your OC, five mass-produced Britannia plushies, a blanket, and one of all the other new pieces of merch not already mentioned. You also have a chance to go up on stage at the opening and closing ceremonies, and to participate in a UKPC-hosted² event. Phew! There will be one Platinum ticket. Yes, one.
¹ Not literally! Health & Safety is a thing at cons, you know...
² One hosted by the con itself, not by an attendee submitting an event.

So, thoughts? Well, most of the prices being held at 2025 levels is a nice touch and very welcome. I'm pleased the UKPC folks have managed to do that, especially keeping Bronze below that psychologically important £100 barrier!

Mind you, putting only the Silver of the main four tiers up, and then by only a tenner, seems a little on the bizarre side. It would have been fantastic PR to keep them all at last year's cost, and the maximum the increase can additionally raise is £750 – a fraction of the running costs of a convention UKPC's size. So this one stumps me a bit.

As for the Platinum ticket? I don't know, really, as it's entirely irrelevant to most of us! In any case, it's only the same few people each year who tended to get Gold, so presumably one of them will get Platinum. As such, I'm going to largely ignore it now I've mentioned it for completeness here.

Will I be attending this year? Same answer as every year! I hope so, but I can't yet be certain. Let's hope for a great attendance for this perennially great convention, though!

UK PonyCon 2026 venue and dates announced!

Hah, the world really does not want me to have a quiet time, does it? The one week I actually have Ponyfic Roundup ready to post, and it's trumped by something that has to take priority! So, without further ado: last night UK PonyCon announced:

Host city: Leicester
Venue: The Venue@DMU (yes, the venue is The Venue...)
Dates: Fri 30/10 to Sun 1/11
Theme: Trick vs. Treat

I must admit I didn't see Leicester coming! I thought it was pretty likely UKPC would remain in the Midlands, since this year there'll be a con in the north of England (Griffish Isles), one in the south (Festival of Friendship) and one in Scotland (BronyScot). But Leicester wasn't on my very short list of guesses.

No real complaints, though! It's easy to get to and I've been there before: UKPC 2014 and 2015 were in Leicester, albeit at a different venue. This year's location isn't quite as ultra-convenient as that one was, but it's good enough. A considerably higher capacity venue than in Brum, which is a huge plus. Hotels are obviously in shorter supply than they were in Birmingham in 2025, but I already have a couple of options in that regard.

The choice of Halloween weekend is interesting. That's several weeks later than UKPC has been most years in the past. Obviously events don't get a totally free choice of dates as (for some reason) Pony isn't given total priority over everything else. It does mean it'll be colder and darker in the evenings – clocks go back the previous weekend – but that shouldn't make an enormous difference.

As for the theme? We've had similar themes in the past, notably "The Gothic" in 2022 and the cancelled 2020 "SpookyCon", but it seems a perfectly decent choice to me. Let's hope the spider-tossing game (that we never managed to find in Nottingham) returns this year! Every year I debate with myself whether I'm actually going to cosplay for once, and every year I chicken out. So expect the same in 2026. :P

Further details still to come: prices are obviously going to be a major point of interest, but I'll also be very interested to know whether catering will still be the minimal offering we've had for the past few years, as this venue isn't absolutely surrounded by eating places, although walking 10-15 minutes gets you into the city centre proper where there are tons.

Still, knowing the venue and the dates means planning in earnest can begin. Huzzah for the UKPC team!

UK PonyCon report, part seven: The merch haul

As usual, click to see this at a larger size

I remember a friend a while back expressing the hope that this year's UK PonyCon report wouldn't take until December to get finished. At the time, we both found that an amusing joke – but Blogger had other ideas! Still, here we are at last. I usually prefer to take my merch photo outdoors, but the British weather had other ideas, so I had to do it on a small table in several goes. Here's the rather short key this year:

1: A4 sketch of Chrysalis and Flufflepuff in Sailor Moon style, 2014 picture by JowyB that I pulled in his £5 sketch lucky dip.
2: Sunny Starscout Pez dispenser, picked up from the freebies table.
3: Izzy and Sprout print by Imalou. Everyone seemed to love this.
4: My Bronze Sponsor badge and sponsor lanyard.
5: Unsigned A4 print of Sunset Shimmer, also by Jowy; this was the image Rebecca Shoichet had piles of to sign during her autograph sessions.
6: "Britannia's Adventures" postcard.
7: Badge showing Britannia exploring, provided in my sponsor pack.
8: Fluttershy and Scootaloo trading cards by Kayou.
9: UKPC 2025 T-shirt by Avui. It's a lighter and less "muddy" green in real life.
10: Sticker sheet, provided in my sponsor pack.
11: UKPC 2025 Con Book.

Despite the smaller venue, the Sunday hotel evacuation and so on, UK PonyCon 2025 was very enjoyable indeed. Pleasingly productive in terms of the con's long-running good cause, too, with the auction alone raising £7,575 for the RDA. I haven't seen a figure for the total amount raised for charity, but it's perfectly possible that I missed it given everything that's been going on this year.

