BUCK teams up with Get-Well Gamers as this year’s Charity!
Over the past four years BUCK Events has supported a variety of charities, raising over £23,000 in total so far!
This year we were contacted by Get-Well Gamers, a non-profit organisation that takes donated video games and consoles to hospitals across the United Kingdom. Video games are an effective and proven pain management tool and provide much-needed entertainment for young people during long hospital stays. They are currently linked up with over 45 hospitals across the UK!
GWG will be attending BUCK to bring some of their consoles to our video games room for the attendees to enjoy, and we’ll be raising funds through our charity auction and other related donations to support them.
If you’ve got any old consoles or games you want to donate directly, you can get in touch through their website, or donate them in person at BUCK.
Or if you have some rare, unusual, or just plain cool merchandise or memorabilia you want to add to the charity auction, bring it to the front desk on the day, and the proceeds will also help out!
Each year we’ve broken our previous record, so let’s see if we can keep that drive going for 2016 this April!
To learn more about Get-Well Gamers, check out their website for more information, and if you haven’t already secured your ticket to BUCK 2016, head on over to our tickets page and be sure to attend the charity auction yourself!
HEYO FRIENDS! I’ve been copying and pasting the same thing over and over so here’s something a little different.
I’m happy to announce that I will be attending the convention BUCK 2016 in Manchester, England! I will be performing there along side many friends including special guests @silvahound and @shawnwasabi!!
— Most importantly, this will most likely be my LAST PONY CONVENTION I ever attend and perform at!!!! —
Because of this, I’m planning to do something super special that I’ve not done before. Exclusively at BUCK 2016 I will be selling copies of two separate physical albums! The first album, “Omnipony - Augmented” will contain remasters of the greatest songs I’ve ever made in the fandom, and the other will contain hard bangers I’ve made as “OMNI”, including unreleased tracks that won’t come out online till long after this event. There will be a limited supply of these CDs and no more will be produced, so if you Want It Need It™, make sure to come on over to the vendor hall and secure a copy!!! There will be a handful of copies reserved for the Summer Sun Celebration so that people only attending the concert can pick it up too! Oh, and if you’re a big fan of Archie, we’ll also be including extremely limited CDs of “The Dessolation of Archie”! Also some rad OMNI and Wolf Beats stickers. c:
I definitely don’t want to do this alone, I need your input! What do you guys think of a physical OMNI or Omnipony CD? And if you’re going, would you be willing to get one? Finally, what songs would you guys like to see remastered or included on the album? Any input would be amazing! Thank you for listening in, and please like/reblog and tell me what you think! - OMNI
The 4th instalment of the long running collaborative album series will launch today.
Balloon Party 4: Chromatic Horizons has been running since last year and we’re excited to share the results of this project!
There will be a live mix on PonyvilleFM of the whole thing at 5:00pm EST (10:00pm GMT) with the album going live for download right after the premiere concludes at 6:00pm EST.
Hope to see you there, but if you can’t make it the album will be available later today at http://balloonparty.bandcamp.com
Lyrics and credits under the cut!
BUCK 2016: 9th - 10th April 2016, EventCity, Manchester, UK
Tickets available at https://buckcon.org!
Special Guests include Peter New and Nicole Martel, plus many more!
Another all-star Summer Sun Celebration lineup including Shawn Wasabi, Silva Hound, Prince Whateverer, and many more again!
Workshops, card games, vendors, and a butt tonne of random things to do! IT'S THE LAST BUCK! COME AND SEE THE GRAND SEND OFF!
This video brought to you by:
Animation: CaptainHoers, InLucidReverie
Lyrics: CaptainHoers, MoonSugarPony
Britannia: Glory
Crew 1: Nethesem
Crew 2: Spear
Crew 3 and 4: CaptainHoers
LYRICS:
Let’s hit the road, man the doors, see that queue
Lots of ponies here to see what we do
So look alive, pretty soon they’ll all be inside
It’s really happening now, strap yourselves in for the ride
Give it all we've got, we're on tonight
and Show these folks the time of their li-i-i-ives
(Their lives)
Hit that switch, and we’re all systems go
You’re gonna see, we’re here to let you know
BUCK is back and here to steal the show
I gotta know...'till then
When can we do this again?
(oh oh oh oh)
When can we see you again?
(oh oh oh oh)
When can we do this again?
(oh oh oh oh)
It’s time to go (go)
When can we see you again?
