Botcon 2012 non-attendee/Iacon Registration open again

[kristofferrer]

Hi All,
botcon registration is open again for 2012. Register your iacon package:

http://www.botcon.com/BotCon2012/

[griffin]

For anyone else going... the Monday before the Convention, Hasbro will be giving away (http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/texas-rangers-prepare-for-the-invasion-with-bot-shot-promotion/24536/) 10,000 BotShot toys at the Texas Rangers Baseball game!!!
That's a lot of free toys... it makes you wonder why they can't give away a thousand-odd free toys at BotCon like they did in 2002 (each dinner attendee got a goodie bag with an Armada Deluxe and a Minicon 3-pack). It'd make the attendance of the show more of an incentive, than just dropping by to pick up the Boxset and at-show toys and going home to sell it on ebay.
It's exciting too, having that lucky-dip, surprise element to the event. Even those who got the suckier Deluxe toys were not upset, because they were all new, and free, and exciting.

(I was one who got the suckier Deluxe - Cyclonus - but didn't care, as it was awesome just getting the new-release figure)

[griffin]

The post above was a bit off topic now that I've change the title to emphasise the non-attending/Iacon registrations.... however, after speaking to "Mrs FunPub" about the limited local promoting they seem to do for BotCons (based on my own interactions with the locals each year - talking about where I'm from, and why I'm in America that week), she said that Hasbro does the promotions because they won't allow 3rd parties (like FunPub) risk damaging the brand if they don't do it right.
The Baseball game promotion was apparently Hasbro run or approved, but the toys were paid for by FunPub - which would be at least $20,000, one-off promotional expense. With very little other "demographically targeted" promotions, it's no wonder the turnout felt smaller this year. So while Hasbro keeps their hands tied when it comes to public promotions, and the convention itself being too small to bring any real return of investment by Hasbro (it's basically preaching to the choir - as the majority of people there will already be fans or collectors, who follow online any new product anyway, and are mostly just buying old/classic items at the convention), I don't imagine Hasbro would be seeing the value of spending too much to promote BotCon.
Since Mrs FunPub also said that they rely on people finding out about the convention online (saying that if they were a significant enough fan to want to attend a convention, they'd know about the website), I made a couple of suggestions to actually get into the faces of potential attendees, instead of hoping that someday, somehow, they'd stumble across the BotCon website... something that might seem plausible as more people are online these days, but as the internet gets bigger and people are more involved in an online life, those individual, low priority/traffic sites and concepts get lost amongst all the different things those people are surfing/browsing. The things I suggested were simple, real-world promotions, that targeted their demographics, instead of hoping for them to know about the upcoming toy convention, and remember to attend it. Strategic and localised, without requiring much cost on their part, or requiring Hasbro involvement or approval. After all, as much fun as it might be to just sit back and complain about stuff, if you don't offer possible solutions, you're just part of the problem.


Anyway, to be back on topic...
The non-attendee sets are now being shipped (http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/botcon-2012-iacon-package-boxsets-have-started-to-ship/24758/), so if you ordered one, expect a shipping email, and the boxset arriving within a couple weeks.