A letter from TrotCon.
New update
!!
New update !!
UPDATE – Tuesday, April 5
Hello horsefriends! We’re here to give everyone a quick update on the state of TrotCon July, 2022!
First - Fundraiser Update: We’d like to extend a continued huge thank you to everyone donating to our fundraiser! With your help we’ve paid off debt from 2020/2021, and we’re OVER HALF WAY to being fully funded for 2022! We want to make it clear for all of our supporters that TrotCon is happening in July, no matter what, thanks to your support so far.
What does that mean? That means we have enough money so far to pay for the venue and a couple guests. So, we ARE having Trot 2022 - however, what additional amazing events, panels, and guests we can bring to TrotCon depends on getting more pre-registrations and/or donations.
We want to host the best TrotCon we possibly can, but we still need your help.
We understand that some people have expressed confusion about our fundraiser, and we sincerely apologize. It has been complicated but to make it as clear as possible: TrotCon is saved from our debt – we’re not going anywhere. However, we still have to pay for This Year. Between donations, convention store purchases, and pre-registrations, we are over half way there. The best way to keep helping is to pre-reg to come to TrotCon and help us reach our stretch goals on Ko-fi.
You can pre-register for or sign up to sponsor our July event here: https://trotcon.net/registration-2022
You can also donate at or share our donation page here: https://ko-fi.com/trotcon
We’re ~75% of the way to our Ball Pit goal, and ~65% of the way to having a real-life BOUNCE HOUSE! You can see the rest of the perks here: https://ko-fi.com/post/Donation-Levels-and-Stretch-Goals-P5P49BANP
Second - Hotel Update: We still have nearly the entire hotel reserved for TrotCon 2022 - and they will unlock the Trot Room Blocks as soon as all the paperwork is finished. (This process has taken months longer this year, you can use your imagination as to why.) We are in the home stretch now and look forward to announcing the opening very, very soon!
Third - COVID Policy: For our July event we are still following our established COVID-19 Policy put in effect for our December event found here https://trotcon.net/covid-policy. We are, and will continue to be, following the current and updated Federal, State, and Local guidelines for what constitutes full and current vaccination status for COVID-19. However, we highly encourage all of our attendees to receive their booster shots for the COVID-19 vaccine as they become approved to ensure everyone stays healthy. For any ADA concerns please email us at safety@trotcon.net
Fourth - Panel Applications: Panel applications are open! Have an idea for something you want to host? Apply right here: https://forms.gle/Rb9xWak8qB8tKwyB7
Finally - Become One Of Us: Staff applications are now open for all departments! TrotCon needs many new staffers as we continue to grow and build for the future. Apply Here: https://trotcon.net/volunteer. We welcome both experienced “convention vets” and those looking for their first convention staffing experience.
Finally - Finally: Thank you for reading this far. You are awesome! Join the herd.
UPDATE — Saturday, January 29
Wow. I, mean, just wow. A big thank you to everyone who helped us pay off our debt in 24 hours – we’ve reached one of our two goals. There are no words we can type here that express how grateful and gobsmacked we are by the outpouring of love and support for this little thing we call TrotCon. We are truly honored to be a part of this amazing community.
So where do we stand now? As soon as the check clears, we are out of debt! ...and reality sets back in to realize we are back to 0 – starting over for July. We’re out of the hole, but we’re not out of the woods … yet.
But wait, there’s more! Many of you reached out to upgrade your badges to sponsor tiers, and the registrations and sponsors keep coming. We are already 9% towards paying for July. Yesterday we wrote in our letter that we needed 1,033 more pre-registrations to fully fund July. You have been so supportive, we only need 1,000 more! We’re almost there!
But wait, there’s even more! Our Ko-Fi fundraiser is still open, and as we reach each of our stretch goals, we are able to make July exponentially more phenomenal.
We ♡ you all.
Original Letter:
Dear TrotCon attendees, TrotCon alumnus, and the MLP community at large,
Can you believe that this is going to be the 10th anniversary of TrotCon? We’ve been honored to get to know so many of you at our annual event in Columbus, Ohio and through our fire Twitter game, but today we need more than 280 characters because we have a gravely serious matter to talk about.
TrotCon is in trouble. Big trouble. And we need your help.
Why? Short version: COVID (surprise, surprise).
Long version: Here we go…
As you know, we were forced to cancel our July 2020 event due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We were lucky that the hotel allowed us out of our contract for that event and did not force us to put on our largest ever TrotCon amid the rise of the pandemic. We knew many people were struggling financially due to the upheaval of society and set aside our policies to offer refunds to those who needed it, knowing that we should be back to business in a month or two.
Well, that didn’t happen. The pandemic raged on, taking with it all hope and joy in the world.
