(art by MesuYoru)
Less than two months after the event, the shared experience of Czequestria begins to hide in the shadows of other conventions and everyday life. Nevertheless, we still have to write the last chapters, complete the last tasks (for example, attendee feedback) and finally evaluate the entire event.
Czequestria’s 10th birthday was certainly a success, and it also deserves a brief overview that we would like to share with you.
Attendance and tickets
Attendance summarized in one number is not so accurate, so we present it divided into several parts:
A total of 331 tickets including admission to the entire event from Friday to Sunday were sold.
Another 110 people used the free entry – this number includes volunteers, vendors and their assistants, guests and the organization team.
A total of 441 of us gathered at the venue, which is more than last year and only 9 people less than the record attendance year of 2019.
Visitors came to Czequestria this year from a total of 28 countries, with 9 countries having more than 5 visitors. For the first time, more visitors from abroad participated (177) than from the Czech Republic and Slovakia (131 + 13)!
In addition to neighboring countries (Germany, Poland, Slovakia and Austria), as well as the Netherlands, France, Great Britain and Italy were more prominently represented. Others arrived in small numbers from near and far countries (in alphabetical order): Belgium, Belarus, Bulgaria, Denmark, Croatia, Philippines, Ireland, Israel, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Lithuania, Russia, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine and USA.
30% of the tickets were paid for by bank transfer, 70% by card – fees for card transactions from ticket sales rose to about CZK 3,000.
We paid approx. 43 000 CZK for the so-called local entrance fee, which is a fee paid to the city hall for organizing an event on its territory where you collect an entrance fee (it is paid from each ticket sold; the conditions are determined by the ordinance for the given municipality or district).
288 people wanted to participate in the pre-party. Unfortunately, it didn’t take place – after a lot of fussing on the part of the landlord, the chosen place turned out to be unsuitable. We will probably drop the pre-party from the program next time.
218 participants registered for Friday “LARP”, but in reality, around 165 people arrived, which is about 3/4 of those registered. This is a non-negligible difference that greatly complicates preparations. Next time we will try to reduce it, for example, by charging a symbolic amount for participation in the Friday program.
The distribution of favorite seasons among the participants turned out to be very even, only winter was less popular: spring 24%, summer 22%, autumn 25%, winter 17%, all seasons equally 7%, no preference 5%.
Program and organization
Within the event program and the organization, several novelties awaited us, and several records were broken.
The first record concerns the vendors: this year’s participation included 29 different vendors. With a total of 41 sales tables full of merch and 43 people (sellers and their assistants), it was a record, thanks to which sellers filled not only the foyer of the big hall, but also the small hall.
Speaking of the Small Hall on the ground floor: We used it at Czequestria in 2014–2015, after which the main program and concerts moved to the Mane Hall on the first floor. Another first-time this year included a program in both the Small and the Mane Hall.
The workshops moved to the second largest room in the building – the gym in the basement. For the first time, the program was held in socks, because of the delicate floor: not only for the participants, but also for all the tables and chairs.
For our guest – Bahia Watson, the voice of Misty – Czequestria was the first visited MLP con in Europe! This is not the first time in the history of the event (it was the same for Robert Cullen, director of G5 film and guest at Czequestria 2022) and we would like to keep this tradition in the future.
The income from the charity auction also reached a record amount: CZK 155,050. It’s hard to say whether the ability to donate via card payment on the spot for the first time contributed more, or it was the fact that Perry had help in the form of the Little Perry for the auction moderation 🙂
And there was big news also in the organizational team itself: we welcomed 4 new members and the CZ/SK team became a fully international one. Which means a lot of small and big changes alike, on the other hand, the overall benefit is not only significant, but also necessary. Many members of the team have been preparing Czequestria for many years, or since the very beginning, and although each one is better prepared, it means a more demanding and complex organization each time.
As was said at the Closing Ceremony: organization is no longer possible with just a few people, as it used to be, we need team reinforcements! We’ll be happy to share our experience and give new team members the space to acquire their own skills and experience, which are useful not only in organizing events, but also in private and professional life (tested over many years).
If you want to join us (yay!), or have questions or comments about the above information, please contact us either on our Discord server (tag “Core Team”, which are the main organizers), by email or if you know one of the existing organizers , you can contact him/her directly.
We look forward to seeing you at MLP events – whether we host them or participate in them!