Part 3 of 3:
So that brings us to the final page here. The conventions were an absolutely wild ride and I've loved just about every moment of them. We were planning on continuing into 2018 with a story all about Tiebreaker, he would have been the plush for this year. I forgot what the story was exactly but I think Ace still has the outline we were working on.
Just before the convention happened I realized that I had a choice. Cancel the con just one week out, disappoint everyone that's worked so hard on all of this over all these months, disappoint all of the people who made plans to come out and have a good time this weekend and walk away from this whole thing with $7,000 in debt and probably not be able to sleep at night.
The other option was to run the convention, have a great weekend, give people the best time they can get, walk away with about $60,000 in debt and be able to sleep at night. Obviously I went with the second choice. And of course I'd be a terrible person if I chose the first option, but at the same time, if you put yourself in my situation I'm sure why you can see why the first option was really enticing. I knew I was walking into years worth of debt and difficulty and I had the ability to just push a few buttons and avoid the whole thing.
I'm happy that I made the choices that I did and if I went back in time and could make those choices all over again I would.
People still ask us if the convention is coming back. As of right now I don't see a way of making it happen. This convention left me with $60,000 of debt and over the past year and a half I've been able to bring it down to $42,000. It's been hell. I work on a minimum wage job and I pay rent and have a car. Between all of my expenses and the $750 I pay each month toward the Ponycon debt I find myself lucky if I get to eat more than 9 meals per week.
It's not all bad though. I still have my friends, they mean the world to me and in a few years when I'm able to breathe with my finances again I'll be able to look back at this and think of the accomplishments that we made together.
Through the ups and downs the thing that kept me going more than anything else were my friends and I wouldn't trade them for the world. Sorry to end this with something sappy. But…
Friendship is Magic