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Thread: Australian Transformers Convention

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by kup View Post
    I am not convinced with this having to do with population numbers. Other countries with similar populace have succeeded in doing high profile conventions with them becoming yearly events.
    Yes, but their population is much closer together, and so travelling to the convention/gathering is no problem, which is what I was trying to indicate. Auto Assembly I suppose would be case in point - similar population, much smaller distance to travel means investing in going is not as difficult as it is for Australian fans. Just think of how much trouble our Northern/Western NSW brethren go to to get to the Parra fair.

  2. #12
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    Yeah, population distribution is also a key factor. Most of our main population centres are scattered far and wide across the coast line

  3. #13
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    There are plenty of other conventions around the country that are a success. The Hub have 8 coming up this year, for things like Glee, True Blood, Supernatural... Surely Transformers deserves an aussie con.

  4. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by jena View Post
    There are plenty of other conventions around the country that are a success. The Hub have 8 coming up this year, for things like Glee, True Blood, Supernatural... Surely Transformers deserves an aussie con.
    Yeah things like that is what makes me think that it's not so much about population numbers or distribution just a bit of a lacking in 'Sci-Fi/Toy collecting' geek demographic within the populace.

  5. #15
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    Yeah but as I mentioned before, previous attempts have not been financially viable. Previous conventions have been privately funded by fans (principally griffin) and it's just not reasonable to expect any individual fan to fund another one when they have proven to be financially unviable (unless you know, you're made out of money...)

    Those other conventions you mentioned... are they officially sanctioned by the Hub? Because official support makes a world of difference. If Hasbro Australia decided to get behind the idea of an Australian convention, then it might be possible to do another one. But without the support of Hasbro or some really rich sponsor who's willing to take such a massive risk, I don't see it happening. SilverfromOz said he was going to try and get Hasbro AU on side, but I haven't heard from him in ages.

    And in my personal experience with Hasbro AU, they're not exactly... 'eager' to help us either. They're entire attitude was like they're only geared to deal with retailers and seem to be ill-prepared and/or willing to deal with fans. For example:

    + When discussing the possibility of making an exclusive toy, I was told that we would need to order a minimum production run of one thousand units. At the time we were thinking about maybe using a Spychanger mould, even at $1 a figure, that's $1000 that someone would have to shell out of their pocket! And considering that we only had less than 200 attendees at Sabretron, we would have ended up with over 800 leftover toys. I then contact Takara who showed more enthusiasm, but informed me that because Australia is a Hasbro market, they can only assist me if Hasbro says so (I learned that day that Takara and Hasbro are contractually bound not to "contaminate" or "interfere" with each other's market without going through each other - e.g. Hasbro Australia would have had to obtain permission from Takara to sell things like MP Ultra Magnus, MP4 Convoy, Jetwing Optimus Prime etc. in Australian retail stores).

    + I attempted to get Hasbro to sanction the exclusive comic for Sabretron; I was told that I would need to pay a licensing fee of $10,000. This is obviously the kind of licensing fee they charge to actual publishing companies... they knew that I was just a lone individual fan who's already self-funding the production of the exclusive comic -- all I wanted to do was to acquire the legal right to say that the comic was a licensed product. But I would have to pay $10k for that privilege.

    ...so on top of the costs of venue hire, promotion, comic book production, toy production etc., I would have had to pay an additional $10,000 just for licensing! And probably even more to licence the name of the convention, toys, blah blah blah. Well, if you can find someone who can afford all that (and are prepared to make a loss), then by all means go ahead and run it.

    At the end of the day, if you guys think a Transformers convention is viable, then by all means go ahead and organise one. I've already tried and well, I'm not gonna do it again... but maybe you guys have better event organising skills than me. But I'm personally proud of Sabretron 2004 and everyone who was involved in that... it will remain Australia's first Transformers convention and it also commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Transformers franchise. But you know, during the whole time I copped a lot of flak from people who told me the convention was a stupid idea and would never work -- someone people even publicly came out and said that were going to intentionally boycott the convention because they thought it was such a dumb idea. Yeah, I'm serious.

  6. #16
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    All I know about The Hub is that they're a group of fans who work creating conventions here in aus. I've been to their cons before and it's certainly run by fans for fans. They've had to cancel cons in the past due to lack of interest. I'm just thinking it might be worthwhile contacting them to see if they're interested in putting together a con for transformers fans. They obviously have the contacts that could make it work. They're the ones behind the Oz Comic Con as well.

  7. #17
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    If anyone is confused, this is not the "HUB" as in the cable tv channel, this is "the Hub" convention group in australia.

    I'm not sure if much of what they do is officially sanctioned by the properties they tend to represent.
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  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by UltraMarginal View Post
    If anyone is confused, this is not the "HUB" as in the cable tv channel, this is "the Hub" convention group in australia.

    I'm not sure if much of what they do is officially sanctioned by the properties they tend to represent.
    I am sure that a lot of successful TF cons around the world are not sanctioned either.

  9. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by UltraMarginal View Post
    If anyone is confused, this is not the "HUB" as in the cable tv channel, this is "the Hub" convention group in australia.

    I'm not sure if much of what they do is officially sanctioned by the properties they tend to represent.
    Thank you... I was one of the confused ones
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  10. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by kup View Post
    I am sure that a lot of successful TF cons around the world are not sanctioned either.
    I absolutely agree, I was pointing out that they are probably saving a fortune by not paying many royalties. if any
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