Once again I am sorely disappointed in this convention that truly has great
potential as a fan get together. I have nothing bad to say about the
dealers
in the room, and am very happy with the purchases I made at the
convention.
All the dealers should be commended with their attitudes and the
camaraderie
that they have always shown us in the fan community, but now on to the fun
stuff...
This years convention friends was once again in the Rosemont suburb of
Chicago, a mere 20 minute drive for me from my oh so happy home. I have
this
terrible tendency to wake up at the crack of noon everyday, so the fact
that
I arrived late for the convention on Saturday was a surprise to no one
especially me. Another thing that did not at least surprise me, was the
fact
that OTFCC once again did not start on time. It wasn't even a little late,
it was over a half hour late, a half hour that well others couldn't buy
toys, or see the Hasbro display.
This year following my despise over the toy exclusives at last years
convention and knowing that the choices for toys for this years convention
would be limited to the Armada line, I did not pre-register for this years
convention, Thank God! After the fiascos that happened with the hotel and
the convention center, and the toy exclusives being dropped from 3 to 2 I
was just as happy to walk in for the convention instead of finding out
what
promise would be the next one broken.
Considering I was a walk-in and I arrived late for the supposed start
of
the convention the large number of fans standing in the lobby made
movement
difficult. However what made moving around even worse was the fact that
the
only signs in the lobby for OTFCC were for pre-registration pick ups. The
large lighted booth with the large signs saying TICKETS were for another
convention taking place in the building on another floor of this huge
convention center. At least they were able to tell me were the small, very
small, table was hidden in the corner on the other side of the escalators
were the walk-in badges were being sold. I thought it was very nice that
the
one page map that they gave us when we bought our tickets told us to look
on
page 2 for the map of the dealers tables.
Lets talk some more about the lack of signs shall we? After spending a
few hours in the dealer rooms renewing old acquaintances with dealers and
friends attending the show, as is my want I went looking for the Art room
to
see what my fellow trans fans had made of themselves this year. After
asking
three different people, and consulting the nice one page-shoulda-been-two
map that we were given, we finally found the sign for the art room. It was
on the floor being made right in front of me with a cut cardboard box and
a
black sharpie. Hmmm $20 dollars for a walk in ticket, multiplied by at
least
thousand people I saw there smart enough to not pay pre-registration
prices,
and the other thousand who pre-registered and paid around a hundred for
the
experience. Now if you add it all up, I would have expected that there
would
have been enough money for the guy to go to Kinko's and have some signs
made
up. Silly me. Hell I have this nice thing I use every day called a
computer.
I think it may have even been possible to make the signs right from it.
Hmmm, something to think about for another year maybe.
I won't go into the panels, autograph sessions, or art room, because
that is something that really depends on the participants and the
audience.
For the most part they follow a simple formula. First a small
presentation,
followed by a question and answer period where someone always asks a voice
actor to order fries at a drive thru in a certain characters voice. Once
you've heard Ironhide say, "Well that's just Prahme", when he's asked if
he
wants fries with that it just starts getting stale, very like the fries.
The Hasbro booth had some nice surprises, like the fact that the
Tracks
Alternator will actually be blue, and the Meister Binaltech looks really
sweat, I'm still rather put out with the fact that the Swindle Alternator
is
just a repaint Hound. Mainly cause I want to see what these people could
do
with a gestalt team. Yeah Yeah, I know...Dream on. Some of the other
things
still piss me off, toys that aren't even out yet are already getting
recolors and repaints, why? I don't even know if I'm going to like the
first
version. Just because its a variation, Hasbro seems to think we serious
collectors are going to throw good money after bad. I am a serious
collector, but if I come across a bad toy I will only buy one. Oh now it
comes in *gasp* blue, or in the case of the Viper sisters that OTFCC had
the
gall to call remolds, which if you stop and think any deeper than "tee hee
look pink lips" you start to wonder why the HELL does the Decepticon one
have an Autobot symbol on its arm....Remold my ass.
My favorite moment of the convention was climbing into my car and
realizing that the 11 bucks I paid for parking does not go into the
pockets
of Glen or his 3H Productions.
Now for a disclaimer, I made this post in a public forum for the express
purpose of starting discussions and getting people to post replies. . If I
wanted to start a private conversation with any of you
I would have sent this re****t to you directly, instead of putting it into
a
post to a newsgroup. Thanks for your sup****t
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