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BABSCon
Discontinued My Little Pony fan convention From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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BABSCon (short for Bay Area Brony Spectacular, a reference to the character Babs Seed from "One Bad Apple"[2]) was an annual brony convention held in the San Francisco Bay Area, California organized for the fandom of the animated television series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, whose adult fans are commonly referred to as bronies. In 2019, BABSCon was the third-largest brony convention in the United States.[3]
BABSCon operated from April 2014 until its cessation in April 2025.[4][5]
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BABSCon is an annual convention primarily dedicated to fans of the animated television show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, particularly the adult fans known as bronies. The convention was founded in 2013[4] by Sonya Hipper and co-founded by Sophianna Ardinger.[6] The event features a rainbow-maned, yellow pony mascot named Golden Gates.[3]
BABSCon was the first brony convention in the San Francisco Bay Area[7] and was described by its founders as the "fandom version of Burning Man."[6] In 2019, the convention was the third-largest brony convention in the United States (after BronyCon and Everfree Northwest) and attracted approximately 2,000 attendees.[3]
In 2015, Samuel Miller presented his doctoral research on the brony fandom at a BABSCon panel and subsequently published it in The Journal of Men's Studies.[8]
Pinkaboo's Neighhem
In March 2025, the BABSCon convention chairs dismissed its music concert coordinator Pinkaboo three weeks before the final edition of BABSCon, a decision that received universal backlash and criticism from fans, brony musicians, and other brony conventions. The decision prompted all of its brony musicians to withdraw from the official concert in solidarity with Pinkaboo.[9] BABSCon subsequently replaced the cancelled concert with a performance by Mystery Skulls.[10][9]
With funding from 15 (the creator of 15.ai) and a separate GoFundMe campaign, Pinkaboo and the musicians organized an alternative event called "Pinkaboo's Neighhem" that was to be held immediately after the end of the convention at the Fox Theatre in Redwood City, California.[9][11] The final BABSCon was held 18–20 April 2025 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport[5] and had 2,084 attendees;[1] Pinkaboo's Neighhem drew over a thousand attendees, approximately half of BABSCon's attendees.[9] Various fandom musicians performed their most well-known songs, including Vylet Pony's "ANTONYMPH" and Odyssey Eurobeat's "Discord".[9] After paying its musicians and staff, the remaining funds of Pinkaboo's Neighhem were donated to the music program of New Horizon School, a local school for children with learning disabilities.[9]
In August 2025, Pinkaboo stated that the same convention chairs of the final BABSCon were starting a furry convention called Furlingame in the same venue and wrote that the organizers had paid for convention expenses using charity funds, convinced victims of sexual assault to not report to the police, and publicly deadnamed trans women.[12]
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