Biggest is best when it comes to speakers
Merch has it all from prints to sneakers
Roll in the stage, set it up and turn on the lights
We’re here to have a good time, let’s keep it going all night
Raise the roof up to the highest heights
The Summer Sun is rising, taking flight
(alright)
Games and panels, are sure to delight
Lots to do, but don’t give up the fight
Dance until they kick us off the site
Go with the flow...'til then
When can we do this again?
(oh oh oh oh)
When can we see you again?
(oh oh oh oh)
When can we do this again?
(oh oh oh oh)
It’s time to go (go)
When can we see you again?
So look alive, pretty soon they'll all be inside
It’s really happening now, strap yourselves in for the ride
Give it all we've got we're on tonight
Show these folks the time of their li-ives
The best excuse to throw your hooves up high
When can we do this again?
(oh oh oh oh)
When can we see you again?
(oh oh oh oh)
When can we do this again?
(oh oh oh oh)
When can we see you again?
(oh oh oh oh)
They’re gonna see this thing from outer space
We’ll sing about this 'til the end of days
The good times always gonna find a way
Not long no-ow!
When can we see you again?
When can we see you again?
(tell me when)
When can we see you again?
At BUCK we’re always seeking something new and unique to showcase, and this year we’re lining up a range of new acts, as well as our favourites.
Today we’re thrilled to announce our most exciting new guest yet, in his first ever UK performance - Shawn Wasabi!
Unfortunately, no one can really be told who Shawn Wasabi is or what he does - you have to see it for yourself. Thankfully that’s as easy as watching this video...
Shawn Wasabi is a 21 year old producer and controllerist raised by a traditional Filipino family in the city of Salinas, CA. He started his passion into the world of pushing buttons when his childhood friend Ian (of Hyper Potions) left his Midi Fighter 3D over at his house in April of 2013 to play around with and which eventually led to the creation of the live mashup Pizza Rolls. Since then he has established an internet fanbase and reputation as one of the most dynamic controllerists around: pushing buttons for the internet and live for international fans alike. He awed the world again with his latest release of Marble Soda, which hit a million views within 48 hours of being uploaded.
Beyond the glittery mixture of sugary sounds, Shawn Wasabi is also well-known for the very rare and colourful Midi Fighter 64 controller he uses to create his music. Built with a mixture of 3D printing and laser cutting, this controller was engineered exclusively for Shawn Wasabi by the Midi Fighter inventor, Michael Mitchell.
Shawn will be playing live in the UK for the very first time at the Summer Sun Celebration at EventCity Manchester on 9th of April - this will be a truly unmissable event!
Tickets and additional lineup information are available at www.summersuncelebration.co.uk, and as always, stay tuned to our website, facebook, and twitter for the latest information.
Hey everyone, this is an open letter to deliver some news we’ve been mulling over for some time now. It’s with a heavy heart that BUCK Events has declared that BUCK 2016 will be the last brony/cartoon convention that we run.
Once BUCK 2016 is all wrapped up in April, we’ll all be turning to other projects.
Instead of scaling BUCK down and fading away, we’re going all-out. We’ve got big plans, we’ve got a show-stopping musician we’re about to announce. This is not abandon ship, this is “Get over here because it’s your last chance!”
Long version under the cut!
Now I’ve given the short of it, here’s the long of it – BUCK has been running since 2012. It started as a large-gathering that turned into a small convention in Manchester. The fandom was ascending, and there was massive demand.
In 2013 we returned with the intent of running something bigger and better to satisfy this demand, and although it was hard work, we managed the transition up to the 1000-1200 attendee bracket. We also launched the Summer Sun Celebration, a concert that went toe to toe with other similar events much bigger than ourselves. Changing up to a larger venue, we quickly discovered that UK venues just aren’t used to dealing with US-style conventions. All the time the costs were high, expecting us to have big name sponsors and a few hundred exhibitors each paying a high price for their table – but as a convention, not an expo, we are effectively a private party, and the attendees pay our funding to run it.
This business model is extremely volatile. We constantly wondered if we should scale back, cut the tech budgets, ditch the glitz and glam. But the thing that makes BUCK special is that it’s a blow-out event. You can go to a small convention and have a good time, hear some good music – but at BUCK, we want stuff you haven’t seen. We want a concert that matches the kind of environment you see on DVDs of platinum-selling bands where everything is off the hook. And we delivered that.
I asked people who go to other events what they thought, and always the answer was; “Oh no, BUCK is massive, it’s a whole different thing…” And since that’s what you’ve wanted that’s exactly what we’ve always aimed for. But it’s expensive, time-consuming, and exhausting.