Wheels are apparently already turning behind the scenes in terms of seeking out a venue for UK PonyCon 2026. All I can say there is: thank you, and roll on next year! 

UK PonyCon 2025 report, part six: Monday

Sunny ponders where the Maretime Bay Development Corporation went wrong

All good things must come to an end, and so it was with UK PonyCon 2025. This had been an extremely enjoyable convention for me. Not devoid of issues, of course, most of them connected either with the limited size of the venue or the completely unforeseeable fire that caused the hotel evacuation on the Sunday morning. Still, everyone seemed to pull together, and I think I'll remember this UKPC as having a particularly nice atmosphere once things got going.

After a nice sleep, I made sure of a long and soothing shower – if I'm going to shell out for a posher hotel room than usual, I'm damn well going to make the most of it! Then it was downstairs to meet a few friends for breakfast. Surprisingly and a little disappointingly, I found the Premier Inn brekky to be less good than the Travelodge one. Running out of blueberry muffins – and not replenishing them – was a definite black mark. I've never had that happen at any PI before. Still, the chat and friendship mattered more.

Hawthorn has ended up being the person who organises the farewell coffee meets after UKPC. I'm not sure even he knows quite how that happened, but everyone seems to be happy with the situation. We'd chosen the Pret on the concourse of New Street station, right by Ozzy the mechanical bull, for our meet this time around. It was certainly very convenient for those travelling by train, but it turned out to have the drawback of there being insufficient space inside.

Seriously, there were dozens of these packs being handed out!

That meant we all stood around just outside the Pret instead, albeit sometimes wandering in to buy a takeaway-but-not-really coffee. Now, standing around and looking awkward is a special talent most of us have, so other than being a little hard on the hooves it worked out all right. James arrived and threw even more packs of Kayou cards at us until we agreed to accept them. I picked up three, one of which was to give to a friend. I think there were probably about twenty of us there in total, albeit not all at once. We should probably find somewhere we can sit down next year, though!

After we'd broken up, as it was a nice day I had a quick poke around a couple of shops in Birmingham city centre before heading home. I managed to sneak in my first proper muffin of the entire convention (though I'd had a savoury breakfast muffin on the Sunday morning) thanks to a quick trip to Greggs. Apparently several Pony people hung around in town for quite a bit longer, Mike for example, but I didn't see any of them before I arrived back at Moor Street station.

And that was pretty much that! Moor Street is a pleasant enough place to be on a sunny lunchtime, and the train was on time, so I simply whiled away the time on the Worcester Shires Discord group and listening to fandom music on my earbuds. (Aviators. Ponyphonic. Replacer. Look, you know my music tastes by now, surely? And yes, "Sounds of 2017" is coming at some point. You're just not getting a more specific timeframe just yet!)

I always did say MLP needed a wider platform

Emerging from that very long parenthesis, I found myself back at Kidderminster. Pity. Still, I was ready to go home. UK PonyCon is never a cheap weekend, even with my Saturday night saver, but I'd got a lot out of it this year. You know what they say friendship is. Well, it's true.

Next time: the merch haul!

UK PonyCon 2025 report, part five: Sunday, second half

UK PonyCon personnel, somehow still upright after today

After returning from the Dragonlands, it turned out I'd missed nearly all the cosplay competition on the Mane Stage. That was slightly disappointing, although in truth I'm not quite as into that aspect of the fandom as many people are. I wouldn't be able to tell you who won what, for the most part. I did a bit more stalls shopping, though by now I'd mostly finished getting the few things I wanted. I also popped back to the freebies table to leave a few more things – though annoyingly not the blind bags that I discovered I'd left at the hotel – and pick up a couple more of the Kayou cards for others.

Next up was the Charity Auction. This is always a big deal at UK PonyCon, and it always seems to feature tension between wanting lots of... well, lots to raise money for the RDA and the thing overrunning, people overheating, or quite often both. To most of our surprise, the lot count this year turned out to be over 100, which it hadn't looked like a few hours earlier. I at first decided to stick it out, but as I was standing and squashed on the edge of the room I threw the towel in after a while. A shame, but I don't really regret it as I had very little cash left anyway.

A few of these are Worcester in-jokes, but you should get the idea!

The combination of all these extra lots and the compressed Sunday schedule did have one particularly sad consequence. Ghost Mike had worked very hard on his Pony Kart game and had achieved a high enough ranking to appear on the Mane Stage final at the end of the afternoon. But it soon became obvious that there just wasn't going to be time for everything, and Pony Kart was what had to give. Mike was impressively philosophical about it, and I'm sure he'll get another chance in the future, but when a friend works hard and through nobody's fault is denied the chance of Mane Stage glory, that's tough.

