BotCon '96 - Naomi Novik

Well, I really wasn't there for the convention, but mainly to see everyone from the MUSH and hang out, so I didn't see too many of the panels. However, here's my review of the con as a whole.

The hotel was the Clarion Hotel, located about an hour from downtown Chicago in Rosemont, IL and 10 minutes from O'Hare airport. Fairly nice place, especially for the $67/night rate in Chico, with several eating places in walking distance. A good choice, IMHO.

I was not preregistered and didn't see the movie or dealer room Friday night, so can't comment on that.

Saturday I paid my fee and began the BotCon experience. Overall, compared to BotCon95, I must say that this convention was decidedly inferior. The convention toy has been described (recolored Optimus Primal, named Onyx Primal, quote taken verbatim from "Pulp Fiction"), but I will note my total disgust with the techspec. First of all, it is imho completely inappropriate to plagiarize "Pulp Fiction" in this way. The t-shirt was one thing, but to take a direct quote from the movie and use it as the character's quote? *boggle* Not to mention the very shoddy job done on the printing. "apon"? Didn't someone proofread this thing? There were also multiple misspellings and typoes in the program. Very unprofessional and really a slap in the face, considering the hefty pricetag.

Others have commented on the lack of real entrance badges. This hurt MIB more than it hurt attendees, as *many* people just walked in without paying a dime. Perhaps they had already broken even on preregistrations and dealer tables and thus didn't have to worry too much about the entrance fees, but I was still surprised.

The t-shirt was very visually appealing, with bright gold lettering on black. I still didn't get one, but it was nice. I'll be interested to see how it holds up in the wash, though. Any reports on that?

The dealer room was respectably large; more than a little bigger than last year's, I think. There were approximately 20-30 tables there, I would guess. Lots of non-TF stuff was sold, however. I myself rather sheepishly picked up a set of Star Wars figures. 8> Prices were more than a little higher than BC95 for the "common" stuff (G1 gestalt teams were what I was mainly looking at), and dropped rather sharply on Sunday (someone I know picked up the Arcee vinyl set for $35 down from $95).

The display room was spartan compared to BC95. Unicron looked like a plastic yellow nerf ball with a viking helmet on top. In the immortal words of the hyena from Lion King, "uuuuuuuuuuuug-ly". There were a few very nice pieces of artwork; I had to leave before the contest winner was announced on Sunday, so I don't know who won. :/ The Megatron ATB was boring; much nicer was a repainted version of Dreadwing done in chrome, black, and scarlet with Megatron & Starscream heads that one of the dealers was selling (at $350, less than the min bid of $500 for the official prototype being auctioned).

One nice aspect was that the proceeds of the toy auction were going to "Toys for Tots". I totally applaud this idea and hope that it is perpetuated through future BotCons.

The Kenner panel consisted of two people from the design team, both of whom were goldmines of info and who were really enthusiastic about the line and about the fandom. I am feeling much happier about Beast Wars and the future of TFs now, having heard from them, although it sounds as though the marketing dept. is a big evil empire to be fought at all costs. I got to ask a few questions, and got this info:

• they are going to be doing several female figures, including Arcee
  
• they may bring back post-movie figures (like Galv and Cyc)
  
• marketing makes decisions on things like premiums (like the orderformers) and other special offers, and they're the ones who should be contacted to be urged to do things like this.
  
• Hasbro has a web site at: www.hasbrotoys.com and there's a form for sending them mail there. While they do have an avi or quicktime animation of Cheetor's transform from Beast Wars, there's no area for TFs. I've already written them a note suggesting they get their act together and add one. This is also a good way to send them notes about what you'd like to see in the toy line and in the cartoon.

OK. Now for the real criticism.

The biggest (and practically the only) complaint about last year's con was that there wasn't a separate room for the panels, so I was hoping the criticism would be taken to heart. Instead, MIB regressed. There was no separate panel room and there wasn't even a separate video room as there was at BC95, nor was there even a projection screen. There was only a wide-screen TV (40" or so, I would guess) up on a podium on one side of the dealer room. They showed the movie with the lights on and people milling around the dealer tables, and didn't allow "commenting" (a la Rocky Horror or MST3k). I can understand the second, since some people would like to just watch the movie, but I can't understand the combination of showing it in this distracting environment AND not allowing commenting. They didn't show the cartoons at all, as far as I saw.

There were no special activities organized for the fans, such as last year's laser show. One person had put together a prototype deck of a Transformers trading card game and ran several games, but he basically organized that on his own and was given no support from MIB.

Considering that Raksha basically did BC95 all on her lonesome and that MIB had several people and charged a lot more, they should have been able to improve on organization, not be worse. It wasn't that the hotel lacked space -- there were -plenty- of conference rooms empty during the weekend that I saw. I don't know how much one or two extra ones would have cost, but judging by my own experience organizing a small gathering in St. Louis last winter, with the size of the convention it shouldn't have cost them a cent or at the most just a nominal fee. Considering that we were just outside Chicago, it would not have taken much effort to organize something like a trip to the Q-zar/Virtual World setup at North Pier (which I visited with a few friends myself) or to the Museum of Science and Industry, both of which TF fans would have enjoyed.

Raksha has said that BotCon95 was a labor of love, her way of giving something back to the TF fandom. That love was evident in the quality of the con: it was made by a fan for fans, and as a result was fun for all. Many of us suspected for a while that this year's convention was planned as a moneymaking proposition and intended mainly for dealers and collectors. That suspicion was amply justified by the experience. And I think that MIB actually lost a lot of money because of that bias. It doesn't turn off dealers or collectors to have lots of fan activities going on, but it does turn off fans to have a total lack of such activities. I would have spent more time at the Con if there were things to do with my friends within the Con context (no pun intended).

Anyway, in my opinion, BotCon96 was something of a flop. It could have been very good -- it had all the ingredients: a central location, good price for nice hotel, plenty of space, cooperation from Kenner, a very good previous convention to increase enthusiasm, lots of dealers with cool stuff. Despite all this, they flubbed it. They put very little effort into anything beyond the bare minimum of showing the movie and having a token display room.

I intend to get the address of the BotCon trademark holder and ask him to give permission to someone else for next year's Con -- I've heard that he was considering giving it to MIB again. I'd almost rather run it myself than have a repeat of this year's fiasco. If someone else is contemplating running it and would like some help organizing it, I would be willing to commit to providing assistance if you need it; just e-mail me.

Anyway, there's my BotCon spam.

Naomi