In 2014, we ran our most successful event yet. It went almost without a hitch, and we all said; “This is it, we’ve got the recipe, now we just tweak the measurements and we’ll have this nailed…” It had been hard work, but we felt sure that the experience was now going to pay off, and the next event would be a breeze.
But the staff were exhausted, with most of us having been living and breathing BUCK for two years solid, and also many who had also been heavily involved in BUCK 2012 and were on their third year. We called a one-year hiatus to gather our strength, and check that the market was still ripe for another big-convention.
And it’s now that we find ourselves in 2016. Despite having the longest planning period of any BUCK, once again the work is exhausting. Despite having a tried and tested recipe, we are constantly faced with unexpected problems: people complacent that they don’t have to support us, or saying that it’ll be no different to 2014; and an on-going struggle to gain commitment from everyone involved.
It feels like we’re doing this for the first time, again, when we should be doing it in our sleep.
We feel that this has been reflected in ticket sales and the pool of community guests we look for – and this leads us to one conclusion, that the market for an event like BUCK isn’t there anymore.
We could make it smaller. We could cut the budgets. There are many things we could do – but all of them will leave us with something that isn’t BUCK, and that’s not something we’re interested in doing.
So with that load off of my chest, let me now clarify some things – We’ve been working our little rumps off on BUCK 2016, and despite all of the above, we’ve lined up an amazing event. We’re still finalising plans that make us say to each other “Oh hell yes, this is going to be amazing!”
There’s an array of all new panels, new musicians and guests, new workshops and interactive events. We’re a community event at heart and we’re supporting you the community, with community events. But it seems this is as far as the community is willing to go.
This isn’t the end of BUCK Events as a company. We’ve got other events on the back burners that are now coming to a boil, which we’ll be sharing later on this year – but they’re non-pony. We need to look at other areas that are more sustainable, and don’t require our staff to effectively work two day-jobs at the same time.
As well as these non-pony events, we’re also not ruling out smaller events like BUCK LDN, which was a massive success that proved to us that the medium-sized meetup is very much alive and well.
So what should you take away from this? This is your last chance to experience BUCK. It’s also our last chance to run it. So we’re going to make it a bloody good one. We’re going out with a bang. We’re going to quit on a high note: a tone that says “You should’ve been there… I’m not sure there’ll ever be anything quite like it again.”
BUCK Announces Peter New, Nicole Martel, Merch and More!
It’s two and a half months until BUCK 2016, and there’s so much still to do! So to kick things off, we’re thrilled to announce that the best member of the Apple family Peter New will be attending BUCK in April!
As well as Big Macintosh, Peter has a huge list of credits under his belt - including ‘Ian Vashti’ in Gundam00, and ‘Lunk’ in Powerpuff GirlsZ as well as many side-roles in movies, and TV shows. Peter is well known for bringing the party to all the conventions he attends interacting with attendees and guests alike - but as well as bringing his personality, he’ll also be bringing his knowledge of acting and writing to our main stage in a special VIP workshop to tell you about his methods and his inspirations - so don’t miss it!
Keeping the theme of guests going, it’s with a note of disappointment that we announce that Daniel Ingram has informed us that he will be unable to attend BUCK this year due to a busy schedule with upcoming projects at DHX.
Although it pains us to lose Daniel’s input from BUCK 2016, we will be making up the gap with additional guests - keep your eye out for more announcements!
On a happier note - one of those new guests is Nicole Martel, layout designer for a host of popular children’s cartoons including Friendship is Magic and Transformers Rescue Bots.
Nicole is responsible for the iconic composition we see in My Little Pony, setting up camera angles, props, and backgrounds to bring the viewer into the scene and draw their focus to the right places.
A hugely underrated role in production, we’ve invited Nicole to present a workshop at BUCK on what she does and how we see her work hidden in every scene of our favourite shows.
Lots of you joined us in November for the BUCK LDN Season 5 Finale meetup. Held at the excellent Red Herring pub (over two levels) we had karaoke, vendors, fun and the all-important Pub Quiz. We’ve just posted up the photos on our Facebook page, so go check those out! As an aside, we will be hosting a Pony Pub Quiz at BUCK too! Our community guests will be joining us as we hire out an entire Frankie & Benny’s to host it. You can join us by visiting our tickets page and grabbing a Guest Buffet ticket.
NEW ONLINE MERCH STORE
This year you can pre-order your merch from our new online BUCK store and pick it up at the convention from our friendly merch team at the Official BUCK stand. Our design team have been burning the midnight oil to bring you some excellent swag.
