Bronycon Recap

First off, thank you all for the kind words of support you've offered for my loss.  Believe me, it is much appreciated.  ^^

Anyway, back to Bronycon....  ^^

I'll be playing catch-up during the next few days, posting some of the secret new art that I made exclusive for Bronycon -- not just with piñatas, but also with actual vector-drawn artwork and games.  Some stuff I actually forgot to take a picture of and lost it forever (e.g., the mini party cannon), but no worries cause there'll all paper plushies and I'll definitely be making more in a jiffy.  ^^

And that is something I confirmed at Bronycon... My petite paper plushies were a ROARING success, thanks in huge part to their portability, their cuteness and their small price tag.  In contrast, I had a much harder time selling my larger, more traditionally-sized paper plushies/piñatas, precisely because so many people came out of the town and worried about how to get such a large pony on a plane.  And once you factor in that a petite paper plushie takes no more than 2 hours to make, and the edict is simple....

Petite Paper Plushies are the future, and the larger sized ponies are obsolete.  So it's fitting that I cleared out my entire stock, as I'll be switching to more portable mini piñatas going forward.  So again, in the next week or so, I'll be rebuilding the Mane6 as paper plushies, plus the mini party cannon so it can get it's proper DA introduction, AND I'll start branching out into other ponies I couldn't make in time for the con (such as Scratch and Octavia). ^^

=======

As for the con itself...

Due to Merlina's medical emergency on Friday, I actually could not pre-register or set up my booth in advance on Friday, meaning everything had to get done Saturday morning before 4000 bronies were let loose into artist alley.  (which just my luck, occurred 20 minutes earlier than scheduled!)

My carnival-style decorations were a far cry from what Amanda and I had planned, but given the time constraints they were good enough to make our booth one of the most colourful ones on the floor.  ^^

The first few hours Amanda and I focused on selling our flagship products, Amanda with her customs and myself with my petite paper plushies.... another friend of my dropped by and she added her crochet ponies to the table too.  Sales were pokey but there, and pretty soon we started getting more room on the table to start displaying more merchandise, such as my custom blindbag houses, and postcard copies of the posters that were hung in our booth (commissioned from Garret Gilchrist).

Then around noon we finally decided to start our first game, a quaint recreation of the Spider Toss game from Luna Eclipsed.  $0.25 gave the player 3 spiders to toss at a skeeball-like cobweb board, for a chance to win turns on a special tumbler... this tumbler offered random prizes ranging from lowly (but adorable) stickers to fantastic 13x19 poster prints.  The expectation was to have a single person pay a quarter to play, toss a few spiders, and leave to seek interest in some other booth... the reality, though, is that we often had people playing $1 or $2 worth of tosses, and then come back later for more.  It was FREAKIN' ADDICTIVE, and people loved that!  

[plus the fact that they always walked away with at least a cute sticker made it a no-lose proposal]  ^^

Later on we tried a different game called Changeling Challenge, which used my new Twilight Guns (picture will be posted later), to knock down targets containing changelings and changeling commanders.  Just watch where you aim, cause friendly ponies are intermixed between them.  XD

This game was even more fun for the player, but the pacing was definitely slower given we had to chase after stray plungers and put cups back into position after each game -- it was such an inconvenience that by the next day, we simply focused on Spider Toss instead since that proved to be the most fast-paced and universally-adored game to date.  Other game ideas (such as Hey Hay Hurler) never made it in time for Bronycon, but we will debut them during upcoming meetups at least.  ^^

And that pretty much sums up the whole vending experience.  By Day 2 I had already sold nearly all my petite paper plushies (of the original army of 50, I only had 8 left), and the remainder (mostly Applejacks) were sold very early on in the morning (before the fire).  Other merchandise got cleaned out as well, to the point where I left the day with only one box rather than the six boxes I came in with.  All I have left now are postcards, a handful of buttons, a smattering of stickers and parasprites, nothing else survived the onslaught of fun-filled bronies wanting to lay their hands/hooves on some mighty original merchandise. ^___^

So would I do this again?  Probably, but not in the exact same way as before.  It's clear to me that we're on to something with these booth games, and I'd like to start developing that concept a little further.  And of course I want to kickstart my petite paper plushie market as well, including the development of new merchandise, and maybe even some packaging and labeling for them.  That means I'll be officially starting commissions for the first time ever, which will be an exciting change of pace for me.  ^^

As for pictures,...  I'll dig through the Bronycon gallery later on for more pics of my booth during its fuller moments.  But for now, these will do.  ^__^