I hadn't done a lot of formal events on this day, and the one panel I had been to (the morning Fluttershy one) hadn't really happened. Still, Sundays at UKPC are usually more laid-back – and even though that wasn't the case for the staff this time round, it was still mostly the case for many of us. So I spent a while in the breakout room with friends, just chatting and trying desperately to fill my bingo card – not an official con thing, but one made up for our Worcester group by Hawthorn. I was truly thrilled to finish mine when Cozy obligingly asked me whether Tales was G1 or G2!

Fortunately our venue wasn't quite as small as it looks here

The closing ceremony was upon us now, and so we all trooped back to the main room and squeezed in as best we could. Because I'd taken a while to get there I had to stand up yet again – I didn't especially mind, but I don't think I've ever stood up more at a convention, which shows you just how maxed out the venue was. The ceremony itself was the usual mixture of thanks and photos, with perhaps the most memorable moment being Imalou's praise of the convention's diversity and inclusivity, including a wish to return at some point. We'd love to have you back, Imalou! Rebecca too, of course.

And with that, the official portion of UK PonyCon 2025 came to a close. There were a few nice leftovers to pick up in the entrance hall, such as unsigned versions of the Sunset Shimmer print Rebecca Shoichet had used for her autograph sessions, and I picked up a spare con book for Eliki. Then it was out into the street. In Nottingham the Worcester folks had often used this opportunity to take a group photo, but there was much less room here and so we ended up passing on that until later on.

This is my hotel bathroom, not the one at the Dragon!

After my lunchtime visit, we were fairly confident we could find room at the (Dragon) Inn, and so it proved. I think our group ended up numbering about fourteen, and so there was a good deal of moving tables around. Fortunately, Wetherspoons is unfazed by this kind of thing! We did take a group photo there, but that's not something I'll put in this public record. What I will note is that I ordered chocolate cake and then found it had sold out. Why am I not surprised that it was Ace who got the last one? ;) Fortunately I was offered apple crumble at no premium, and that was nice enough. No custard, though. Boo.

A particularly nice aspect of this meal was that we were joined by Pigasus, the Worcester meets founder and organiser, who'd never made a UK PonyCon before. Okay, this wasn't officially part of the convention, but for my money it counts. Pigasus is the reason I do social Pony things in the first place, after all. I think I stayed for about three hours before returning to my hotel. There's surely little chance we'll be at the same con venue in 2026, but in the event we are the Dragon has doubtless won itself some returning custom.

Next time: CoffeeStandCon

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!

UK PonyCon 2025 report, part three: Saturday, second half

Imalou (left) and Rebecca Shoichet (centre) answer the questions

Once I'd finished Languages of Equestria, it was time for the unmissable Special Guest Q&A and Script Reading. As usual, the latter was short but amusing, with Rebecca Shoichet demonstrating why she's a professional VA and most of us aren't. The question session was almost perfectly timed, with just a couple of minutes remaining after the last person had asked their queries. I don't remember anything earth-shattering in Rebecca or Imalou's answers, though the latter had some fun details about getting a certain red pony (Sprout) approved by Hasbro.

The freebies table had some fun little things by now, so I made sure to leave more stuff myself as I picked up a Sunny Pez dispenser. Because why not? Also some of the Chinese Kayou trading cards that have recently started appearing all over the place. These were mostly donated by James, whose attempts to practically throw packs of them at people became somewhat amusing by the final Monday morning! I didn't want any more UKPC merch, so that wasn't a factor. Also, by now I'd got the water dispenser in the breakout room to work properly: for some reason it took forever to start actually dispensing.

There wasn't a great deal that appealed to me in the early evening, which was a mild shame but not something I was too fussed about. I still have no idea why boba tea is supposed to be so fascinating, so I skipped Bexi's panel with that name, and while I was mildly attracted by the idea of a G4 fan-made videos panel, I wasn't attracted enough to prioritise it over some more stalls shopping. I ended up buying... well, not much this time. As you'll see when I eventually reach the merch haul pic, it was a case of slim pickings, something which is no reflection on the vendors.

This photo entirely fails to capture the lively, upmarket atmosphere. And no, I didn't win on the Monopoly

Getting evening food on a Saturday night is always a fraught endeavour. The Wetherspoons pub in the station was packed solid and had bouncers on the door by six o'clock. This is not what my local small-town pubs are like! I had to tell them we were looking for food, and they let us in. We then came out again sharpish as there wasn't a table to be had for love nor money. Nor mayonnaise (bing bong). The Dragon was still out as Britain's Got Talent was on to day 753 or something.

So a few of us ended up in the McDonald's on the New Street ramp. I think it was Bridle, Oily, Mike, Hawthorn and me; apologies if I've missed someone! It was nice to be able to talk to Mike properly for the first time since he'd made it, but other than the friends chat and the inevitable Big Mac I wasn't that keen on the place. It was incredibly busy and we only got a table by basically shoving large bags of ponies on the shelf and trying with varying success to repel non-convention people.

