Over the three years I've been to Botcon, I've enjoyed it more and more each year. This is not because the convention itself has gotten any better; as a general admission attendee, I don't really think I can comment on the con itself as a whole, since my experience only includes the dealer room and the occasional panel discussion. Rather, it's because each year I meet and get to hang out with people I've previously only known from Flickr, Twitter, blogs and the like. You have to understand that Botcon is kind of like SxSW that way - you don't go for the con itself, you go for the other folks who will be at the con.

But before I get into that, I want to talk about my experience with Botcon proper. At last year's Botcon, they went all out with the props. They had a giant statue of Optimus Prime in the middle of the dealer room, and they had the actual truck used in the film out for anyone to climb on. They also had the Sector 7 trailer with its interactive presentation sitting right next to the truck. So I was really excited about taking Veronica to the show, because I figured they wouldn't just trot that stuff out one time. But apparently, all of those props were indeed one-time things, because they didn't have anything like that at this year's Botcon. All they had for smaller kids was the toy pit, which was filled with giant Starscreams, and which really wasn't appropriate for a two-year-old. So I didn't go back on Sunday, when I had planned to take Veronica. Veronica did wear her Autobot Elite Guard to school today, though, so at least she got some use out of the shirt I made her.

Botcon itself (again, friends aside) wasn't much different for me this year, though it was better than last year, because I got so much more cool stuff. Like Lando Calrissian, I 'made a deal' and got much more than I expected. Unlike half of the jerks at the con, my deal didn't have anything to do with scalping Animated toys (200-300% markup for toys only available in the Cinci area). I'm pleased to report that (as far as I saw), the two biggest dealers, TFSource and BigBadToyStore, didn't take part in that bullshit. Also, I didn't get pulled out of line from getting into the panel discussions due to my lack of a badge, but that's because we sat through half of the TF Club panel before the Hasbro panel, and they didn't empty out the room.

As for the Hasbro panel, let's just say that I may be selling plasma while I'm in law school to buy Transformers, and leave it at that. No, let's not. They revealed a few more Animated figures, a few more Universe figures, and some figures from the 25th Anniversary line, including a gorgeous redesigned Cyclonus. After the panel, they put a few of those figures out in the cases, along with the figures that have already been revealed:

So let's see, what all did I end up getting at Botcon?

• Music Label Convoy - colored version
• Japanese Classics Convoy
• Revoltech Hot Rod
• Revoltech Starscream
• Dinorobots Bombadier (Swoop)
• Dinorobots Jungle Warrior (Sludge)
• Dinorobots Desert Warrior (Snarl)
• Transformers Visualworks book
• Encore Sky Linx
• Robotmasters Lio Convoy
• Optimus Prime print by Dan Khanna
• Botcon T-Shirt
• Shattered Glass comic

And then, on our post-dealer-room-closure, pre-drinking toy run in the Florence, KY area, I picked up:

• Animated Deluxe Optimus Prime
• Animated Prowl
• Animated Lockdown
• Animated Voyager Megatron

So it was a great trip for the collector. The TF Animated-shaped hole in my soul has been filled now. Funny how it's been almost instantly replaced by a TF Universe-shaped hole.

So, on to the best thing about Botcon, which was meeting up with, hanging out with, and making new friends. Omar and Ben (my compatriots from About Heroes) joined me for the drive up to Cinci, which made the drive and the hour wait in the GA line a lot of fun. Once we got into the dealer room, we met up with Giga and Nala (who were a bit worse for wear after the previous night's drunken fun we missed out on), as well as RamenJunkie and Puppylove, and other people who actually have real names. After the Hasbro panel, a bunch of us went to lunch at the slowest food court east of the Mississippi, then back up to the dealer room for another go-round.

After the dealer room closed, Giga, RamenJunkie and J. (perhaps Jay?) from Cinci joined Omar, Ben and me for a Cincinnati toy run, trying to find TF Animated figures. We headed up to the Western Hills area, and finally found two Bulkhead figures at Toys R Us, but that was it. We went back to the con, dropped off Giga and J, then headed south into Kentucky, where we had much more luck around the Florence area, finding basically everything but Bumblebee and Starscream. After a quick wings/beer dinner, we went back to Giga and Nala's hotel room and hung out for a while with more folks, some of whom I'd met before, and some of whom I hadn't. Since most of these folks don't seem to have web presence (except of course for Crazy Steve), I'm not going to mention them by name, but if you're reading this, know I had fun hanging out with you. (BTW - if anyone who I hung out with but didn't mention by name does have a web presence, put it in the comments!)

After hanging out in the room for a while, we made our way down to the hotel bar, which much drinking was done, though not as much as I'd have liked, since I had to drive home. After two hours of great fun and conversation, I steered Omar and Ben out of the bar and to the car, and we made our sleepy way home.

Unless the next Botcon is really close, I probably won't be able to attend, since I will have $0 spendable income thanks to my decision to go to law school. Career development comes at the cost of toy conventions, I guess. But if it is close, I hope to see everyone there again, and if it's not, maybe we can all meet somewhere in the middle during the off-season.

The rest of my Botcon '08 photos are on Flickr.

Tags: botcon transformers

Posted by Dan on April 30, 2008 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)