griffin's complete BotCon adventure write-up.

Well this certainly took longer than expected. The full report and photos that I promised as soon as I got back about 11 days ago, are all done. Going through all my photos and searching the net for ones I was missing or needed better copies of, resulted in having 257 photos to process, edit and use.
The result has been a very long-winded report, that may bore most of you, but just scrolling through all the photos should interest some of you. I put in as much info as I can, for my own future reflection. And maybe give some of you a greater feel of what BotCon is all about.

The main page can be found here:
http://www.otca.com.au/bc08/bc08intro.html

The index of pages, for those wanting to jump directly to a section:

Brisbane to Cincinnati (Monday and Tuesday).
Wednesday pre-convention tour and pre-registration.
Thursday pre-convention tour and pre-registration.
Friday to Sunday brief bits, and the return home on the Monday.

Transformers Convention panels and Dealer room (ignore if not a fan).
Dealer Room and Art Contest Display.
Hasbro toy Display.
IDW panel (Friday 10am and Saturday 4pm)
Transformers Animated Production Team panel (Friday 11am)
Voice Actors panel (Friday Noon and Saturday 11am)
Collector Club Magazine panel (Saturday Noon)
Hasbro Product panel (Saturday 1pm - 2 hours)
Collector Club panel (Saturday 3pm)
Saturday night Dinner.
Transformers Animated and Hasbro (Sunday 10am)
Hasbro Designers panel (Sunday 1pm)

Study hard, as there will be test on this next weekend... :p

Hope this has been worth the wait. Every year it takes ages to do up these reports completely, and each time I fool myself into thinking it won't take as long.

The photo with the pig faces is disturbing.

Thanks Griffin. :)

I hope you had as much fun at Botcon as we had! :D

Just added the dealer room page, and fixed up the Wednesday page.

Thanks for the wonderful reports! The Art Contest pieces were awesome! :)

Really like Hunt for Primal, Nova Prime, Movie Frenzy and the custom Potato heads.

Added the Saturday night page. Next up, the Hasbro product display.

i'm loving the dealer room and art contest pics too...
thanks griffin

Added the Hasbro product display page. Now the final page, the brief bits. Not brief enough though... :p

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Originally Posted by griffin

Added the Hasbro product display page. Now the final page, the brief bits. Not brief enough though... :p

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I like the 5 Autobot Bumper Battlers... Maybe I should have collected all 5 Autobot Cyberslammers from the movie... (6 if counting both 74 and 08 BB) :o

And the final page is up. The report is complete and online now. Let me know if any part of it doesn't come up, as I haven't gone and tested it all yet.

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Originally Posted by Kyle

The photo with the pig faces is disturbing.

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Reminds me of Fables comics... but this is a grim version though, guess the big bad wolf won, eeewww

I do so love the upcoming toy pics... couldnt make out though if Sideswipe gets a new head mold or just different paintjob. Also enjoyed the spoilers, most people avoid it, I really dont mind... wish the Arcee thingie doesnt reamain only in concept. Darn, didnt remeber putting in that question for Griffin to ask the panel, Why oh why, hasn't there been a legitimate car ( as in G1 version or near to it) version of Arcee when it can easily be done with todays toy technology at their disposal? Sigh, even Crasher gets a head of a true TF Icon with her new near-to the-original- figure, and shes not even a TF but a Gobot.... so little love for Arcee? Oh well better write it down for next year hehehe :p

The first burger photo in the brief bits page is also disturbing. :o
It is probably tasty though...? :p

And the last photo is so funny. :D

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Originally Posted by Kyle

The first burger photo in the brief bits page is also disturbing. :o

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*Throws up* That's one scary looking burger.

How do you consume that much? Those burgers and the drinks and then another meal at the Outback restaurant!

I'm surprised about how lacklustre the event seems. The poker room, the auction rooms. Just thought they'd be a bit more of a buzz. Anyways, the dealer room will be my favourite part next year.

It looks as though Pat Lee has been giving the Animated Illustrators drawing lessons :rolleyes: oh & I hope Beachcomber had a fun trip too! :D

So what exactly is the purpose of the blackjack tables?

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Originally Posted by liegeprime

I do so love the upcoming toy pics... couldnt make out though if Sideswipe gets a new head mold or just different paintjob. Also enjoyed the spoilers, most people avoid it, I really dont mind... wish the Arcee thingie doesnt reamain only in concept. Darn, didnt remeber putting in that question for Griffin to ask the panel, Why oh why, hasn't there been a legitimate car ( as in G1 version or near to it) version of Arcee when it can easily be done with todays toy technology at their disposal? Sigh, even Crasher gets a head of a true TF Icon with her new near-to the-original- figure, and shes not even a TF but a Gobot.... so little love for Arcee? Oh well better write it down for next year hehehe :p

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At least there will be one for the Animated series. The robot mode looked very Animated-ish, but the vehicle mode looked interesting. It resembled the gen1 car mode, but the front end looked a little too narrow though.

