Australian Transformers Convention

[swoop]

I've wanted an Australian transformers convention since I learned about botcon way back in 2000, but I honestly believe a convention or even a booth at one of the existing pop culture expos wouldn't work. For reasons already listen like price attendance ect a convention wouldn't work. As for expos there is to much competition between franchises and while transformers may be near and dear to our hearts I know that at the conventions a lot of people just walk past the transformers merchandise without giving it a second look. I've seen booths with almost the same stock they started out with on Saturday morning still there Sunday afternoon. For me this suggest that there just isn't enough general interest for a booth or convention.

However what does work is our fan meets. Whether its the parra fair meet that the Sydney guys are always posting there photos of, the Perth meets after their parra fair equivalent that name escapes me or the Melbourne Christmas meet. These things work people come because for the most part the meets are free.

Now what I think should be done is take the concept of a fan meet and build on it. Nothing over the top huge just hire a hall like cat suggested a few pages ago and make it all about the fans. The toys, comics, cartoons and movies. Take everything about the brand we love and fill a hall with it. Make it a day by the fans for the fans don't worry about asking hasbro for help or getting their permission because I really doubt we would get either.

We could have tvs playing the cartoon, toys on display various comics from every publisher that has worked on the brand available to read. That covers the basic selling points of the brand and would entertain us the fans.

We could do the transforming competition that's run at the Melbourne Xmas meet up every year as well as do a trivia competition and have door prizes. I'm sure other people can come up with games.

As for getting other people there we would have to advertise. Tv is probably out of the question it costs to much and as for newspapers well it might be a bit pricey to it would have to be checked out. I think the way to go would be online and fliers. Obviously we would start threads on the variouse transformers message boards and all other pop culture, gaming, film boards that people belong to. Also a Facebook page would get a bit of attention and isn't that how people find out about most things now. Fliers could be handed out at the various existing conventions and at the comic shops, pop culture shops and game stores. I think this would be the cheapest and most effective way of advertising. I'm pretty sure office works will print 3000 at around $120.

At the meet I think we would need to have about two tvs playing the cartoons. G1, beast wars, animated, prime and select episodes from rid and the unicron trilogy. And two tvs with war for cybertron and fall of cybertron (if it's released by then) available to play.

As for comics a selection of the original marvel run, dreamwaves war within and g1 stories. And idw current books and spotlights. I think that would be a good selection of what has come before and what's currently on offer.

As for toy displays I think just the characters that appear in the cartoons should be displayed. I wouldn't display all of beast wars when only 30 toys appear in the cartoon. Basically Anything that can be seen in the cartoon should be on display because they are the toys most newcomers to the brand will want to see.

I'd say that we could play all four movies at random times during the day but I don't know how legal it is.

I also think that there should be toys available for people to transform and have a play with, its one thing to look but its way more fun to transform and fiddle around with them.

So when people see and play transformers they are going to want to buy them so then were going to need to have dealers at this meet up so people can. There are people we can contact to see if they are interested in setting up a table there. for example ebay seller gus guns is from altona and he might be interested in selling there. Go figure collectable is starting to stock and sell more transformers they also might be interested. I could talk to the guys at my local comic shop and see if their boss might be interested in selling some of his transformer merchandise there. Also there is us we could set up a communal table and sell our doubles and unwanted figures.

As far as location goes the city is central but expensive and we wouldn't want people to have to travel to far beyond the city so basically anything that is a short tram ride outside the city for example brunswick should be fine as far as travel goes and hopefully cost.

To help raise awareness we could do surveys at existing conventions asking questions about what people would want in a transformers convention, how far they would be willing to travel, pay and what they would want in a future convention etc. this information could be used in planning any future conventions but we would also collect email addresses and when a date and venue is set for this we can email these people to help get word around.

We would need food and drinks as well. The boxes of cans are cheap and could be sold for $1 and it would help recoup costs. As for food I'd need suggestion on it.

The cost will be the biggest problem and as much as I'd like to front all the money for this I simply can't afford to. But I think if we as a community could raise the money for it. I'd like it to be held in Melbourne so I'd be hoping that the Melbourne members who like the idea would get behind this idea financially and just important by attending. Alot of work would have to be put in to get a final cost but I think it could be done for under $2500. That would cover the cost of hiring a hall, chairs, tables, food, drinks, advertising etc

I think it would be best to keep admission free but if the cost blows out we could ask for dollar coin donations but we'll wait and see.

Its all over the place but that's my suggestion on what it should be. I'm sure I forgot to include something but it was late last night and early today so that's my excuse. But the main point I wanted to get across and I see that I didn't now that I've quickly read over it again is that this is done by us for us and if we only get one extra person to come then it doesn't matter because the day is about what we love and it would still be fun