Our collectible limited edition challenge coin has returned this year with a new design. The quicker you order one the lower the laser-inscribed number will be. We also have a brand new product for 2016: Wall scrolls. A modern take on the popular japanese anime wall-hangings; ours features Dark Britty and the Tea Fighters. We’ve got some amazing t-shirt designs (and a special 20% Cooler one you can pick up in the ticket store), posters, badges and more. There’s even an SSC glow in the dark plectrum for the musicians out there!
But wait… there’s more!
CHECK OUT OUR VENDORS
We know that you all love to get some unique gifts and goodies at BUCK. This year we have some outstanding vendors coming along with a wide range of products and wares that will be available in our Vendor Hall. From plushies to art prints, ceramics to figurines, accessories to embroidery and lots lots more!
You should totally check out our BUCK 2016 Vendors Page on our website and look at all the mini-profiles for our current vendors, and we’ll be adding more as we go along!
One of our vendors is even doing a workshop on the amazing Charity Quilt. These quilts have so far raised over £18,000 for charities. Jillah will be looking at the different styles, techniques and skills in some of the panels for this year’s quilt which will be auctioned in Europe at GalaCon; the first time outside the USA.
CREATE YOUR OWN WORKSHOPS & PERFORMANCES
Ever wanted to do a workshop? This year you can! Our Community Workshop spots are 45 minute sessions dedicated to sharing the talents, skills and interests of our community members. If you think you have a great idea for one, all you have to do is email us with an outline of the idea, and answer a few questions on our google form. You can find more information about how to apply in our news post about it.
A bit more musically inclined? We’re also looking for applicants to perform a set on our Cadence Stage: the community musicians stage we started in 2014. Not only will you get to perform in front of a live audience, but we’ll record your set and send you the footage after the con. Simply send us an example of your performance, along with some relevant information about you, your group or band to our Music Manager whose details can be found on the Cadence Stage page. We’re particularly after things with a fun performance factor that are a bit out of the box.
Speaking of out of the box… we welcome ‘Out the Box TV’ to perform live at BUCK. With a focus on adrenaline, wackiness and totally out there crazy stunts, you’re sure to see some real fun around the convention.
Tis the season to be jolly, tralalalala lalalala. The stuff we’ve planned: we’re off our trolley! Yes, we’re here to expend our annual quota of mandatory merriment!
Since it’s also the season for giving, now is the time to give the gift of BUCK ‘16. A ticket to best horse con makes a spectacular present as the anticipation only gets better as we near April. We’ve even got special Christmassy tickets.
Buy a ticket before Jan 1st 2016, and we’ll throw in our own Christmas present: our 2016 SSC poster (RRP £10) entirely FREE, which you can collect at the convention on the day. This preview is still a WIP, we’ve got more names to add, but we’re not quite ready to share them!
In case you haven’t seen all of our updates, BUCK is BACK for April 2016 with our best party ever. We’ve got a weekend of workshops, panels, fun and games lined up that span every interest you could want, from art to cupcake decorating, collectible card games to the ever-popular retro video game tournament.
We’ve got the legendary Summer Sun Celebration on Saturday night, featuring five hours of music including Rock, Metal, K-Pop and EDM – plus we’ll be keeping our games rooms open throughout the evening so you can crash out on the consoles during your breaks.
On top of all of that, we also see the return of our Charity Auction (here’s to breaking another academy record, we raised £12,500 last year); and an all new Cosplay Competition, featuring proper categories!
Over Christmas we’ll be planning all this and more, so stay tuned for announcements on the panels and workshops, the community guests that will be hosting them, and more VIPs to show you their craft.
As always, you can keep up to date with BUCK via our website, facebook, twitter, and even sometimes our tumblr!
Each year BUCK has carried an exclusive t-shirt design for premium ticket holders, and today we’re thrilled to show off the 2016 design!
This year’s design comes from the talented Ari (moonsugarpony.tumblr.com), bringing a mix of awesome and cute into a devastating combination. Wear with caution.
This funky new shirt is available with the Wear It ticket extra – making it available to everyone, rather than just the most expensive tickets. However, it’s still a limited run! So reserve yours today from our tickets page to avoid disappointment!
RNG Time! The winner of our SSC Share & Win Raffle is *meaningless drum roll because text* Leon K Fox, via Twitter! Congrats! We'll be in touch shortly!
Stay tuned for more news and probably more competitions and stuff!
