Sabretron 2004 review
OK... this is late... like 6 years late.
When I went to Sabretron 2004, I wrote a review for the now defunct TransFandom.com website. Found a copy in my computer and thought it would be nice to put it here just so people who went can remember the good times and people who did not go... to see what they missed out.
Thanx to Goktimus, Griffin and Dirge for making the event happen.
P.S. If this is in the wrong spot, please move. Thanx mods!!!
Sabretron 2004: Australia’s First Transformers Convention
Hi, I’m Gekisou. On Saturday, 6th of November, I attended my first Transformer convention. Happy, happy, joy, joy. Ahem.
Anyway, I left Canberra on the evening of the 5th of November. First, this was to ensure I did not have to wake up at 4 in the morning to take a coach 3 over hours to Sydney and second, this was to ensure that I would not be too late even if I got lost. And I was not very sure of the area of Sydney outside the city itself so yeah, I could get lost.
Late sleep and 2 drunk German chicks returning late to a shared room is not a good way to be energetic for a full day of Transformer Mayhem (disclaimer: hot German chicks not necessarily at a convention near you) but I woke up at 7am! A quick check-out and breakfast later, I was on my way to Ashfield Catholic & Community Club where the convention was being held.
Thank goodness the ticket lady at the train station was really helpful and sent me in the right direction to Ashfield. The ride was only 15 minutes and lo and behold, I was early! Heh, heh.
There was a small group gathered in front of the hall. Dirge was there, telling everyone that they would be starting soon and allowing pre-registrants to choose from the four exclusive repaints. They were the minibots Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Windcharger and Brawn, repainted into Australia’s own Autobot defense force, whom I have no idea what their name were suppose to be. Unfortunately, on the day itself, the Windcharger and Bumblebee repaints were not ready but I did get a nifty Cliffjumper repaint. The exclusive comic would arrive later in the day.
There was a display of Binaltech, e-Hobby exclusive repaints of G1 characters, Fire Grand Convoy superlinked with Black Rodimus Convoy and Superion and Bruticus Superlink combiners. These mostly belonged to Goktimus Prime although some of the Binaltechs belonged to Dirge. Everyone was just standing there staring at the stuff before we decided to move on to meet the dealers.
Keeping in mind that this was Australia’s first TF convention and was a non-profitable event, I knew that it would not have many dealers. There were 2 dealers. One had G1 stuff at reasonable prices and the other had Micron Densetsu, Energon, Micromaster re-releases and various other stuff on display. I took this moment to get the Six-liner re-releases and continued looking around. A third guy, Griffin from Brisbane, also one of the sponsors and had been to all the Botcons, had a video of Peter Cullen in this year’s Botcon as well as various comics. I managed to bag a TF: Universe issue 1 and I was a happy camper.
There was a TV in the middle of the room playing the forth episode of TF: Victory, courtesy of Goktimus. However, it was not long before the episodes were switched to G1 American eps. In between all this, Goktimus asked trivia questions and the few of us that were hardcore TF fans tried to answer them and get the prizes. Stuff like smallest TFs and the recently released Gashepon TFs were some of the prizes given out. In-between answering trivia and working on my drawing that I was planning to put out for the competition, I helped out at the front desk with Jack and other various guys. We compared buys and explained to either the walk-ins or the pre-registrants of what they could get and so forth.
I participated in the (as Goktimus put it) ‘BIG’ trivia competition. Me and three other guys pitted our TF knowledge to see who would get the top prize and the bottom prize (more on that later). As a kind of joke, Goktimus gave each of us a buzzer phrase to say when we wanted to answer the question. Mine was ‘Autobots! Transform and roll out!’. Made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. The others were, ‘I am Transformed’, ‘Wasssspinator has a headache in whole body’ (and with the Waspinator voice too) and ‘Wheelie! Noooooo!’. I won. Heh, beat everyone by 6 points. And my price was, a Micron Densetsu Hot Rod! Thank goodness I had only bought Hot Shot. The 4th place guy got an Animorph. (shudder)
With that over, next came the Throttlebot race. Players used Throttlebots to race with each other. It was the most hilarious event of the day as the Throttlebots did not seem to want to drive in a straight-line. In the end, the winner was Rollbar… I think.
I continued working on my art piece, while helping at the front desk and running in to answer mini-trivia questions. The mini-trivia questions were fun due to having to race with each other to find Dirge and give him the answers. I had missed out giving the answers by one foot way too many times but it was all good fun.
The second Throttlebot race was an obstacle race and the obstacles? The Stunticons and Runamuck and Runabout. I missed this race due to getting lunch but I heard it was pretty wicked.
The rest of the day, there was not much to do other than finishing up my piece and the mini-trivial competitions. MadMan was suppose to be on hand to show some stuff but their stock had not arrived at that point and all the representative could show was various Japanese TF eps with pretty so-so English subs.
Finally, voting for the art pieces and the results. The winner was a customized toy and second was Goktimus’ piece but it was disqualified. I got a measly vote while everyone else, except Gokitimus' piece that got no votes, got at least 3 votes. My piece must have sucked big time. Sigh.
From Dirge, 'I was actually quite surprised how few votes you received, for what it’s worth'
Everyone else got another issue of the exclusive comic. The last leg of the event was the throwing out of various prizes through trivial questions. I got an Ozformer ’03 comic, a DW Armada poster and two Macformers (I gave those away), Optimus and Demolisher. Another Canberran and myself decided to stop answering questions as we did not want the Macformers and we were hording all the answers, we had to let the others win. After all the prizes were given out and we were nearing 6pm, we decided to pack up and leave, a few others and myself helped pack and transfer the stuff to the cars and Dirge gave me a ride back to the city so I could take my coach back to Canberra.
Thanks to Griffin, Dirge and Goktimus. It was a great event, from fans for fans. I hope there will be one next year as well cos I’ll be there. No doubt about it.
- Gekisou
Reply With Quote
Back in those days I was Oggtimus Prime. Welcome to the Ozformers!
Originally Posted by roller