After a while it was back to the venue! UKPC had a second music event this time, the Forest Fest. This turned out to be an almost complete non-event for me because of timing. There was some kind of delay and it took ages before any music began. When it did, DJ Ben Love started with a wub that almost knocked me off my feet and went on from there. I stayed outside looking at a map of part of the Alps that someone had left in the bar area. No, I don't know why either. Maybe it was a clue, though to what I couldn't say.

Props to the bar for having cider. Unprops for having crisps at £2.50

And now, the bit that really mattered: Archer's Pub Quiz! This is a hilarious event run by one of the very few (maybe the only one) to have attended every single UK PonyCon. She asks 40 questions across all gens, split into four rounds of fiendishness such as colour-reversed symbols/cutie marks, and the team that answers Derpy correctly the most wins. In our case, we managed to include "Batman" as an answer in tribute to the absent Alli, but still somehow messed up an obvious "Night Glider" answer by putting "Night Light". Still, our team ("Kylie Minogue Tesco Edition") ended up joint third, our usual position. I took zero photos here. Go me.

I had to go at that point, and I was sorry to miss the Cartoon Riff with the Titanic cartoon featuring rapping dogs. There were probably other cartoons involved, but that one matters in cinematic history. I was less fussed about the late-night unofficial panel with Ember, basically roasting every pony. I'm told it was fun and I'm almost certainly in a minority of one on this, but if you're going to make a point of having a fully family-friendly convention, which UKPC does, an "unofficial, wink wink" 18+ event in the middle of the night just so the host can swear a lot seems kind of missing that point. I'd have had no problems had it been a fully casual thing in a pub somewhere.

Anyway, I was in a good mood regardless. As the con was so close to home this year I had decided I'd be going, well, home for Saturday night, thus saving about a trillion bits on hotel costs. For some bizarre reason the train was perfectly on time and had no yelling football fans; I was rather disconcerted. I was even more disconcerted not to have people shouting below my window until 4 am, although as I have a garden that would have been rather concerning. I had a bite and a drink, flicked through the Worcester Shires Discord, and ended up sleeping reasonably well. Early start tomorrow!

DJ Ben Love spins the decks, or whatever these people do

Next time: The morning burn

UK PonyCon 2025 report, part two: Saturday, first half

My hotel room view was concrete, so have Birmingham Council House (which I did walk past) instead

It's been too long owing to that WiFi outage, but I'm back with the next part of my UK PonyCon 2025 report. I was delighted to get a good night's sleep at my hotel – I think I chose pretty well – and because of not having to travel into Birmingham from elsewhere I was able to have Saturday breakfast at the Travelodge for once. The usual buffet stuff, but I ate a lot as lunch is always a problem at cons, so we're talking bacon, scrambled eggs, sausages, tomatoes, hash browns, yoghurt, cereal, several glasses of fruit juice... you get the idea. Then it was time to check out as I wouldn't be returning to this hotel. All smooth.

It was a very windy day, but fortunately Storm Amy's worst effects were elsewhere, and it was at least bright so a reasonable experience to walk into central Birmingham. I know a few people were in the Briar Rose (same pub as last night) for breakfast, though memory for specific identities is already hazy, so even though I wasn't eating I joined them there for a bit. By now of course I had my con badge around my neck – I only really take it off for bed and showers during the weekend – so the excitement levels were building nicely.

Off to New Street station, but not to catch a train: walking through it was just the easiest way to get to the venue, which was a few minutes' walk out the back. I made it at just before 9:30, I think, and the queue was already substantial, although it became even more so not long afterwards. I remember seeing a few people go by – Ace, Zen, Trixxy, Charles, a few others I can't recall. The building overhang by the comic shop would have protected us a bit from any rain, but there wasn't any, yay. Pretty much on time (10:00) we filed in!

The crowded Opening Ceremony. Britannia and Bexi on stage

The bag checks from venue staff on entering were an unknown, but they were very professionally handled all weekend, even if the level of strictness over outside food and drink did seem to vary from person to person. I had a little more to carry than usual owing to not being able to leave stuff in my hotel, but it all fitted in one bag. There was a very basic cloakroom (basically just a coat rail and a space underneath for bags) which was unattended; I was willing to leave my old jacket there but not my bag.

It was nice to catch up with some friends before things started, including Ghost Mike who I hadn't seen until this morning owing to all those plane delays. Chatting away with sometimes long-absent friends before a con is one of my favourite things, so that was great. I also made sure to have a quick chat with JowyB – it might have been then, it might have been slightly later – who is a great guy and a great artist. I bought one of his lucky dip sketches for a fiver and came away with a 2014 one featuring both Chrysalis and Flufflepuff. Very happy!

The opening ceremony happened in much the same way that these things nearly always do, by thanking everyone for coming, introducing the special guests Rebecca Shoichet and Imalou, having a little bit of minor physical comedy from the fursuiter playing UKPC mascot Britannia, etc etc. It was very cramped, though: we were right up against the venue's capacity, with quite a few of us having to stand around the edges of the room. This went all the more so as some of the stalls were squeezed in at the back owing to the lack of a sufficiently large single space for all vendors to be together.

