TrotCon :: Columbus Confirmed Contested Convention Center

Nothing says "Welcome to Trotcon" like a balloon rainbow and a crippled Sonata plush.

It was far too early on a Thursday morning to try writing this article at the airport, on a shitty Proscan 10.1" Tablet, that seemed to have problems with everything from the USB keyboard no longer functioning, to having the German language auto correct try to change English words to German. After taking the 4 hour flight from my hometown in Vegas to Columbus, OH, and bumming a ride from some of the Trotcon Staff due to lack of shuttles, I finally managed to make it to the Crowne Plaza Columbus North Hotel, where the convention was held.


Thursday night went by pretty smoothly, finding Wootmaster amongst the crowd, along with SuperKamiGuru and Balla Ken, going to some place that served every combo of chili and cheese you could think of, including spaghetti + chili. So we started the convention off right, having spaghetti before it even started.

Including also, chatting with M.A. Larson and the others, them gawking over Brian Drummond's fart gun, which was just a plastic POS that made fart noises. Advanced humor for mature people. Not too long afterward of just shooting the shit with M.A Larson, Brian Drummond and G.M. Berrow, and Larson tweeting Capper to get both Karl and myself fired, we wound up turning in for the night.

Pls no. ;_;

Friday was pretty uneventful, with most of the time spent getting preloaded with alcohol and wandering around the vendors hall, and all the various panels.  Though we did notice a bit too late that the whole convention had a Harry Potter theme going through, with one of the questions at pre-registration being who your favorite horse princess was. I honestly don't remember answering that question, but then again I registered for it months in advance and my memory can be poor at times. In any case, I wound up in the Solaris or whatever the class name was associated with Sunbutt.

The irony is not lost on me, that there were two mini-conventions held at the venue simultaneously. One for Shrek 4, the other for a Christian group.

For the weekend that the convention was running, we found out that there was also two small mini-conventions going on simultaneously. One of which was apparently one dedicated to Shrek 4, specifically. The other was for a Baptist Church. There's no way that could go wrong, right?

And as if that weren't enough, the hotel the convention was held at was right next to this place. Not too far down the road was a brewing tower for Budweiser. Top location choices.
As for the writers panel, we went but didn't sit through the entire thing. Though, we did manage to catch a few tidbits here and there from the writers panel.

>Larson answering that Winona is a better choice compared to Applebloom, in who he wants to "princessify" next.
>Buy my book.
>Do it, now.

Opening ceremonies.

The rest of the main panels, I don't quite remember much but at least someone was recording the whole thing, so it should be uploaded in the next few weeks, if it wasn't already livestreamed. Here's a small pic dump.

3 delicious Tendies on sale for only 6 Good-Boy-Points.

Don't let your dreams be dreams. Just... DO IT!!

Daily Reminder.

Some of the stuff I found in the vendor's hall was pretty interesting to say the least, including a bunch of body-pillows and other various things.

>anthro, ever.

That guy has his eyes on that Derpy.

I swear this isn't jailbait. Hang on, someone's at the door...

Pretty much sums up the above.

>Stop staring at my butt, Anon.

Along with the usual fare of overpriced plushies, at around anywhere from $80 up to $400 a pop, I didn't see myself dropping a decent chunk of what would be rent money on those, despite some of them being pretty decent quality.

That hat was tempting though.

That night was spent wandering around through various panels, drinking and just doing anything else that could catch my attention, like a kid with ADD wandering around with no Ritalin. One of those things was joining a Halo: CE 1v1 tourney that the con had set up on an old Xbox, which I won most of my matches pretty easily, due to HCE being a game I played almost religiously 8 years ago on PC. Lost the last one against some guy who called himself Scorched or something.

Saturday morning, I wound up not waking up till about 10AM, so wound up missing whatever early morning stuff happened, if any did. Karl and I decided to go to get some food elsewhere, and walked by the one place where, at any convention, you won't find any bronies.

No seriously, you won't find any there. Even at Nightmare Nights 2014, there was no one.

We also happened to find the convention's hidden ball-pit, conveniently located in a store a few blocks away from the hotel.

Now without the extra piss.

Some of the other stuff we saw was pretty interesting, to say the least.

But does she do cowgirl? We have to ask the important questions here.

Dreaming. Dreaming of waifu.

Karl also found the remnants of the Shrek 4 mini-convention. Or what was left of it.

RIP in Onions.

What else did we do? Oh yeah, we caught the last bit of Kelly Sheridan's panel, as she was busy doing pony mad-libs and telling everyone to be QUIET! The rest of the day was pretty much spent wandering around, finding whatever interesting things we could.

The only concert we stuck around for was Wootmaster's "Wonderbolts" band, which was overall pretty good. Then, like any good convention ever, the fire alarm was pulled during the middle of their set. I swear this stuff only happens at conventions I go to...

Karl Pilkington and Wootmaster.

Remember kids, Duck and Cover.

 After their set was done, we wound up heading back over to the game room to find M.A Larson, GM Berrow and Brian playing through various games. Goldeneye, DDR and Fighting is Magic.

"You, Horse News guy, hold my drink. I got this." - G.M Berrow's words of wisdom.

Please don't make me play Freebird.

"Why is Angel doing all the fighting for Fluttershy?"

There's other stuff that happened as well, but for their sake all I'll say is that someone may or may not have received a present. All in all, it was a pretty fun night, crashing some of the late night panels, one of which was the Thread Simulator one, where it was a bunch of people in one room listening to greentext stories from /mlp/, and all your shitposts. The other being Ponytoast's radio show, whatever it was called. I wound up staying up till around 6 in one of the panel rooms, playing Kung Fury for those still awake.

Sunday was pretty uneventful, having woke up around noon and barely making the last few panels before the charity auction, where PonyToast was busy sliding his banana down others throats, for the cost of $75 dollars.

You want it? Give me shekels first.

L-Lewd.

After all that was said and done, we made our way to the closing ceremonies, where the con-head was crying her eyes out for some reason, though I was told she does this at every Trotcon, and that they were announcing one last year of Trotcon in 2017, before it transforms into another convention... the name fails me. In any case, they're going to be doing more than just pony for their 2018 convention.

Obligatory SSF6 picture.

All in all, it was a pretty fun albeit small convention. Next stop will be EQLA on the first week of September.