Canadian Transformers News and Discussion Forum

[zackmak]

I also noticed the dealer room was 'light' with the number of vendors. Especially since the other room used the previous few years (the room tucked away by the coffee shop in the hotel) was not used for vendors anymore. It was a children's room, from what I was told. Probably a better idea since I heard nothing but complaints from dealers saying they weren't getting a lot of attendee traffic.

The previous TFcon weekends advertised the SATURDAY as the TFcon, and the SUNDAY as some sort of retro/80's con (eg. in 2014 the Sunday event was called 'Collectible Toy Expo', and in 2016 it was called Action Figure Expo). And even the guest's appearances were tailored to that schedule. Hence, that's why on the Sunday we saw some vendors leave and be replaced by new vendors that sold more of a variety of retro toys, OR, even have the same vendors switch up their product line with stuff that wasn't only TFs. Having attended both days for a number of years, I remember the differences. Mind you, it wasn't a lot. Maybe 20% of the tables...but that's probably being generous.

But at the end of the day, it was still HUGELY a Transformers convention - with the panels to match - so I never understood why the separate advertising. The other annual cons - 80's Toy Expo, or even the Action Figure Expo when in September - offer more of the variety.

This year, though, I don't recall the TFcon event advertising Sunday as something separate. It was TFcon all weekend, which to me is more accurate. Did the convention committee realize it's better to keep TFcon and the other cons separate, for a more true representation of what each is?

Personally, I originally thought the guest David Mendenhall was a pretty 'weak' selection, as he only voiced 'Daniel' in the Transformers series. A human; not a main character = meh!

But I was very surprised when I visited his IMDB. He's been in SO many cartoons. And, he stared in a Stallone favourite movie of mine: 'Over The Top'! Super nice guy in talking to him, as well. So, I bought his autograph. I don't think many attendees knew what else he was in. He was only advertised on cybertron.ca/tfcon.ca as the voice of Daniel, and his table only had Daniel 8x10's and the one 'Over The Top' photo. Personally, I think there should have been a 'nudge' during the lead-up advertising banners and news postings we see online, to list a variety of what the actor had done, with a link to his IMDB. I'm sure it would have created more traffic at Mendenhall's signing booth if more people were informed of his accomplishments, especially since so many of the attendees were children of the 80's/90s. It was BECAUSE he did so many other things, that it made it more interesting (for me) to get his autograph.

Overall, the weekend was not bad. The positives of free parking, great location, water stations, door prizes and good size panel rooms are always welcomed.

On the negative side, the entrance costs were expensive, the doors opening at 10am on Sunday while having a panel at 10am also was disappointing, the red bags given with your entry fee had nothing in them. No comic, no razor (like last year), not even a schedule. Granted, it's hard to please everyone with free swag, but maybe a table where the attendees can pick one item out of five to take, is an idea.

Thanks to all for planning and volunteering! Us in the Transformers community thank you!