"Have you seen this mare? Reward: B10 or one cherry"

Then it was train time! Zenfox who presented ably, with technical assistance but still no cake from Ace, shifted from the recent setup of simply helping people travel safely on our railways to the far more challenging task of trying to explain Equestrian railways. Given my own attempt to do that in ponyfic with On the Wrong Track a few years ago, I was all ears. And it was tremendous fun. I have issues with the use of a crying Scootaloo image on the shaky grounds that it was the best picture of a particular station. And I have Issues with the portrayal of Fluttershy as a train hijacker and all-round criminal mare. But yeah, I loved this panel.

There wasn't that much I wanted to do for the next hour or so, and so I wandered around, exploring the "Collectors' Cove" for toy-focused stalls on the ground floor, making a quick visit to put a lanyard on the freebies table and pick up some other small thing, and generally get my bearings in the venue. I can't actually remember what I did for lunch, though I have a feeling it might have been another trip to the Briar Rose with just Patrick. Either way, that big breakfast meant I didn't eat very much.

Back to the venue to see the last moments of the cosplay contest, which has never been on my must-see list but which I normally experience a bit more than that of. Since we were in Birmingham, Luna (my friend, not the Princess) and some cronies had dressed up in Peaky Blinders-style attire (as the Pinkie Blinders, of course) and arrived in a stretch Hummer, of all things. I didn't see it, but he told me about it. That car was a bit less Brummie, though! They ended up deservedly winning the prize for Best Group Cosplay, though we didn't know that until later on.

"Pony Romance Languages" – eg Apple Bloom speakin' in Fancy

Finally for this part of the report was an unusual little panel from ImmyChan: The Languages of Equestria. I was very keen to attend her panel, as this has been a minor interest of mine since the days I created Frithaes! An Introduction to Colloquial Lapine for the Watership Down fandom over 20 years ago. I thought it might just be Hawthorn and me, but in the event the small room was packed. Immy gave a good account of herself, and even though the panel was short I found it intriguing: the North Germanic nature of Breezie-speak, for example, and a decent stab at explaining how a Latin word like "draconequus" exists in Equestria in the first place.

Next time: Getting Batman wrong... 

UK PonyCon 2025 report, part one: Friday

My key to Equestria...

Here we go at last with my report of UK PonyCon 2025! To save you all waiting in suspense, I'll say right away that it was an extremely enjoyable convention. Not everything ran entirely according to plan, but that's cons for you. My small grumbles here and there should not take away from the fact that, given the unavoidable issues of a venue smaller (though more expensive to hire) than last year's, pretty much everyone did a sterling job to say the least.

So then, here we are on the Friday! It was nice not to have to start early in the morning for TrainCon. Indeed, I was almost in danger of being too early into Birmingham! There were no rail strikes this year, so it was a simple process. Sadly I didn't notice any other Pony folk I knew at Birmingham New Street station at first, and so I went to the Pret on the concourse for a cheap filter coffee. Nothing of great interest happened, bar Oilyvalves giving me a wave from outside as he passed by on the way to his hotel.

Surprisingly, I got to the KitKats before Pinkie did

I'd bought an early check-in add-on (though that's gone from £10 to £15 fairly recently, grumble) and so I set off to Newhall Street to find my Travelodge around midday. I'd selected it carefully as it was just far enough out of the city centre that I hoped it wouldn't be too loud on a Friday night, but still easy walking distance. I'd booked the very slightly upgraded Standard Room Plus, which meant being on the top floor (big plus), a coffee pod machine (shrug) and for whatever reason, a couple of complimentary KitKats. Not complaining!

Then it was off to town for the usual Worcester Shires pre-con meal, which was moved from the Dragon to the Briar Rose at the last minute because Britain's Got Talent was on at the Hippodrome meaning there would have been about 73 people for every table in the Dragon. This was the usual very pleasant experience, marred only by Ghost Mike's plane woes (which he's talked about himself) meaning he wasn't able to arrive until late evening. We did, however, discover the secret of the Briar Rose's mayonnaise cupboard.¹ Even if the staff themselves were later defeated by it...
¹ What it sounds like. A big wall panel behind which were shelves and shelves of mayonnaise.

The essence of UK PonyCon, really. The gens, not the rain

Pre-registration for UK PonyCon was in the venue itself, only a few minutes' walk away, so most of us made use of the opportunity as it didn't take long at all. My Bronze Sponsor badge was very nice, with Britannia on one edge and Sunny on the other, in honour of special guest Imalou. Lanyard in place, it was back to the pub for a bit. This year, for the first time at UKPC, there was going to be a Friday evening music event as part of the convention itself, and that's why our meal was in the afternoon rather than in the evening as it had been in the past.