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Originally Posted by Kyle

The first burger photo in the brief bits page is also disturbing. :o
It is probably tasty though...? :p

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I ordered the largest thing I could find at Arbys the Sunday night, when everything else was closed. And even the Arbys was half-closed up, and didn't have some things I wanted to try.
The 'gimmick' of Arbys, as you may have noticed from that photo, is they used shaved meat on their main burger menu (instead of a meat patty). Admittedly, that one was their 'oversized' burger, with so much meat, you can't even see the bottom half of the bread. But bigger isn't necessarily tastier though, as it was a little boring.

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Originally Posted by STL

*Throws up* That's one scary looking burger.
How do you consume that much? Those burgers and the drinks and then another meal at the Outback restaurant!

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It wasn't intentional. Due to a busy schedule and Cincinnati being such a ghost town after hours, I had to cram in all that 'food sampling' into the last morning, instead of throughout the week as I would have intended.

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I'm surprised about how lacklustre the event seems. The poker room, the auction rooms. Just thought they'd be a bit more of a buzz. Anyways, the dealer room will be my favourite part next year.

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It wasn't that lack-luster. You have probably a couple of thousand fans of Transformers, converging on the one location for one weekend a year. It can get exciting, but now that I think about it, it did feel a little more subdued this year. I guess we are all just getting older, and we just don't get as worked up as we used to... :(

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Originally Posted by Burn

So what exactly is the purpose of the blackjack tables?

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Everyone starts off with a $25,000 chips token, which you can use on any of the casino tables. You can also buy more with the 'lucky dip' balloons. Then at the end of the night, the value of your chips is then used at the auction. So no matter how much you might want something from the auction, if you don't have enough winnings, you can't bid on or win it. You can't use your own money in the auctions, only the casino winnings.
I guess it means, to get the good TFs stuff, you gotta be willing to embrace gambling, and be good at it.

But do you pay for the first 25,000 (obviously not that much) or do they just give it to you?

Basically, when it comes to the gambling and subsequent auction, does it cost you anything to participate? Or is it more of a "let's work out who the best gamblers are and then give away free auctions" kind of thing?

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Originally Posted by Burn

But do you pay for the first 25,000 (obviously not that much) or do they just give it to you?

Basically, when it comes to the gambling and subsequent auction, does it cost you anything to participate? Or is it more of a "let's work out who the best gamblers are and then give away free auctions" kind of thing?

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Yeah, it does sorta come down to that, but since you can buy as many of the $20 lucky dip balloons as they have available (they didn't sell out of them), you could potentially obtain a huge 'bidding value' without having to gamble at all.

And the $25,000 token was in the pre-registration pack, along with the program guide, survey form, toys, etc.

How come no1 at Botcon took pictures of the Hasbro Presentation.
I think the presentation included toy pictures not shown on displays

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Originally Posted by griffin

Yeah, it does sorta come down to that, but since you can buy as many of the $20 lucky dip balloons as they have available (they didn't sell out of them), you could potentially obtain a huge 'bidding value' without having to gamble at all.

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Interesting concept.

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Originally Posted by autobreadticon

How come no1 at Botcon took pictures of the Hasbro Presentation.
I think the presentation included toy pictures not shown on displays

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Grif can correct me if i'm wrong but i'm fairly certain cameras aren't allowed in for the Hasbro presentation.

Cheers for that, I look forward to the read every year

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Originally Posted by griffin

It wasn't intentional. Due to a busy schedule and Cincinnati being such a ghost town after hours, I had to cram in all that 'food sampling' into the last morning, instead of throughout the week as I would have intended.

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I look forward to following you around next year. I'm a massive burger and chips myself. Though I fear I have much to learn. :p

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It wasn't that lack-luster. You have probably a couple of thousand fans of Transformers, converging on the one location for one weekend a year. It can get exciting, but now that I think about it, it did feel a little more subdued this year. I guess we are all just getting older, and we just don't get as worked up as we used to... :(

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Don't worry, noobs like myself and first-timers like Paulbot will breathe some life back into this. :D

Burn is correct - no photos were allowed at the Hasbro presentation, which is another incentive to go to BotCon. To see stuff months before everyone else.

I look forward to completing your training my young apprentice, STL :p

I'm happy to see that other people are interested in the write-up, even with all the excessively thorough details that are really just there for my own records (helps me remember the event in the future).
One of these days I'm gonna get around to finishing off the 2004 and 2005 reports. They're the only ones I never got around to doing. I have all the photos and notes, but they've just never been put together in this full report format.

Please keep the details. They're very enjoyable to read. :)