10th anniversary today of the first FunPub BotCon

[griffin]

It's currently the 22nd of September right now in America (for another 8-ish hours), and on this day 10 years ago, the first BotCon by the current
organisers (Fun Publications) officially began.
As bad as FunPub may be to many fans, they've managed to survive 10 years and put on 11 BotCons so far.
(and this anniversary date has given me the motivation to process and complete my archive of the 2005 convention - so far I only have 2007
onwards done, and I never even typed up my notes for 2005 unlike previous BotCons)

This topic is for focusing on the Convention, not the organisers... so please only comment on the Convention in this topic.

For some fans the Convention itself is one that is still loved and looked forward to each year. While for others, we just focus on the Convention
while it is on and temporarily set aside any of the issues we might have from FunPub before the Convention.

This here is a little bit about BotCon 2005 from my perspective... to refresh some memories of anyone here who attended it, and to give those who
didn't a little look at what the very first FunPub BotCon was like.

2005 was my sixth BotCon Convention, and seventh Hasbro endorsed/official Transformers convention (the 2003 convention didn't
have the name BotCon)... and even though this one had some familiarity with it, there was a lot of changes to the structure and running of this
one, to fit FunPub's existing GIJoe model. That made it both interesting, and a little daunting at the same time. (change can be good, but
sometimes people don't like too much change)

It was held at the Embassy Suites (Hotel & Convention Centre), at Frisco, Texas (just north of Dallas), from September 22-25.
This first one by FunPub only had activities from Thursday to Sunday, but there was still an early-bird package pickup on the Wednesday night. The
Thursday activity was just a pre-Con tour, as there were no Custom Classes this year.
Ever since then we've had Wednesday activities, but the official Convention dates still don't include that first of the five days.

There was one other Australian attending this year (that I knew of), and I ended up sharing a room with him after meeting up the year before (at
BotCon 2004 in Pasadena).

(sorry about some of my photos being blurry... I had a cheap camera that year)
More photos, taken by FunPub, can be found here - http://www.botcon.com/botcon05index.cfm

The hotel & convention centre.


It was next to a baseball field, and within 10 minutes walk from a Target, Walmart & ToysRUs. There was also meant to be a Kaybee nearby, but it
might have just closed as I didn't end up finding it.


The interior of the hotel had a lot of open (wasted) space.


At least the Convention Centre was part of the hotel, so it was all inside (away from any heat or rain).


Thursday we got our first look at the large assortment of Convention toys and merchandise, which was something new for BotCon, as we were used
to quality over quantity in the past. Just like when you buy Retail toys, you bond more to one or two toys bought at once, than 15-20 bought at one time.


The box set and at-show toys was a bit of a mix and match of toys from different eras, but considering the short time-frame they had on this first
set, there are still some really good toys in the mix. With Ben Yee having a hand in most of it, there were a few good nods to existing characters in there.

Boxset - Deathsaurus, Buzzclaw, Dirge, Ironhide, Chromia, Ricochet, Fallback (800 boxed sets, 450 loose)
Attendee - Decepticon Flamewar
Large pair - Ratchet, Flare-up - (500)
Small pair - Virulent Clones (2-pack) - (800)(400 pairs)

(images here are from the BotCon website)


.

.

.

.

.


The Club Store on Thursday night.


The Dealer Room being set up on Thursday night.


MSTF was back, on Thursday night.