Botcon 2015 - Chicago June 18-21

[griffin]

At least they gave us early warning today, so people don't have to wait all day (or all night over here) to hear that it won't be starting today.


Now I'm off to see the fan rage on other fansites before I go to bed...

[fatbot]

The final guest ...



Now if they would open registration, we'd be laughing

[griffin]

That's disappointing.
He's been a guest before and is already in the Hall of Fame... so why the need to keep him secret for so long. It's not like he's much of a talker to be able to do/say much at the convention, nor does he have a huge following as he is more of a hardcore-fan guest (he was a novelty to hear about his stories, but didn't have a huge audience).

[griffin]

That's disappointing.
He's been a guest before and is already in the Hall of Fame... so why the need to keep him secret for so long. It's not like he's much of a talker to be able to do/say much at the convention, nor does he have a huge following as he is more of a hardcore-fan guest (he was a novelty to hear about his stories, but didn't have a huge audience).

Apparently he hasn't been a guest at BotCon... but I'm sure he's been before.
Maybe he was just an attendee in the past then, or I'm thinking about the other Takara Designers who have been there (there have been a few).

Now I'm gonna have to go back through my BotCon reports to find out for sure which designers have been there before...

[griffin]

Instructional video for filling out this year's registration... which is good of them to have done, and suggests that it is ready to go.
(narrated by Brian)

For those planning to go, it is something to watch once or twice before they open up registration in a few days time.
It is also worth watching by those planning to get the non-attendee boxset, as that should be very similar.

ALSO - people planning to go, test out your log-in to the Club website and Store, as you don't want to be wasting time figuring it out when Registration opens up, as you need to log in to that first to get the member pricing.

[reillyd]

So is Memorial Day a public holiday (no business trading, therefore not available for registration that day) or do you think Monday (their time) it will go live?

[griffin]

They mentioned a long weekend, so I guess they aren't open Monday.
Keep an eye out though, but I don't think it will be started until Tuesday (Wednesday morning our time).

[TAAUBlaster]

I don't generally keep tabs on Botcon stuff, but is this normal behavior for their registration process? I mean it's only like 3 weeks away, and still they haven't opened up for registration yet.

[griffin]

I don't generally keep tabs on Botcon stuff, but is this normal behavior for their registration process? I mean it's only like 3 weeks away, and still they haven't opened up for registration yet.

It is getting normal for them, as each year is getting later and later ever since they set up this online version. The last two years have been terrible for the JoeCon, and this year it has affected BotCon as well.
They have all year to set up the order site, with generic items for all the things that don't change every year (it rarely changes)... items that they can then just re-title when the items are known at the time of the Brochure's release and open up the Registration.
It seems that they wait until they know what they are offering before they then update and test the system.

Before 2010 it was a fax in registration only, which was frustrating for different reasons (our different time-zone meant missing things that sold out fast like Custom Classes, if you had to go to the Post Office to fax in your form).
I think that they should have a back-up option of emailing and faxing in the old format forms, if they can't get the online system ready by a certain date before the convention (like 60 days). That way attendees (and dealers) can be reassured that they will be able to organise and plan properly with a minimum amount of time. Especially us long-distance attendees.

[griffin]

Looks like it might actually be today folks.

The FAQ says it should be today, and someone on TFW claims that they were told over the phone that it should be around 4pm Texas time (it's currently 2pm there)... and just a few minutes ago, a BotCon tweet was warning us that we really should watch the instructional video if we haven't already.

My credit card and phone are ready... but if it is anything like last year, the "soon" warning was still several hours before it started.