BotCon '99 - DKern2

Well anyway, to start things off, let me say that this was my first BotCon. While I have been reading the newsgroups for years and been in the Transformers irc channels for almost as long, I never had the chance to go. Either financial or difficulties or family problems prevented me from doing so. Since this year that stuff was behind me, I resolved to go, and I am quite happy I did.

Friday

Had to get up at 5:00 on Friday just to catch my plane, this in itself wouldn"t have been that bad, I usually get up at 6:00 for work, but I was up till 12:00 the night before packing. Made sure to bring two pairs of luggage, one large carry on which was rather empty and a suitcase for my clothes. Got to Newark airport fine, and baggage check in was a snap.

When I finally got to the gate, Swift Eagle, Thycaline2000, Picard 42, and Perceptor WWFF were waiting for me. We had all arranged to be on the same plane heading down to Minneapolis together. We had a nice discussion about the upcoming weekend, and other Transformer related stuff. Finally they started the boarding.

Unfortunately my seat was way in the back of the plane away from everybody else. After I got my seat we get a message from the captain, seems the plane we were on was being canceled because of flight difficulties. Aghhhhhh!!!!! So then we get to get off and wait for another plane which was arranged to take everybody on this flight to Minneapolis, so at least we had our same seats. After another hour of talking about stuff, we board the plane and finally take off.

Plane flight was rather dull, though since I was stuck in the back that has probably something to do with it. Still we managed to arrive at Minneapolis on time, and get a taxi to get us to the hotel.

Now things start to become a blur since everything else seems to run into each other in my memory. We got to the Days Inn and found a big group of #Wiigii!!"ers waiting for us. After saying out hellos and hugs we tried to figure out what to do until registration. I also got to get my really cool custom-made Monocle toy (Thanks Liquid Velcro!). We decided on lunch at Subway, across the street, which must have done great business this weekend. After milling around a little more a few of us decided to go to the Mall of America.

Well what can I say about it, it was a big mall. The toy stores were expensive and had nothing but peg warmers. Still we managed to make our own fun while there.

Well finally got back around 4:00 to register. Met up with everybody else there, and registered without any problems. Also got to meet more people. Everybody was excited about the convention, especially since the current rumor that was running around was that we were going to be the first to see Beast Machines! Oh and we would get some other cool surprises as well. Unfortunately we would have to wait until 8 till anything happened, so we sat around and talked until everybody got hungry. Then a bunch of us went to Subway and returned on time for the pizza party.

The pizza was, err well, err it was interesting. Eventually, we were told to gather up so the Hartmans could tell us about the exclusives and stuff.

Now for a list of all the people I was able to meet. If I forgot to mention you, please say so, really hard to keep a running tally of these things with all the stuff going on. The exclusives were introduced. First off were two special designed pictures by Mainframe of the two different teams in BW. These would be the prizes for the winners of the trivia contest. Next were two mosaic style posters of Megatron and Optimus Prime. The Megatron poster seemed to draw the most cheers though. After this the BotCon watches were discusses, and lastly the toy exclusives.

The two were actually a surprise; well the second one was anyway. The first was Windrazor, the re-colored Silverbolt. Hasbro was very cool to BotCon this year, as they helped the Hartmans with the packaging. Because of this Windrazor was on a bubble card. The card art was done by Mainframe themselves and it looks fantastic! Below the bubble, instead of the eye we are used to, is a picture of a spark.

Now for the second exclusive. This was a re-colored Scorpinok named Sandstorm. He is Tan and orange, and looks very nice. The Hartmans told everybody that Hasbro is allowing BotCon exclusives to be renames now. Sandstorm comes in a real nice box, which is shaped like a book, with his tech specs on back. His picture was also designed by Mainframe.

Next came the big news, we were indeed going to see the first showing of Beast Machines! Hasbro was going to have it as part of their presentation at 1:00 on Saturday. During this time the doors would be locked and no cameras allowed. If any flashed went off the tape would be stopped. Cheers from the crowd met this, after the wave of surprise washed over a few moments before.

The guest were introduced then. First Jim Byrnes, then the reps from Hasbro and Mainframe, and lastly Scott McNeil. Sadly, Ian Corlett could not come, though the bright side he is now a father! This of course brought up the comment of Cheetor as a Dad with baby Cheetors running around, oh and an "I like pie!" comment as well.

Well after this was finished a few of us decided, rather quickly, to try to go see "The Blair Witch Project". Sadly we couldn"t get tickets for the movie. Since we had already driven out of the city though, it was decided to drop in a Cybercafe and say hello to the people who could come to BotCon in #WiiGii!!

After this we all returned to the Hotel and met up with some people in the hotel conference room. Walky helped illustrate how Delbo drew Thunderwing, which ended up looking like Femmederwing . After another hour of talking and hanging out, I decided to go to bed so I could get up early to the dealer hall.

Saturday

Work up early then I had planned because my body was still used the East Coast. After showering and other stuff I checked my wallet before heading to the convention center. With more then enough money to get what I wanted, I was confident I would find at least something cool. I Was hoping to find either a Lio Kaiser, Deathsaurus, Overlord or if nothing else, a Black Zarak.

Well chatted with people on the line while we waited for doors to open. Also bought a loose Apeface from Dalmation, which I hope to fix up later. From some people who had seen the inside of the hall already, I learned that no Lio Kaisers were to be found. Oh well, I thought, I should be able to find something. On 10:00 on the dot they let us into the dealer hall, and a mad rush began to get to the toys.

I quickly rushed to Fumihiko's table. Quickly scanned it and saw no Lio Kaisers or Overlords. There was a Deathsaurus that was quickly grabbed, same for a Black Zarak. However I noticed in the back a box full of at least 8 Black Zaraks. So I patiently waited till Fumihiko was not being swarmed and asked if I could purchase one of the Black Zaraks in the back. He told he it was $200.00 and a minute later I was holding a huge box with Black Zarak in it, in mint condition.