The venue opened properly an hour before the "Jungle Jam" concert began at 6 pm, so we wandered over. Only the music hall and an outer hall with a bar were open, but that was fine. The bar sold at least some drinks at a non-absurd price, which was a plus. First up was Bexi with her now legendary cheesefest. As with last year, they're a tad too modern for me, and sorry Bexi but the "Cha Cha Slide" still isn't very interesting, but "5, 6, 7, 8" "Reach" (yay S Club 7!) and the Macarena are hard to avoid smiling at. She wasn't ridiculously loud, so this set made a good introduction.

Acid Applejack at the Jungle Jam

Next up was Acid Applejack, a Dutch EDM (and similar) musician. Not quite as much my cup of tea, but I still enjoyed his set. Actually, he seemed to have a good time at the con; I found myself standing next to his chair at a Mane Stage event later in the weekend. The third act was StormBlaze, who although probably best known as an artist gave a storming (ha) set. Some of the tunes were horse-related rather than strictly Pony, but it worked – and even if she was nervous about singing "My Past is Not Today" with Rebecca Shoichet in earshot, I think she nailed it.

I don't dance as everypony who knows me knows, but I got about as close as I'm ever going to get during some of these tunes! Still, after that things started to move more to the loud'n'hard kind of music and much as I respect Blackened Blue's ability, he's just a bit too much for me. So I retreated to my hotel room, finding the light rain annoying but it was very agreeable not to have to spend 45 minutes on a bus first! I'd really enjoyed the music – more than I'd expected to, if I'm honest – so I was in a very good mood for the following day. I even got a good night's sleep!

Next time: UK PonyCon hits the buffers, in a very entertaining way

UK PonyCon announces Rebecca Shoichet!

Ponyfic Roundup is delayed again – but for a good reason this time! 

Some big news from UK PonyCon last night: none other than Rebecca Shoichet has been announced as a special guest. VA for Sunset Shimmer, Night Glider and Sugar Belle, not to mention singing voice for Twilight Sparkle, the reveal of her attendance has been extremely popular. I'm not surprised now that the staff who were in the know were finding it a real strain to keep things quiet until they were in a position to announce more!

Also in UKPC news, the weekend schedule is up! There's a lot going on considering the forced move to a smaller venue this year, and on a personal note I'm thrilled that Archer's Pub Quiz will be early enough in the evening that I can attend without having to sprint to the station for my train home at the end! :P Inevitably there are times when two events I'm interested in clash, but that's conventions for you! I'm really looking forward to the first weekend in October. :) 

UK PonyCon is (very nearly) completely sold out!

Yeah, I know Ponyfic Roundup still awaits, and it will be here tomorrow – but this news has taken precedence. UK PonyCon is very nearly completely sold out, a mere twelve days after tickets went on sale! As I write this on Thursday evening, All Weekend, Saturday and Sunday tickets are now sold. The only ones left on sale are purely for the music event on Friday night. If you want to be part of UKPC 2025, that really is now your only remaining option. At £15, the tickets aren't going to break the bank, either.

Why has the convention sold out in record-breaking time? I think it's a combination of several reasons. The largest is surely the significantly reduced capacity of this year's venue over the (unavailable) Nottingham one. The fact that tickets didn't go on sale until 12th July gave people time to save up, so more bought instantly than usual. A new venue adds a frisson of excitement. We're just starting to see G6 hints appearing. But mostly I think it's that reduced capacity. But even so, twelve days. Wow. 

UK PonyCon tickets selling fast. Very fast

You know how I often mention that UK PonyCon has maintained serious popularity for so many years? And I mean many – it's the world's longest-running MLP convention, after all! Well, yesterday UKPC put out this blog post, noting that although the Birmingham Conference and Events Centre has its bonuses, one compromise that's had to be made is on total capacity. I don't think the number has been officially published, but most people I speak to expect attendance this year to be around 1,000 rather than the 1,300 of 2024. Anyway, I'll quote the part that stood out to many of us:

For Friday we have sold 55% of our available tickets

For Saturday we have sold 73% of our available tickets

For Sunday we have sold 59% of our available tickets

That's a whole lot of tickets! In fact, it suggests pretty strongly that if you want to attend on Saturday, which of course includes wanting to be there all weekend, you're going to have to get your skates on. (Or roller skates, if you're Hip-Hop, Jazzie or Melody.) Selling out early is not unprecedented – in fact, in 2018 UKPC sold out of everything but Sunday-only tickets in July. But in recent years they've been available almost until the day of the con.

Not this time, methinks! Remember, those percentages were before the flurry of sales that I know the announcement caused. I was one of those, by the way: I took the announcement to heart and bought my own ticket (Bronze sponsor) yesterday, almost as soon as I learnt about the official blog post. I'm very glad I did, because waiting much longer might have ended up turning into waiting for next year!

