Originally Posted by Cheers Ian
Honestly, I wasn't trying to be tough on Botcon, but I've been to DOZENS of conventions, and Botcon being the big daddy of them all, I was a little disappointed in the overall convention. And that opinion has NOTHING to do with my personal affiliation with TFcon. Don't get me wrong, I had a FANTASTIC time, but that was mostly due to being in California and spending time with 4 of my good friends that I don't get to see that often.
It's hard to give this year's Botcon a good grade, when 2 years ago you had both Steven Speilberg and Michael Bay show up - even if it was only for a short part at least you got to sit in an Audience with those two present. Plus the addition of many G1 voice actors and almost the entire Prime cast, that's a pretty big deal.
This year, we had Glenn Moreshower and the guy that played Tommy Kennedy. Who in my opinion, almost seem like joke guests "Hey, check it out - We got that guy from all 3 Transformers movies, Look the kid who talked to that big Powermaster Prime in little seen segments of G1"
And really, I saw very very small children at this convention - Most of the attendees were grown adult collectors, I'm not sure who the entire cast of "Rescue Bots" was supposed to appeal to.
And while the dealer room was large, the selection of dealers was just O.K. like we said, there were very few unique dealers - Say if the primary reason I was traveling was to purchase Transformers, I would have very disappointed, it's a long and fairly expensive trip to come, I would have done just as well with a closer convention like TFcon or Steel City Con.
Also, I thought the exclusives this year were pretty weak. If like me, you aren't a fan of Machine Wars or G2 there wasn't really much for you, and these aren't cheap figures either most Botcon figures will run you about $40-50 each on average.
Plus keep in mind, how much are you spending to go to something like this for a Canadian
Flight - approx $600
Hotel - approx $200-300 (if you are splitting a room with people, could be more if you stayed on your own, like 400-500)
Food - approx $150-200 for the weekend (more if you like to drink)
Admission - $375 if you get a Primus package
Exclusives - Easily another $200-400 depending on what you want to get
Plus other expenses like Transportation and if you want WiFi or do any of the Botcon Tours or what do see the city...
So already we're looking at $1500-2000 and we haven't even included dealer room spending money or other spending money if you go out in the city.
For that kind of investment, I'd really want my socks to be knocked off, and this year - they weren't.
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