We saw a need in the fandom for community. For distraction. For togetherness. We knew we couldn’t let the TrotCon family down, and got to work putting together one of the first full virtual conventions to replace our in-person dates. We felt the right thing to do for you, and to help support our artists and vendors was to host this event for free.
…and the pandemic raged on.
We again stepped into the breach and hosted another free event to say goodbye to 2020 and welcome in 2021 with high expectations for a better year.
Well, we know how that worked out… The pandemic raged on.
So we hosted yet another full, multi-day online convention with multiple stages on our normal dates in July 2021. Again, to show our dedication to you and our vendors, we produced this event for free. Tens of thousands of people from around the world attended this virtual con, and for a brief time the world didn’t seem so big, or so scary. (Fun fact: we even got called into a chat with our stream provider, Vimeo, because we became one of their biggest clients overnight).
But this didn’t come without a catch. Our hotel refused to let us push our event to 2022 – we had to have an in-person event in 2021, and the only date available for the remainder of the year was the weekend before Christmas. We had no choice, so that meant dedicating ourselves to producing a second full-size convention in the same year, this time in-person – and we had to make it the best we could for everyone who could attend.
When we announced our December dates, we also opened a second round of refunds – because, again, it felt like the right thing to do to help those who were hurting. This time, a large number of registered attendees took us up on the offer. While we are still glad that we were able to help so many people in need, this all but draining our bank account.
So, why not cancel the December event? That comes back to “our hotel refused to let us”. Canceling the event would have required us to pay almost $200,000 cash out of pocket. Needless to say, we’ve never even had that much money… ever.
The show must go on, so we plowed forward, working around the clock to make December an event to remember.
Then came Omicron.
While we were able to host a safe and wonderful TrotCon event in the brief window between Delta and Omicron spikes, we were not able to attain the attendance needed to meet costs.
So, let’s talk numbers. Hosting each online event cost us thousands of dollars. And much like at the grocery store, all our costs to host an in-person event and cover year-round expenses have increased 30 to 40%. Because of this increase alone, we have no choice but to raise our prices starting at Midnight Eastern Time on January 31st.
Where does that put us? Right now, TrotCon is approximately $20,000 in debt.
We need your help to save TrotCon – the longest continuously running MLP:FIM Brony fandom convention in the world.
What’s that you say, “how can I help?” Well, we’re glad you asked.
Here is how you can help:
1. Donate to the Anyway, Save TrotCon Fund.
To be blunt, we cannot continue putting on TrotCon events for years to come without your support in the form of direct donations. If you can afford to, please help save TrotCon by donating some good, old-fashioned monies. Until we can clear this debt and return to fiscal solvency, we cannot start putting money towards July.
For example, if everyone who pre-registered for July within the last two years were to donate $50, we would be out of debt and back on the road to the best TrotCon ever.
Of course, we don’t want you to leave empty handed, so on our donation page we have several rewards for different donation levels. We even have stretch goals that add more awesomeness for everyone to enjoy at our upcoming July event. View the Rewards and Stretch Goals at https://ko-fi.com/post/Donation-Levels-and-Stretch-Goals-P5P49BANP.
2. Pre-register for TrotCon 2022.
https://events.eventzilla.net/e/trotcon-2022-2138737328
We still plan to host the largest ever TrotCon in July. To hit that goal, we need at least another 1,033 pre-registrations. But that just covers the costs for 2022 – to eliminate the debt and keep us going we can’t survive on pre-reg alone.
3. Upgrade to a Sponsor Badge
https://events.eventzilla.net/e/trotcon-2022-2138737328
One of the best ways to support TrotCon, now and always, is to buy a Sponsor Badge. Supporters at high-level sponsor tiers truly make TrotCon possible. You make it possible for us to pay our bills year-round and continue to add amazing new experiences and guests to the con itself. Each tier comes with some totally rad perks that make them the best way to experience TrotCon.
If you have already purchased a pre-registration and would like to upgrade to a sponsor tier, or upgrade to a higher sponsor tier, simply email our Con Chair darklydragon@trotcon.net and she’ll hook you up with the good stuff.
4. Buy Some Sweet Swag at our TrotCon Store
We are scouring our basements, storage units, attics, closets, and every nook and cranny we can find to pull past merchandise and one-of-a-kind TrotCon memorabilia from the “deep archives”. Items are posted in our con store as we find them – but supplies are extremely limited, often just one, so check often and be quick on that buy button if you want to own some TrotCon history.
We’ll even sell the infamous toaster if we catch it running through the crawl spaces or air ducts.
We cannot understate how much this community means to each and every one of us. Over the past decade, through the uncountable thousands of hours spent planning and the weekends of hosting events, one thing has kept us going – you. You are the reason we do what we do, because the real TrotCon is the friends we make along the way. And now we bow our heads and humbly ask for your help. #AnywaySaveTrotCon