UK PonyCon news – venue change reasons and stalls changes

I said in my post on Thursday that one reason UK PonyCon was trusted was that it fronted up when things were awkward instead of hiding. The excellent Reskell (UKPC comms lead) did just that recently. There's now a Stallholder Clarification article, but that title is a little deceptive as there's quite a bit of info in it that's of interest to all potential attendees. It's only really the first section on carer and helper tickets that's narrowly focused. I'd strongly advise you to read the full piece for yourself, but a few bullet points of things that stood out to me:

• UK PonyCon did not choose to leave Nottingham. Rather, Nottingham Trent University (NTU) was not available for the usual UKPC dates and alternative dates offered clashed with other conventions. UKPC doesn't rule out going back to NTU one day; the language used suggests that relations are still good.
• Reasons for the choice of Birmingham venue. There are quite a few of these, but notable is the extremely central location of the Birmingham Conference and Events Centre. It also has better air circulation systems, which will be good news to those of us who were dropping like flies at last year's auction!
• Running UKPC at BCEC costs more than at NTU. This is given as the (main, anyway) reason ticket prices had to increase. We're not going to get fine details since no significant venue wants its contract details in the public domain, but you can make a few more or less educated guesses about why the cost is higher.
• Reduced stalls space compared with 2024. It seems that the available stalls area is significantly reduced this year compared to what NTU could offer. I suspect it's a painful but necessary trade-off for the other advantages that BCEC brings. But it will mean single tables only, and fewer of them, so be prepared.

There is also a concerning section right at the bottom of the post about certain people having taken it upon themselves to contact the venue directly about booking extra space. Please do not do this! It's really important that concerns and questions go through the UK PonyCon team themselves. A con having good relations with a venue is worth its weight in gold. 

Finally, I'd once again like to compliment Reskell's handling of this. This is how you do it. Front up, give details where you can, be polite but clear and firm, keep your head. They're good at this. No names, no pack drill, but we can all think of other events that would not have dealt with this as calmly and speedily. But as a rule, those events don't survive for 21 years...

UK PonyCon 2025 ticket details!

You know how when I posted a revised schedule on Tuesday I said that "[i]f any big news intervenes then so be it." Well, about that...

With exactly 100 days to go until UK PonyCon 2025, last night saw ticket details announced! They will go on sale at 7pm BST on Saturday 12th July. That's still over a fortnight away, but nevertheless the tickets page itself is now live, allowing you to see what you get for your money. I'll put some thoughts after the main bit, for which I'll keep to the format I used in 2024:

I'm using Adult Weekend ticket prices here, since I imagine the large majority of people reading Louder Yay will be buying those. There are also one-day, child and family rates – and a cheaper (£15) option granting entry only to the new-for-2025 Friday night music event. The tiers remain as they were last year, except that Silver numbers fall from 75 to 60 and Gold from five to four. That returns the totals to where they were in 2023.

Standard: £75 (+25% on 2024) – entrance to all days of the convention (including the Friday night music), con book, basic blue lanyard. You can have a personalised con badge if you book by 15th August.

Bronze: £99 (+16%) – nicer lanyard, Bronze sponsor badge, name in con book (if you want it), Bronze button badge, vinyl sticker sheet, £5 donation to UKPC's long-standing charity, the RDA. New for this year is the option to purchase (for £60) the sponsor hoodie, which previously could only be obtained by Silver or Gold ticket-holders.

Silver: £210 (+14%) – priority queue, silver sponsor badge, drawstring bag, Silver/Gold sponsor-exclusive T-shirt, art print, water bottle, wooden pin, two autograph tokens, £10 RDA donation. New for this year is a special guest signing session just for Silver sponsors.

Gold: £525 (+17%) – all the Silver perks and sponsor hoodie, Britannia plushie, top-table seating at Afternoon Tea, personalised welcome letter, four autograph/photo tokens, £20 RDA donation. New for this year is custom artwork from a member of the UKPC Arts Team in both digital and various physical forms. The Britannia this year is not a Sewpoke one. It's the mass-produced one from last year, but with a fitted-to-size themed shirt (with each buyer getting a unique design) from the highly regarded shadowonthemoon.

There are more perks I haven't listed, especially for the top two tiers, so go and read those on the Tickets page itself if you're curious! (And why wouldn't you be?)

Anyway, thoughts. First, I'm happy and relieved to see tickets announced. Except for the 2021 iteration, which was held in very unusual circumstances as we emerged from the Covid pandemic, this is by some distance the latest tickets have gone on sale since I started attending UKPC over a decade ago. In 2018, the last time the con switched venues, they could be bought before the end of April. So yeah, this is unusually late even considering the fact that the con has a new location.

Prices? Well, I would first like to compliment the UK PonyCon folks on fronting up on this issue in their announcement blog post. One of the reasons (though by no means the only) that this convention is so trusted is that its staff don't try to sweep things like this under the carpet. I also recognise the amount of effort that went into keeping the popular Bronze tier under £100. I think it's probably still the best value tier, as was the case last year. The gap between Standard and Bronze is in fact now very slightly smaller than it was in 2024.