Of course five minutes later after getting all excited I realized one thing, this was going to be a pain to carry back home with me. While trying to figure out how I was going to go about bringing this back, I stopped by Skyflight's and Raksha's table and got to say hello to both of them, plus Xiphos. Oh and Avatar was there as well, so I got to pet her. Actually had an interesting conversation with Raksha on if BWN Dead End was a Nautilus or and Ammonite. Basically in the end I concluded he was a giant peppermint.

Stopped by the Rugby"s Starbase huge tabel afterwards and picked up TM2 Prowl and Scourge. While I usually don"t pay higher then retail proces for BW stuff, I am so fed up having to go shop at TRU"s with nasty stock people. Besides Rugby is an independent retailer so the extra price was justifible. That and I got a good deal on the Black Zarak. I then waited on line for the two nice toy exclusives, and also managed to snag a carton to help carry back the stuff I got to the Hotel. With help from Megatron33 I managed to drop the stuff off and return to the dealer hall.

Decided to swing by Fumihiko's again, and low and behold another Deathsaurus was placed out. It took five minute of debating with myself to convince me to pick him up. The box was little banged up, but at $150.00 he was a great deal. And then I realized my toy budget was almost filled, not to mention the luggage problems I would have.

Now I shall go into the dealer room itself. There was a ton of stuff but for some reason other then the Japanese stuff; I could find what I was looking for. There were hardly any Decepticon Pretenders, and the ones that were there were extremely expensive. Fumihiko had the best prices all round at the convention, and you could get a boxed Cancer for much cheaper then the US version, Squeezeplay. There were also a ton of Overlords, in both European packaging and Japanese. The European ones were more expensive then the Japanese ones in fact. $350.00 for an Overlord was pretty much the average price.

Even loose stuff was pretty expensive. I saw some G1 cars going for $70.00 easily. And then there is Tracks, who was going for over $100.00 loose, and I don"t even want to mention how much he cost boxed or in classic packaging. No idea why Tracks so become so expensive, other then the fact that maybe the WWFF exposure has made him popular.

By 12:30 everybody was assembling for the Hasbro panel. I will go into detail on that in a separate post, since it has MASSIVE spoilers in it.

After the panel, a group of us, mostly #WiiGii!! regulars went to find some lunch dinner. Since this was the first meal many of us had that day, we were pretty hungry. We found a Burger King a few blocks away, and with our Days Inn keycards, were even able to get a small discount, which is good, cause it means more money for toys.

After that we headed back for the second showing of Beast Machines, which was as entertaining as the first. This was the official closing for the convention on Saturday, but does that mean we stopped doing stuff? No way! We had a WiiGii!! party to have. A few of us, Walky, Windchaser, Picard42, Steve and myself went looking for food. We did find out one thing, people in St. Paul must really love Subway, cause they are all over the place! We finally found a small grocery and got some soda and chips.

The party itself was extremely fun. Everybody decided to go toy opening crazy. During this time I got to see Overlord, Star Saber, Deathsaurus, Black Zarak, Big Convoy, Magmatron and a few others I can"t remember, all opened and played with. And after this came the really entertainment for the night. It was an impromptu script reading of the World"s Worst Fanfic: BotCon Edition, with people at the party in various roles. Since that was so much fun, it was then decided to read some other fanfics in the same manner, which turned out to be a laugh riot. Hopefully some wavs of the script readings will be posted soon as they were extremely funny.

After wandering around a bit, everyone returned to the party room to hear the scripts and then after 1:00 everybody was so beat and went to bed.

Sunday

Woke up around 9:00 and got ready to go to the convention center. Met up with a few people there for the Voice actors panel. You could tell that Scott really enjoys coming to BotCon, he was all over the place. People asked various questions and request of both Jim and Scott, the funniest one having Scott say "Hungry? Talk for you!". Afterwards I managed to get my Dinobot 2 signed by him.

Did a last sweep of the dealer hall before the final panel, but saw nothing I really wanted. The 3H panel was quite interesting, especially learning how they go about finding a location and working with Hasbro. On a down note, we learned somebody stole a BotCon sign and a few people were hurt scrambling after a free Snapdragon.

They also told us where BotCon 2000 will be. It is going to be located in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I"m already thinking about plans so I can go. If it is half as much fun as this last one was, It will be great!

Oh and I did manage to get everything home okay. I managed to pack everything but Black Zarak, shoes are a great place to store loose Prowl and Scourge figures. I just carried BZ on to the plane with me, slipped him under the seat, and got home fine with him.

Now for the only really big downer of the trip. The hotel staff at the Days Inn were not the nicest people. I can understand it can be a little tough to be behind a desk of such a place, but many of them were down right rude. I had to keep on bugging one of them on Sunday just to get a phone number for a Taxi service, something that has never happened to me in any other hotel before. Good thing I was too busy to be in the hotel much.

Now here"s a list of all the people I got to meet, hopefully I didn"t leave anyone out.

Thycaline2000, Swift Eagle, Picard 42, Perceptor WWFF, Walky, Windchaser, Steve, Black Zarak, Astrotrain, Scylla, Blue Jackal, Raksha, Skyflight, Xiphos, M Sipher, Tengu, Rob Powers, Steve Stonebreaker, Tonyfitz, Hydra, StarSaber, Arcee, Starcee, Dalmation, Hooper X, Heather, Trixter, Liquid Velcro!, Grimlock, Billy, Skyjammer, Ben Yee, Cederick, Rosmarie, Robotech Master, Megatron33 and probally a few others who I can"t remember right now.