BOTCON REGISTRATION IS LIVE!!!!!

[Paul Agnew]

ended up getting the Wednesday one

Looking forward to seeing you there, Griffin.

[griffin]

Looks like the perceived drop in hype and support of the official convention (going over to fan-run conventions that have locations and details out a year in advance) is definitely taking its toll. Last year they were just short on selling out of their boxsets (1500-ish - with a portion going to non-attendees), and this year the registrations appear to be even more sluggish.
They tweeted several hours after opening up registration to say that they've only sold 25% of their boxsets. Usually by the end of the first day they are 50-80% sold.
And they mentioned that the Wednesday Custom Class is not yet sold out either, which surprises me, as Wednesday always sells out so fast, it is usually listed as sold-out before they even make the official announcements. I wonder if it means that the Wednesday tour is more popular than the Thursday tour.

If they want to get more excitement in BotCon from the dedicated fans, just to sell about a thousand boxsets, they need to get more than one Transformers Fan on the Organising Team. A convention run by fans of a different fandom will keep missing the mark, and now their honeymoon period is over (riding on the success of the BotCon brand before they got it).
Either that, or they need to hand in their "official" license, so that their hands aren't tied by Hasbro needing to approve everything... which takes months for a low-priority element (to Hasbro).

[Doubledealer]

Looking forward to seeing you there, Griffin.

See you both at the Wednesday custom class!

[gekisou]

I did my registration early in the morning so I got to everything before they sold out. However, since I can't make the classes anyway (don't ask), I got the assembled unpainted fig instead.

[BigTransformerTrev]

Sigh, maybe someday I'll see all you guys there... someday

[griffin]

18 & 1/2 hours after opening up registration, they've only sold 30% of the boxsets (which I includes non-attendees, and in previous years they had to wait a couple weeks before they could buy up non-attendee sets).

Also in the email they sent out a couple hours ago, there were still 2 seats left in the Thursday Custom Class. (might be gone now though)
(they also mention that there is only a few more hours to get the first-day pin... yeah, big deal)


Damn... it's gonna be a quieter convention this year if they can only get about 300 people (my estimate) to pre-register as attendees on the first day.
That's like with their club exclusive toys - the bulk of the sales are in the first day, and then very little interest after that, because their sales are by people who follow twitter, facebook and the global fan-sites, who know immediately when these things are available and purchase them that day.
I have a feeling that they will struggle to get past 50% this year... but it will be interesting to follow their updates over the next few days.

[UltraMarginal]

Perhaps they've become too greedy for their own good and have ordered a lot more sets than last year. Registration is probably a little down due to the last two years of debacles, but I'm surprised it's that much. Either way it should be fun.

[griffin]

After doing up a pre-order posting for at-show toys, I looked at the Loose set prices during Fun-Pub's time, and they've certainly been climbing.

2005 - 140
2006 - 129
2007 - 179
2008 - 189
2009 - 199
2010 - 210
2011 - 210
2012 - 250
2013 - 275

A doubling of prices makes it difficult to attract interest from other people with these, as I like to get the extra figures to help out people here. But at this year's pricing, it means an uncarded Deluxe is now $40 - not a huge increase from our Retail prices here considering it is a limited edition toy, but for Americans it is effectively triple their Retail pricing for a toy that doesn't even come carded or boxed. And that's IF a person doesn't try to make any money (profit) from the extra toys.
It is also worth noting that the loose set this year is $10 more than the Boxed set in the first two years, and close to the price in the third year, of which those prices also included the full convention experience.