As I said last year, annual rises of roughly 15% are not sustainable in the longer term and have to end before too much longer.¹ But that's the only real note of concern I'm going to sound in this post. So to get back to good things! I'm glad Friday pre-registration is staying; it was an excellent innovation last year. With that and a Friday night concert this year, it may become more challenging to fit in the informal pre-meets that a lot of us really enjoy, but that can be worked out. Of course one unknown is the venue staff. If they're as good with attendees as the Nottingham ones were, we'll be in good shape.
¹ A 15% rise for the next 15 years brings a Standard ticket to £600+ by 2040, four times what it would be with 5% rises. 

At this point it is traditional for me to say that I don't know whether or for how long I'll be able to attend. This year, with the convention in a city that's convenient for me to access, I'm cautiously on the side of "I will be there". The question for me this time will be whether I stay over or commute in each day – or even adopt a hybrid approach, perhaps staying on Friday night but not the much more expensive (in hotel terms) Saturday. That's not something I yet know, but we shall see!

This post is long enough now, I think. I remain of the opinion that UK PonyCon is a wonderful event that is run in a way that reflects very well on the British My Little Pony fandom. It is, after all, the longest-running MLP convention in the world, and you don't earn that status by accident. In the old days, coming of age used to be your 21st birthday. Unless you're an American wanting to buy beer, turning 21 now has less resonance – so I'll borrow UK PonyCon's 2025 theme title and simply say... Adventure Awaits!

UK PonyCon dates and new venue announced!

Given the importance of this news to so many My Little Pony fans in the UK, I've chosen to post this tonight rather than wait. For that reason, and to give people a little time to digest the news, Ponyfic Roundup will now appear on Friday. Apologies for any inconvenience, as they say when there are temporary traffic lights in the town centre for 874 days running. Anyway...

Earlier on this evening, UK PonyCon announced the dates and venue for this year's 21st iteration of what has become the world's longest-running My Little Pony convention. And they are:

Friday 3rd (evening), Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th October 2025

The Birmingham Conference and Events Centre

That's right – after being in Nottingham since 2018, UKPC is on the move! Those who've attended (or at least known of) the convention for many years will recall that, before it moved to Nottingham, it tended to move around the country. In a way, then, this is a return to the event's roots. Although I know Birmingham fairly well (since I only live 20-25 miles away) I don't think I've ever attended an event at this particular venue, so I can't comment on that.

What I can say is that the place is extremely well connected. As the BCEC's website shows, it's within sight of Birmingham New Street Station, the city's main rail hub – and that is a ten-minute train ride from Birmingham International Airport. As you'd expect from a city with a population of well over a million, 3-4 times that of Nottingham, Birmingham has no shortage of hotel options in the centre either. Whether I'll actually stay over or commute in (if I go – as usual, I can't commit just yet!) I don't know.

As the PonyCon folks say in their announcement post (not yet fully updated) this year it will be possible to stay at the venue, with a special rate for attendees forthcoming. That's not yet live, so be aware of that if you do the instabooking thing. UKPC hasn't been held in a hotel since it was in Leicester in 2014 and 2015, but I remember that plenty of people took the opportunity to stay on site back then. The other big change is the addition of an extra music event on Friday evening, The last con I attended that did that was BUCK 2014!

Lots to think about, but this has blindsided a lot of us as we didn't really expect UK PonyCon to be able to secure a venue in Birmingham city centre. The initial reaction I've seen has been really very positive, though, so I'm feeling pretty optimistic about it all as I type this. Many thanks and congratulations to the convention committee for managing to get something so complex and impressive worked out.

UK PonyCon 2024 report, part seven: The merch haul

Click to expand to a larger version with numbers you don't have to squint at!

Over two months after UK PonyCon 2024 closed its doors, I am finally rounding off my con report! You already know that I thought the convention was a very good one, with a few little irritations vastly outweighed by all the good stuff. And here is some of that good stuff! I didn't have the funds to buy a lot this year, but here's what I did acquire. This photo was taken in my hotel room (on the bed, as there wasn't room anywhere else!) hence the poor lighting and foreshortened appearance. The orange numbers correspond to the explanations below:

1 – Sundance G1 brushable. Normal size, not as tiny as she looks in the photo!
2 – UK PonyCon 2024 T-shirt, size XL.
3 – Con book. Particularly nicely produced this year.
4 – Small original Celestia canvas by Carousel Wishes.
5 – Saturday night concert guide leaflet.
6a to 6d¹ – A4 prints by JowyB. (The Fluttershy one was a gift from a friend.)
7 – Bronze Sponsor lanyard and con badge.
8 – Bronze Sponsor button badge.
9 – Scootatrix "Got Meegan" badge and business card.
10 – "He/him" and "Want a hug? Please ask" free stickers.
11 – Cute sticker from the freebies table.
12 – Business card for KNAB.
13 –"Gen1us" ribbon, only available to attendees of the Scootertrix panel.
14 – Celestia marker pen drawing by Sparkler.
15 – Sponsor bonus sticker sheet.
16 – UKPC 20th anniversary mug.

¹ 6d was erroneously labelled 8d. Go me.

Next time... well, there won't be a next time! Not until and unless I attend next year, anyway...