Australian Transformers Convention

[Seraphim Prime]

As Gok mentioned, for some reason this sort of Con hasn't really worked in Australia in the past. I am not sure if it's due to population as cons in other countries with comparable populace and lack of Hasbro support have worked really well and have become yearly events.

I think it has to do with how impossibly expensive it is to do anything of the sort in this country and a 'Geek culture' not being as pronounced in the population.

I think it also has a lot to do with the size of our country in addition to our population. Smaller fanbase, with wider distribution around the country, means that it's harder to reach any kind of threshold value to make a convention viable.

Plus, when Gok has looked into it, there's a very high fee that Hasbro Aus. charges for something to be given "Official" status, and thus get their support in bringing over voice actors/designers.

[kup]

I think it also has a lot to do with the size of our country in addition to our population. Smaller fanbase, with wider distribution around the country, means that it's harder to reach any kind of threshold value to make a convention viable.

Plus, when Gok has looked into it, there's a very high fee that Hasbro Aus. charges for something to be given "Official" status, and thus get their support in bringing over voice actors/designers.

I am not convinced with this having to do with population numbers. Other countries with similar populace have succeeded in doing high profile conventions with them becoming yearly events.

I will however agree with the smaller fanbase argument. Australia does not have much of a prominent 'geek' culture to sustain such an event.

[Seraphim Prime]

I am not convinced with this having to do with population numbers. Other countries with similar populace have succeeded in doing high profile conventions with them becoming yearly events.

Yes, but their population is much closer together, and so travelling to the convention/gathering is no problem, which is what I was trying to indicate. Auto Assembly I suppose would be case in point - similar population, much smaller distance to travel means investing in going is not as difficult as it is for Australian fans. Just think of how much trouble our Northern/Western NSW brethren go to to get to the Parra fair.

[GoktimusPrime]

Yeah, population distribution is also a key factor. Most of our main population centres are scattered far and wide across the coast line

[jena]

There are plenty of other conventions around the country that are a success. The Hub have 8 coming up this year, for things like Glee, True Blood, Supernatural... Surely Transformers deserves an aussie con.

[kup]

There are plenty of other conventions around the country that are a success. The Hub have 8 coming up this year, for things like Glee, True Blood, Supernatural... Surely Transformers deserves an aussie con.

Yeah things like that is what makes me think that it's not so much about population numbers or distribution just a bit of a lacking in 'Sci-Fi/Toy collecting' geek demographic within the populace.

[GoktimusPrime]

Yeah but as I mentioned before, previous attempts have not been financially viable. Previous conventions have been privately funded by fans (principally griffin) and it's just not reasonable to expect any individual fan to fund another one when they have proven to be financially unviable (unless you know, you're made out of money...)

Those other conventions you mentioned... are they officially sanctioned by the Hub? Because official support makes a world of difference. If Hasbro Australia decided to get behind the idea of an Australian convention, then it might be possible to do another one. But without the support of Hasbro or some really rich sponsor who's willing to take such a massive risk, I don't see it happening. SilverfromOz said he was going to try and get Hasbro AU on side, but I haven't heard from him in ages.

And in my personal experience with Hasbro AU, they're not exactly... 'eager' to help us either. They're entire attitude was like they're only geared to deal with retailers and seem to be ill-prepared and/or willing to deal with fans. For example:

+ When discussing the possibility of making an exclusive toy, I was told that we would need to order a minimum production run of one thousand units. At the time we were thinking about maybe using a Spychanger mould, even at $1 a figure, that's $1000 that someone would have to shell out of their pocket! And considering that we only had less than 200 attendees at Sabretron, we would have ended up with over 800 leftover toys. I then contact Takara who showed more enthusiasm, but informed me that because Australia is a Hasbro market, they can only assist me if Hasbro says so (I learned that day that Takara and Hasbro are contractually bound not to "contaminate" or "interfere" with each other's market without going through each other - e.g. Hasbro Australia would have had to obtain permission from Takara to sell things like MP Ultra Magnus, MP4 Convoy, Jetwing Optimus Prime etc. in Australian retail stores).

+ I attempted to get Hasbro to sanction the exclusive comic for Sabretron; I was told that I would need to pay a licensing fee of $10,000. This is obviously the kind of licensing fee they charge to actual publishing companies... they knew that I was just a lone individual fan who's already self-funding the production of the exclusive comic -- all I wanted to do was to acquire the legal right to say that the comic was a licensed product. But I would have to pay $10k for that privilege.

...so on top of the costs of venue hire, promotion, comic book production, toy production etc., I would have had to pay an additional $10,000 just for licensing! And probably even more to licence the name of the convention, toys, blah blah blah. Well, if you can find someone who can afford all that (and are prepared to make a loss), then by all means go ahead and run it.

At the end of the day, if you guys think a Transformers convention is viable, then by all means go ahead and organise one. I've already tried and well, I'm not gonna do it again... but maybe you guys have better event organising skills than me. But I'm personally proud of Sabretron 2004 and everyone who was involved in that... it will remain Australia's first Transformers convention and it also commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Transformers franchise. But you know, during the whole time I copped a lot of flak from people who told me the convention was a stupid idea and would never work -- someone people even publicly came out and said that were going to intentionally boycott the convention because they thought it was such a dumb idea. Yeah, I'm serious.

[jena]

All I know about The Hub is that they're a group of fans who work creating conventions here in aus. I've been to their cons before and it's certainly run by fans for fans. They've had to cancel cons in the past due to lack of interest. I'm just thinking it might be worthwhile contacting them to see if they're interested in putting together a con for transformers fans. They obviously have the contacts that could make it work. They're the ones behind the Oz Comic Con as well.

[Prowl]

someone people even publicly came out and said that were going to intentionally boycott the convention because they thought it was such a dumb idea. Yeah, I'm serious.

That is just sad to me. Sad & petty.

I think the only way a convention of sorts would work out here is if it was a combined one. Think a 80's nostalgia convention with M.A.S.K, GI Joe, Transformers, Star Wars, My little Pony, Cabbage patch kids, Voltron etc. It could be profitable just for those wanting to relive their childhood. I am sure something like that turn a profit/break even but it would require a lot of joint work with other fan communities.

Then again I am not up on conventions & there is probably one like this already that happens yearly.

[Gouki]

I don't want to get in trouble as trying to pimp things out, because I just want to shine a little attention on it, but I'm currently in the process of organising a pop-culture convention for May next year next year called Ratime (Ballarat + Anime). You can check out the website here, or the Facebook page here, it's still planning and what not at the moment; But I want a big Transformers presence (due to them being in pretty much every single facet of pop-culture) and I'm sure the more fans we have the more selfishly I can make it bigger.:P